So, this morning I’m watch the science channel when I see this ad for the National Home Improvement Registry â„¢ www.nhir.org An attractive woman starts off by saying “you know how contractors can be. . .†You hire them and they don’t show up or are not on time or they don’t finish the job or charge you too much… blah, blah, blah. The ad then goes on to show other attractive woman who say similar things but then how they used NHIR and all their problems were solved. . .
The ad goes on to further sing the praise of NHIR by other attractive woman, and how they use only the BEST contractors in your local area . . . Here is the excerpt from their web site:
All Participants in the Association Must Meet the Following Criteria<!—-><!—->
- Must be in business for at least 2 years<!—-> <!—->
- Must hire qualified professionals and offer employee benefits <!—-><!—->
- Are Licensed & Insured in your area. <!—-><!—->
- Must offer Extensive Product Line and Options for the Consumer <!—-><!—->
- Product and Labor Warranties must EXCEED Industry Standards <!—-><!—->
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- Rate in the top percentile for in-network performance. We rate and measure the performance of each contractor based on the following: <!—-><!—->
- Quality of Work<!—-><!—->
- Professionalism<!—-><!—->
- Price<!—-><!—->
- Reliability<!—-><!—->
So I realize early on that they are a referral service. . . Which I think, for lack of a better word, suck. They do nothing but field prospective clients, and gather leads and then sell them (I’m not too sure how they handle giving leads out to their members, but I’m sure they’re in it to make money) to the members in that clients area. So with this thought I check out the Terms & Conditions on the website. Low and behold they are responsible for nothing, basically . . . After you use them you are on your own. . . I’ve posted it for its entertainment value. . .
Terms and Conditions
This agreement describes the terms and conditions applicable to your use of National Home Improvement Registry (“NHIRâ€) services.
By accepting these terms, you confirm that you are 18 years of age or older, are capable of entering into a binding agreement, and that all information and requests will be completed accurately.
General Disclaimer
By using the NHIR service, you acknowledge that NHIR is not acting as your general contractor, agent, or advisor. It is your responsibility to select a home contractor and to negotiate the terms/fees for any work performed. You may want to consult with appropriate expert advisors to assist in your home improvements, including a lawyer regarding contracts, permits, and other necessary job documentation and an insurance professional regarding the contractor’s and your own insurance coverage requirements. NHIR does not recommend or endorse any specific service provider, provide advice on which service provider to select, or screen any individual service provider’s personal credit or legal standing.
We do not guarantee that we will be able to match your service needs with a service professional or that there are service professionals in your area that either are capable or willing to complete your service needs. Although we take certain steps to examine the credentials of our listed service professionals, we make no guarantees or representations regarding the application or installation skills of such service professional or the quality of the job that he or she may perform for you if you elect to retain their services. It is entirely up to you to enter into a direct contract or otherwise reach agreement with a service professional, and we do not guarantee or warrant their performance on the job or the outcome or quality of the services performed. Your rights under contracts you make with service professionals typically are governed by your state and local laws.
NHIR relies on electronic data provided by third parties and on statements made by service providers and their references to determine which service providers to include in our database. Due to the inherent time delay in the data gathering process, pending actions or other issues affecting a service provider’s record may have occurred which were not captured by the third party data sources used. NHIR does not guarantee that any service provider has licensing or insurance coverage at the time you enter into an agreement with the service provider and makes no representation as to the adequacy of any licensing or insurance coverage (including amount, breadth, or type). The existence of an insurance or licensing certificate does not guarantee that the insurance is in effect, as the service provider may cancel the insurance without NHIR’s knowledge. Unless otherwise specifically stated, NHIR does not endorse any product or service described in, offered on, or linked to NHIR’s websites.
Disclaimer of All Warranties
You understand that NHIR has no control over any Third Party services. NHIR and its suppliers make no warranty that the service or the Third Party services will meet your requirements or that use of the service or the Third Party services will be uninterrupted, timely, secure, or error-free; nor do NHIR or its suppliers make any warranty as to the results that may be obtained from use of the service or the Third Party services, or the accuracy or reliability of any information obtained through the service or the Third Party services, or that any defects in the service or the Third Party services will be corrected. NHIR and its suppliers disclaim all warranties of any kind, whether express, implied, or statutory, regarding the service or the Third Party services. Any material or data obtained through use of the service or Third Party services must be used at your own discretion and risk. Some states or jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of certain warranties. Therefore, nothing in this section should be construed as excluding or limiting any warranty beyond what is permissible under applicable law. NHIR does not guarantee the quality or fitness of any work performed by any service providers.
Limitations of NHIR’s Liability Release
NHIR and its suppliers will not be liable for damages of any nature arising from or relating to your use of the service or the Third Party services. You agree not to hold NHIR responsible for any damages or other liabilities arising from work performed by any contractor. Because NHIR is not and cannot be involved in your dealings with service providers or control whether or not service providers will complete any work as agreed, in the event that you have a dispute with one or more service providers, you release NHIR (and our agents and employees) from any and all claims, demands, and damages (actual and consequential) of every kind and nature, known and unknown, suspected and unsuspected, disclosed and undisclosed, arising out of or in any way connected with such disputes.
