Sales rep Corey came out to look at a problem we were having with our garage door frame, which had some dry rot issues. Seemed a nice enough fellow, at least initially; a bit youngish (millennial, I think is the term they use today). He was pleased I agreed to meet half an hour prior to what we originally scheduled, making it more convenient for him because he finished an Anderson appointment earlier than expected; in fact, he seemed downright thrilled (subliminally indicating, perhaps, how much effort he actually intended to devote to this call). We had a nice chat, I thought; he mentioned some of the dry rot may have spread to the post on which the garage door was attached. Nevertheless, it all seemed like "simple fixes" to him, and he might even have an estimate to me by the EOD.
By the end of that day, though, I hadn't heard from him. Nor the next day or the day after that. I finally emailed him asking what was up. He said that there was a problem with pricing-out the size of cedar needed for the job, and that he would follow-up with me by (you guessed it) the EOD. See the pattern here? I let another five or so days pass without hearing anything, meanwhile researching other contractors, and decided to email again. He wrote that he "just heard back from his manager that morning" (Really? What a coincidence!) and that they couldn't do anything while the garage door was still attached to the frame. (Uh...did we not already cover this at the initial meeting? And what's more, why on earth would this preclude sending an estimate--not an official work order, just a non-committal estimate for supposedly "easy fixes"--to me anyway?)
Just to make sure I called the garage door company and was told what I already knew, that they could come out and take care of the garage door on any day that prospective work was due to take place. I emailed Corey yet again assuring him of this, and have gotten nothing but radio silence ever since. (Again, "ghosting," I think they call it nowadays, in the way nouns are appropriated as verbs. He's ghosted me.)
Make of that what you will. Seasoned homeowners may very well have smelled a rat before I did, perhaps; and thankfully, judging from some of the reviews posted here (and obvious fake positives), I didn't sign up with them; I definitely dodged a bullet there. Query though: If this was too small a job for his company to take on, why not be honest and just tell me at the initial meeting? Even though our respective goals didn't match up for this particular job, I might still have kept his company in mind the next time either I, or someone I knew, needed a larger-scale repair done, like windows or roofing. Why string me along, hiding behind the anonymity of his smartphone and email, giving increasingly half-baked excuses, for nearly two weeks? I even allowed I might have deleted the estimate by mistake, and called their office just to make sure. The millennial who answered the phone said she would have Corey resend the estimate. Do you think he did?
What's scary is that, the more millennials take over the workforce, and the more semi-retired owners and figureheads are willing to hire them, I think this is the future of the industry: spineless avoidance tactics, low or non-existent work ethics, zero people/customer service skills, and rampant ADS (attention deficit syndrome). They're after the big-sell, and care not a whit for customer loyalty and good word-of-mouth as long as they get the big payoff they want. (Keeping up with the newest iPhone releases is not cheap, after all.)
Honesty and accountability go a long way in this business, probably because they're so rarely encountered. But I think the majority of people would prefer honesty to having their time wasted. So Cochran, some advice: You've undoubtedly heard (if not believed) that every contact you make in the field is a potential customer, if not this time, then maybe the next, so you generally want to send your BEST for initial contact of this sort. And if you deem the job not worth the effort, inform the customer of this. What have you to lose? And who knows, you might actually gain, in time, a reputation for dependability and integrity that it seems you currently lack. read more