Checkatrade,Mybuilder, Myhammer ratedpeople etc etc.. Your views?

[Pete999]

Well if they do this bloke fell through a hole in the net.

 

[Dan]

I read the other day that when you sign up to Checkatrade they tell you to get your existing customers to leave you reviews. Opening the door to tradesmen registering loads of gmail accounts and leaving themselves feedback.

 

[Andy78]

I went for a free trial with rated people. Utter garbage!
Expensive leads, poor or non existent account security, no vetting of trades, having to quote against cowboys, poor customer service. Total waste of time and money.

I'm registered with one at the minute that is based around the Yorkshire area. Free to join, no adverts, can upload pictures of work and qualifications can be verified and listed. Unfortunately it is small and new at the minute so no action, but the right sort of model.

The most useful middleman tool for my business is freeindex. I get a lot of work from people finding me on there.

 

[GMES]

What field are you in Andy/ Domestic/comm/ind, if Domestic facebook and twitter work well for a lot of people if maintained and kept active and updated, I know they're not everyone's cup of tea but they have been useful to a couple of guys I know.

 

[Andy78]

I'm a sole trader doing domestic and commercial work, all private customers as I don't do contracting work.
I have facebook, twitter, and google+ accounts which I should be more active on really.
I also have a Yell listing which nobody finds me on as your position in the listings depends on how much money you pay, which I don't.

Everyone who finds me on the internet finds me through Freeindex as they are usually at the top of popular google searches. Your position in the listings depends on your reviews on that site so it works well for me. I ask customers for reviews instead of paying Yell hundreds of pounds a year, and it works well as a listing site.

 

[Spoon]

A few years ago a mate asked me to go to one of these sites and leave a good feedback message for him, even though he didn't do any work for me.... Can you really believe the feedbacks you see???

 

[Sparkysoldman]

Use my builder occasionally with some success but always give a guide price for the work requested To avoid being shortlisted by people who expect something for nothing. Ie if it's a board change I say something along the lines of £xxxx depending on bonding etc rewires I quote xxxx for up to 40 points and £xx for each extra point etc always go higher than the norm and if they don't shortlist you don't pay at least that way if they expect a ridiculas price they just ignor me which is exactly what I want

 

[Dan]

So if the customer short lists 3, all 3 get charged?!

 

[Leesparkykent]

I know a sparks on checkatrade who's also a close friend. Costs him in the region of £600-£700 a year but says he gets between 15K and £20K worth of work a year through it and he's been on there for 3 years. Not a bad return on £700.

 

[Sparkysoldman]

So if the customer short lists 3, all 3 get charged?!

Yep that's the way they make money but at least with my builder you have some control. We've spent about £200 in last 12 months and had about 6k of work from it. But we are very selective about which ones we put in for there are clues in the username and you can see how many jobs people have put on and how many they have shortlisted if they shortlist more than 2 on other jobs we don't bother if the job is small and they've already shortlisted someone we don't bother
That said with all these sites your are generally dealing with the lowest common denominator in terms of potential customers and competitors

 

[Dan]

Didn't realise that was their business model. You're wise to quote early.

 

[Octopus]

I spend around £700 per year on my website, clothing with logos and a number of small adverts. I get more enquiries than I can handle as about 75,% are repeat or Referals so I'm pondering reducing my advertising.

There is no way I would commit another £700

Also I have seen 2 plumbers put all their eggs in the check a trade basket and find they spend too much time quoting and not enough earning!

 

[Dan]

Do you rank well for your areas?

 

[JK-Electrical]

I use MyBuilder solely to fill in gaps in my work diary, and although I've done well from MyBuilder overall, the site, however, is not without its pitfalls. My main gripe is customers who invite you to do work for them, but for reasons best known to themselves, do not then respond to your attempts to contact them. Women are by far the chief offenders. Since no refunds are issued in this event, you've lost the money you paid to obtain the lead when this happens.

My main gripe is young men fresh out of the training colleges turning-up on the site offering their services at ridiculous, cutthroat prices. After recently quoting for a job that comprised of installing two flush-mounted twin sockets in a bedroom and swapping an old halogen PIR fitting for a 30 watt LED equivalent, the customer declined my quotation, telling me in the process that "a lovely young man" had submitted a price of £75.00. I've also come across young men quoting £80 for carrying-out an EICR on a three-bedroom house, and offering to install two smoke detectors and one heat detector for £100. Seriously. I guess that those who quote such ridiculous prices are still living at home with mum and dad, and can only offer these crazy prices because they don't have the business overheads and personal costs that most other established self-employed electricians have. Fortunately, most of my customers prefer experience to cheapness.