Miscellaneous
You agree that NHIR, it’s member contractors, and affiliated partners may use your contact information, including your email address to contact you regarding this project, and to provide you with related content including our monthly newsletter.
This document and the pages referred to herein represent the entire agreement governing your use of the service and supersede any prior or contemporaneous written or oral statements by NHIR or its representatives or resellers.
NHIR may from time to time without notice change, add, or remove certain features of our service or change the terms of this Agreement.<!—-><!—->
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Replies
I hereby truncate any and all relationship with the NHIR
;)
Welcome to the
Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime.
where ...
Excellence is its own reward!
Sounds like another "pay-per-lead" company (servicemagic, etc..)
I'd like to see a company that pre-screens clients for me!
Mike,
Hey, thats not a bad idea! Call it ContractorMagic and folks go and fill out the form online and they have to answer questions like how much they would expect to pay for an estimate.
If they check a dollar value that comes in below your prescribed values, it sends them an autoreply saying "OK, cheapass, you're going to have to do the job yourself". ;)
Mike
We've been fixing up an old house for the past four years, so I've been on the other side of this fence. We don't have an active referral service in our area because most subs and "handy" men apparently aren't keen on signing up - for whatever reason.People here gripe about giving free estimates and laugh at customer's who are unrealistic with costs. Well that works both ways. A couple of years ago I got four estimates for 2200 SF of concrete work (written spec list), and the bids ranged from $3500 to over $10K. Now the high bidder could have just told me they didn't want the job, but instead they tried to play games and roll the dice to see if I'd bite. Do I trust single bids anymore? No. Do I always take the low bid? No. Do I feel sorry for you guys who have to bid for my work? No.
TJK,
Yeah, but you have to appreciate the venue of actually going out and looking at a real job (yours) and the hundreds of quotes I used to be asked for via ServiceMagic over the Internet which are not likely anything more than "mouse clicking tire-kickers". Hence my sarcastic thread about "Contractor Magic".
One can only respond to so many "How much to build me a custom house?" emails?
Mike
1977 I got talked into a yellow pages ad.
All yellow pages callers first words were "How much-------------?"
Last yellow page ad.
Joe H
I should clarify that my post wasn’t to make any HO feel uncomfortable, but just to say that these types of services are just to make money. Now granted contractors want to make money too without the added kickback that these referral service require. The real thing being that these services bear none of the burden just the reward unlike the majority of contractors.http://www.josephfusco.org
Fair enough - the referral services are just middle men, so their vig is straight off of your bottom line. I was mainly reacting to other posts I've seen that imply quoting jobs somehow isn't worth the effort, or that customers should pay for quotes.
I cannot help myself. I do not know what you do as your profile has no info in it. My question to you is how many cost estimates have you prepared for remodel projects or for a new home? My guess is you have run some numbers for your own home remodel.
A detailed price for a significant remodel or home construction can take up to 40 to 80 hours to complete. After you do that five or ten times for free and have someone tell you " I not going to do the project after all" you begin to wonder how free the estimate was. You have just spent half a years worth of time bidding projects with no income to show for it. It is simply not free to the contractor.
For straightforward projects, free on the spot estimates are reasonable-not for a big project.
You may not agree with this, but fortunately 100% of my clients do.
The same question arises in terms of how many projects have you bid against other contractors? Again, I do not know what you do so I have no clue as to your experience. But the same hold true. If you are a quality contractor who provides top notch service-you will not and should not be the cheapest bid. As such it is unlikely you will win in competitive bid situations. In my experience I lose 100% of all the competitive bids I was involved in. So why bother?
I apologize if you take offense to contractors developing business strategies that don't give it all away, but you must realize that as a contractor, if one can maximize the probability of getting profitable work, that is the route one should pursue.
You are right, I don't remodel or build houses for a living. And I agree that detailed estimates for complex jobs take a lot of time and effort. But a successful business builds those marketing costs into its overhead and charges them across all of the paying jobs. Successful businesses find ways to standardize the work elements and automate bids so they don't have to reinvent the wheel each time a customer needs a quote.Everybody has to find a niche. For some it's stacking concrete blocks or digging ditches, and for others it's building custom hardwood cabinets for people with no budget. But no matter the type of work, they have to be able to convince the customer they know what they're doing, and they can deliver the work at some cost that makes sense for both parties.
Fortunately I have been able to eliminate bids as an overhead item and have been able to move it to a revenue source thus reducing overhead to those clients who I do work for so they do not have to unnecessarily pay for time spent/wasted on folks who do not utilize our services.
I should have refrained from bringing this up again. Luckily for both of us, we will probably never work together.
No doubt, it's a tough game for both sides.
If you're a homeowner who needs some work done, you don't want to get burned by someone giving you a super high price thinking maybe you're dumb, and you don't want the lowest price, since that might be a rookie who might screw things up.
If you're a contractor (like me), and you're looking for work, you can run an ad in the paper, which may never even yield one phone call, or you can run an ad in the yellow pages (that's if you have a few extra thousand dollars lying around doing nothing), or you can brave it and try one of these "pay-per-lead" companies if you don't mind losing $50.00 for someone who may or may not want a large project done (gee, thanks pal, I'm glad I was able to help you in deciding not to do this big project, you just cost me $50.00 for nothing!)
It takes money to make money, what can you do.........
All I can say is thank god for word of mouth referrals