My wife and I are getting some not-insignificant plumbing work done, somewhere around $10k worth, and it’s pretty specialized, meaning not everyone does it. We asked for recommendations from friends and co-workers and no one had ever had the work done, so I went to Yelp and searched. There were, I think, 7 companies that did the work in the area.
That was the good part. The rest, not so much.
I put in estimate requests for the top 3 of the 7. One called almost immediately and agreed to come out on Memorial Day to give me an estimate. That was a bit surprising.
Another called me and said they no longer do that work. Fair enough. I put in a request for company #4 on the list.
Another company called and set up an appointment to come out on Tuesday at 5pm. The third (was the 4th, but you get the idea), asked for my phone number so they could call.
This is hardly the first time this has happened. 8 years ago when we had the roof replaced, we called a bunch of roofers for estimates and only one even bothered to show up. The others that I called, they all sounded bored. Luckily, it was the roofer that we had a personal recommendation for, but how can these companies stay in business if they’re just ignoring actual work?
I’ve asked around and this is pretty much the case everywhere. Keep in mind, these are the top-rated companies on Yelp. These aren’t some fly-by-night companies that are run irresponsibly, except they are. Obviously they are. So the two that never showed and never called, they got bad reviews on Yelp. Hopefully that will affect their ranking. Unfortunately, I don’t know that there are a lot of people that are better, because the one who made an appointment and didn’t show was the #1 rated, with the one we went with by default, it was #2.
If you want to know who to blame for businesses falling apart, it’s the companies who can’t keep their word and don’t even try. Somehow, I’m really not surprised by that, are you?