While MyBuilder can be useful for filling in the gaps in your work diary, you're certainly not going to get rich using the site. Competition is fierce, particularly for the lucrative jobs. Expect to find yourself in direct competition with eight other electricians when rewires are up for grabs. But with the lead fee for such jobs costing as much as £35.00 plus VAT, you'll end-up severely out-of-pocket if you keep losing these jobs after quoting, or if you fail to make the shortlist (maximum of five) in the first place. I'm based in North Lanarkshire, but have to compete for jobs with guys from as far as Stirling and Ayr!

As for Rated People. I'm now in the final weeks of my membership. Rated People has become much too expensive and are no longer a cost-effective means of generating job opportunities. For a start, you have to pay £15 a month plus VAT in membership fees to remain on the site. Should you cancel your membership, all the positive feedback you've built-up disappears and you have to start all over again should you ever rejoin. The cost of the leads are ridiculously high, with the lead fees for rewires costing as much as £45 plus VAT. All you get for your money is the customer's contact details. Rated People do, however, issue credits should you, for whatever reason, be unable to quote for the job e.g. someone else has been hired. There is a catch though .... you receive a credit that you have to spend on the purchase of another lead rather than a refund of your money. Big difference!

Another pitfall of Rated People is that unless you pay them an additional £10 (plus VAT, of course) to receive 100 texts which notify you of job leads, you then inevitably discover that almost all of these leads having already been sold by the time you receive an e-mail alert. And if you do decide to receive these text alerts, then be assured that you'll be spending more time each day with your mobile in your hand rather than your pliers or screwdriver. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Oh how I wish we could return to the pre-Internet days when all you had to do was place an advertisement in Yellow Pages and/or your local newspaper and put a card in your local newsagent's window then sit back and wait for the phone to ring.

 

[Sparkysoldman]

I agree with all the above but would add just a couple of comment with my builder you don't pay a fee if you don't make the shortlist which is why we always quote a ball park price when we respond to a lead. At least this way if they expect dirt cheap we don't get shortlisted so don't pay the fee. We also only quote on very local jobs 10 miles at the very most. We get shortlisted on about 50%. Of the ones we do go for and actually get about 70% of these.We are confident that unless we are undercut by a mile and the customer is only looking at price we can convince most that whilst we are not the cheapest we do offer the best value for money.

That said if you look at the jobs you will see some idiots are prepared to travel 50 odd miles to change a plug suits us fine lets us get on with the serious work
That said we only use the site to fill gaps as most of our work comes from one advert in a magazine that covers our local villages and word of mouth

 

[Redwood]

I'm a Which? Trusted Trader, which (no pun intended) costs me £48pm. I went through a thorough validation process, (checking insurances, qualifications, complaints procedures, accounts) to see if I met their standards. Once they had checked my accounts, they then picked 10 previous domestic customers that they wanted to call to check whether I had done what I said I had done. They only needed to speak to three, but this ensures that there aren't any friends giving glowing reviews. As far as business from it goes, I'm getting more new customers who want the additional piece of mind that the UK's largest consumer organisation gives them if something goes wrong. From my perspective, it differentiates me from the other sparks in my area, making it easier to secure good business. As for reviews, Which check every review before it goes on the check its genuine, so everything is checked first. As an aside, I don't do new builds or large projects and I'm happily booked up for several months ahead.

 

[Octopus]

At the end of the day once you have your business running, and have a decent reputation, word of mouth and "partners" will bring in enough business....... anyone who relies on these leeches is doing something very wrong.

i.e.

There is a plumber near me who finds it very difficult to get repeat business - I think its because he demands payment for revisits to discuss "issues" with his work! what a muppet.

 

[J.C.E]

I use MyBuilder solely to fill in gaps in my work diary, and although I've done well from MyBuilder overall, the site, however, is not without its pitfalls. My main gripe is customers who invite you to do work for them, but for reasons best known to themselves, do not then respond to your attempts to contact them. Women are by far the chief offenders. Since no refunds are issued in this event, you've lost the money you paid to obtain the lead when this happens.

My main gripe is young men fresh out of the training colleges turning-up on the site offering their services at ridiculous, cutthroat prices. After recently quoting for a job that comprised of installing two flush-mounted twin sockets in a bedroom and swapping an old halogen PIR fitting for a 30 watt LED equivalent, the customer declined my quotation, telling me in the process that "a lovely young man" had submitted a price of £75.00. I've also come across young men quoting £80 for carrying-out an EICR on a three-bedroom house, and offering to install two smoke detectors and one heat detector for £100. Seriously. I guess that those who quote such ridiculous prices are still living at home with mum and dad, and can only offer these crazy prices because they don't have the business overheads and personal costs that most other established self-employed electricians have. Fortunately, most of my customers prefer experience to cheapness.

