Let me start by saying that so far it appears the work done by Kola was very good. My issue is not with the quality of work performed, but with the customer relations side of the business.
To start with, I set an appointment for Kola to come by my house to look at my garage and give me an estimate. Day of the appointment he was a no show, and I was never called. The house he was coming to was new, and I had not yet moved in, so I had to travel to the new house to make the appointment. This took, overall, about 3 hours of my time. I waited about 45 minutes after the appointment time and began calling and leaving messages. Eventually I just left. Shortly after I left I get a call from Kola. I told him he had missed the appointment, and he said "No, the appointment is for Thursday." The only problem was that it WAS Thursday. He said he thought it was Wednesday, and began apologizing. He asked me to give him another chance and said he would "make it up to me."
I set up another appointment with him, which he actually showed up to. At the appointment we discussed having my garage floor epoxied and having cabinets and a workbench installed in the garage as well. Total amount of the estimate for all work was $4100. I asked about a discount and he looked puzzled. I reminded him of my wasted 3 hours and his promise to make it up to me and he said he could only give me a $50 discount on the $4100 worth of work, and it looked like it was killing him to do that. I gave him $1000 down as a pre-payment. During the appointment, I specifically asked him if I needed to clean my garage floor before he came, as I had some loose dirt and insulation on the floor. He told me no, as the floor would be cleaned by him anyway. This issue will come up later.
A few days later he sent me a message saying he forgot to add in the cost of the countertop for the workbench when he completed my estimate, and he wanted me to authorize another $200 to the total cost. At that point I told him I just wanted to cancel the whole thing and would like a refund of my pre-payment. He then called me, stating that the company he gets his cabinets from was charging him more than they had before. This was a different reasoning than what he told me earlier, where he just stated he forgot to add in the cost of the countertop. In reality, he didn't verify prices from his supplier before giving me the quote, and then wanted me to make up the difference when he realized his mistake. He then stated that he had decided to no longer work with that cabinet company, and would not be able to do the cabinet work for me. I decided to stay with him for the epoxy work as I needed to have it done soon since I would be moving equipment into the garage soon.
We set up a date for the epoxy work, but as the day approached I never heard from him, and I had no idea when he was supposed to arrive. I ended up calling him at almost 9 pm the day before to find out when he was supposed to arrive to start work the next day. The day of he arrived. I was moving things from my old house to the new, so I was there to make sure the garage was open to him, and told him to call or message me if he needed anything, as I would be back and forth between houses.
I arrived back at the new house around 1 pm to find Kola gone. The garage was open, and a large amount of heavy trash was left by my curb. Also, remember that part where I told you I asked him if I should clean the floor? Well, it appears that his version of cleaning it was to just sweep the dirt and insulation out into my driveway, because there was insulation all over my neighbors yard, and I had to spend about 20 minutes walking around and picking it up from his yard and the street. I also had to pick up and move the heavy trash he left to my trash can and take it back up to the house, as I live in an HOA neighborhood and we cannot leave trash out. I didn't know if Kola was through for the day or just at lunch, so I waited. After not hearing from him I called him. He told me he was through for the day, which would have been nice to know earlier. He could have messaged me to let me know. I also had to ask him, again, when he would be arriving the next day to finish the work, as it was a two day job. He told me between 8-9.
The next day I'm at the house at 8 am. He had not arrived at 9:45 so I call him. He said he told me he would arrive between 9-10, which he absolutely did not say that. He said between 8-9. Then on top of it he said he was running behind and wouldn't be there at 10 either.
He finally shows up and finishes the job, but he could tell I was upset. He stated he had been unprofessional, and had a lot of jobs with no other employees. He then gave me a discount of $100 more.
I messaged him one last time asking him for tips on keeping the floor clean and, unsurprisingly, he never replied. I would not use the company again due to being unorganized, unprofessional, not valuing my time, and not communicating. read more
