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twodavetoday at 1:07 PM3 repliesview on HN

For some things I get this. Restaurants? Yes. But other things? Landscaping? Electricians? Plumbers? I’d much rather speak on the phone with someone who is going to come on my property and do work. I could care less if they have a website because that’s just marketing for them. I source almost 100% of these types of workers via referral from friends/family.


Replies

BeetleBtoday at 3:20 PM

> Yes. But other things? Landscaping? Electricians? Plumbers?

Plumbers and electricians: Maybe not. But lots of other house repairs stuff: Yes.

Things I want to see:

Geographical coverage area: Some are across town and are not willing to come to my property. Others are.

Services rendered: There job title may be very generic, but it often turns out they do only certain types of work.

Minimum fees: Some only do jobs that cost, say, $1000 or more. If my work is small, I shouldn't bother calling them.

> I’d much rather speak on the phone with someone who is going to come on my property and do work

I do so as well, but they rarely pick up the phone. You call them, leave a voicemail, and pray they'll call you back at a time you can pick up. About 50% of them never call back. So every time I need some repairs/work done on the house, I have to get 10 "leads", and call them, leave a voicemail, and a few days later repeat the process because they either didn't call back, or called and said they don't do that type of work.

If I can pre-filter those out based on basic stuff on their website, it'd be great.

dazctoday at 1:40 PM

I used to work in construction in a previous life and always said I could judge how good a tradesman is simply by their appearance. The same goes for their website. If they have pride in their work it will show; if they do just about enough to get paid it will also show.

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dec0dedab0detoday at 1:10 PM

I want the website so I can look up their phone number and license.