While MyBuilder can be useful for filling in the gaps in your work diary, you're certainly not going to get rich using the site. Competition is fierce, particularly for the lucrative jobs. Expect to find yourself in direct competition with eight other electricians when rewires are up for grabs. But with the lead fee for such jobs costing as much as £35.00 plus VAT, you'll end-up severely out-of-pocket if you keep losing these jobs after quoting, or if you fail to make the shortlist (maximum of five) in the first place. I'm based in North Lanarkshire, but have to compete for jobs with guys from as far as Stirling and Ayr!

As for Rated People. I'm now in the final weeks of my membership. Rated People has become much too expensive and are no longer a cost-effective means of generating job opportunities. For a start, you have to pay £15 a month plus VAT in membership fees to remain on the site. Should you cancel your membership, all the positive feedback you've built-up disappears and you have to start all over again should you ever rejoin. The cost of the leads are ridiculously high, with the lead fees for rewires costing as much as £45 plus VAT. All you get for your money is the customer's contact details. Rated People do, however, issue credits should you, for whatever reason, be unable to quote for the job e.g. someone else has been hired. There is a catch though .... you receive a credit that you have to spend on the purchase of another lead rather than a refund of your money. Big difference!

Another pitfall of Rated People is that unless you pay them an additional £10 (plus VAT, of course) to receive 100 texts which notify you of job leads, you then inevitably discover that almost all of these leads having already been sold by the time you receive an e-mail alert. And if you do decide to receive these text alerts, then be assured that you'll be spending more time each day with your mobile in your hand rather than your pliers or screwdriver. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Oh how I wish we could return to the pre-Internet days when all you had to do was place an advertisement in Yellow Pages and/or your local newspaper and put a card in your local newsagent's window then sit back and wait for the phone to ring.

nail on the head!

 

[JK-Electrical]

I should've mentioned in my earlier post that what ultimately pushed me to quit Rated People was their policy of selling the same lead up to three times over. Despite recently having been first to purchase a lead for a local EICR at a cost of £9.00 plus VAT, the lead was then subsequently resold to two competitors, one of whom quoted the customer £70 for an an EICR on at two bedroom house. I cannot compete with such a ridiculously low price. So having accepted my higher quotation, the customer then sends me a text message to tell me that he's "had to cancel the job". It was to later come to light when I tried to claim a refund, that this wasn't actually the case at all. The customer had reneged and decided to give the job to a much cheaper competitor, but didn't have the decency to tell me the truth. So to cut a long story short, Rated People refused to issue a refund on the basis that refunds are issued only if the tradesman has not been able to quote for the job. Despite my protestations, Rated People would not be budged. So I told them there and then that I was cancelling my membership as a matter of principle.

My advice to anyone considering taking out a membership with Rated People is don't. One way or another you will end-up being screwed. Although it is not without its pitfalls, My Builder, is far superior by comparison.

 

[FatAlan]

Interesting thread. I get the impression as someone who has come at this from the side of only being a customer that the best tradesman seem to get most of their work on word of mouth. Certainly on the domestic side.

I have a couple of mates that have recently trained up as plumbers who say they've never worked so hard and have to turn jobs down, purely based on word of mouth and no advertising.

I actually hate trawling through adverts looking for a tradesman and will always call round friends first to see if they can recommend someone.

I remember years ago calling a plumber out for a faulty shower which I'd already had a look at and deduced that it had a corroded switch. This guy came out (free call out) and told me that I needed a new shower at a cost of several hundred quid. I disputed this (nicely) and said that I'd consider it. He then asked for £15 for the call out. Despite the no fee advertised I didn't actually mind paying a few quid for his time so offered to pay by cheque. He then said that because it was by cheque it would have to be £20. I refused and he lost it completely and stormed out of the house. I followed him and recommended that he should try reading "How to win friends and influence people' Replacement part from Aqualisia £0.75. This was about 20 years ago.

Had another plumber, instructed by my builder who was doing an extension, who cleared off on holiday for two weeks without telling anyone when he was supposed to be installing a new boiler prior to my family an I moving back in from short term rental. Funnily enough this coincided with me paying him a couple of grand up front for the boiler. Strange coincidence don't you think? The sparky was good though and strangely enough I put more work his way.