Jimmy Handyman Services installed an ADA ramp for a veteran in my home. Overall, the experience was so-so.
Let's start with the good. The owner, Jimmy, arrived on time to take measurements of my home's porch, front door, and walkway. I was pleased and impressed with his timeliness, professionalism, and knowledge. He scheduled the installation for roughly two weeks out. Reasonable, considering the time needed to prepare the materials for a customized fit. Five stars so far.
His workers arrived on time to perform the installation. Still five stars. Then, things started going downhill. One of the slats, the one which would span the threshold of the door and bridge the gap to the porch slat, was cut (by factory personnel) a bit too wide ... and would have had to be installed at an angle in order to fit the doorway OR it could have been cut to accommodate. Against my better judgment (in retrospect), I accepted the former, since the worker didn't inform me of the latter. When the veteran in my household returned home from the hospital a day later, he was displeased with the angular installation and wanted it fixed. So I texted photos of the installation to Jimmy. He thought it would be easy to fix, and kindly offered to have his workers come out to cut the slat and install it to align square with the threshold. To repeat, the owner was very accommodating.
When his workers returned, they were so upset ("pissed" is more like it) at me, you'd think I was the worst, most unreasonable customer on the planet. One worker was openly hostile ... and I don't say that lightly. I wasn't hostile or confrontational, let alone unreasonable or verbally abusive; in fact, I was very apologetic that they needed to return. Both workers complained about how this repair work screwed up their scheduled ramp installations in other locales and that I was responsible for ruining their operations. Well, I hate to tell them: if they had offered to trim to fit the doorway on their first trip, then all of this could have been avoided. I took their complaints without rubbing the imperfect installation in their faces.
The return visit was worthy of a one-star rating, or less. If they thought I was a horrible customer, they're incredibly naive and need to wake up and face the real world. Yes, some customers treat handymen personnel like sh*t and are outrageously demanding. I'm not one of them. A customer (me) requesting workers to fix an imperfect installation is totally reasonable and within his rights. Guys, this is called "customer service." On top of everything, I was very kind and apologetic for them having to return to fix the problem. I couldn't have been nicer, when I should have been really stern or worse.
To set a fair rating of this company, I averaged the five-star up-front service provided by the owner, the three-star quality of materials and installation on the workers' first trip, and the one-star (or lower rating) workers' attitude for their return trip.
To the owner -- you're a class act. Please encourage your workers to follow your lead and behave professionally when interacting with customers. Your company would have received a higher rating, had it not been for their unacceptable behavior. read more