What To Look For When Hiring A Tradesperson

Say the worst happens and you need to call a plumber or an electrician to fix something at your home. It could be something as bad a burst pipe, or something as minor as flickering lights. Regardless of the size of the problem, you are going to have to call a tradesperson to come diagnose the problem and fix it.

Actually, picking a tradesperson can be difficult. Your first instinct is likely to be to just call your local plumber or electrician and let them handle the job. But, this may not be the best option. By just going with the first tradesperson near you, you risk not getting the best deal possible or the best quality tradesperson.

In this article, we are going to go over what you should look for when deciding to buy a tradesperson.

Does the company use licensed tradespeople?

The first thing you want to look for when hiring a tradesperson is if the company uses licensed tradespeople. Plumbers and electricians alike have to be licensed by state governments in order to be able to do plumbing or electrical work. All states in Australia put significant fines on those who do unlicensed electrical or plumbing work.

There are a couple of reasons why you want to only hire licensed tradespeople. For starters, when a tradesperson has a license, it means that you can rest assured that they are competent and know what they are doing. The licensing process for both plumbers and electricians is extremely rigorous. Likewise, you know what when you hire a licenced tradesperson, that they will do a reasonably good job. Checking if a plumbing company or an electrician company have licences is very simple.

There are official registries that you can find online that contain all the information that you will need. Here is a link to the registry for New South Wales; you will be able to find similar registries for all the other states in Australia. You can search the registry by using the business’ name or their license number. For example, our license number 237653C can be found at the bottom of every page on our website.

Does the company offer transparent pricing?

An important thing to consider when choosing a tradesperson is whether they offer reasonably transparent pricing. What we mean by that is that the tradesperson should be willing to and able to actually tell you why the quoted price is what it is.

Have you ever used a service before and gotten a quote, only to sit there scratching your head and wondering why it costs so much? It is frustrating and even worse, it prevents you from budgeting properly or seeking a better quote elsewhere. The best trades companies will provide you with completely transparent pricing. They will give you a complete breakdown of everything they plan to do and how much each part of their plan costs.

Personally, we are committed to 100% transparent pricing; when one of our plumbers or electricians gives you a quote, they will be glad to sit down with you and run through why exactly the quote is the amount that it is.

Be careful around tradespeople that do not offer transparent pricing, it could mean that they are trying to rip you off.

Is the customer feedback positive?

An important thing that you need to consider is whether the customer feedback for the particular company that you plan on hiring is positive or not. A lot of consumers out there dismiss customer feedback as being useless, or they simply do not bother looking at it before making their decision.

Customer feedback is always useful, especially when you are trying to pick something important, like an electrician or a plumber. Customer feedback can be useful for determining a number of things. For example, just based on customer feedback you can determine whether a company offers fair pricing, whether the company’s electrician or plumber shows up on time, the quality of work they do, whether they offer good customer service or not, and whether they show up when they say they will (anyone who has ever dealt with a plumber or electrician before can attest to how many do not show up when they say they will).

There are plenty of places where you can find customer feedback. For starters, you can head to a company’s social media pages. People will often leave feedback on a company’s Facebook and Twitter pages. Outside of social media pages, you can find feedback on sites dedicated to connecting people with local businesses. For example, you can find plenty of customer feedback on both our Yellowpages site and our TrueLocal page.

Now, we are not saying that every customer review should be taken at face value. Just because you see a negative review, does not mean that your experience will be negative. None the less, by looking at a number of reviews, you can get a rough idea of a business’ pros and cons.

Good customer support

You should always ensure that the company you plan on going with has good customer support. In many cases, a company’s customer support will end up being just as important, if not more important, than many of the other things we have listed so far. But, what do we mean when we say “customer support?”

Well, when we talk about customer support, we are referring to a company’s willingness to aid you after the work is actually done. For example, we not only offer post-installation support, but we also maintain a 24-hour support line, so that if one of our customers has an issue or a question, then they can get it answered right away.

We understand that a company cannot just install something and leave it at that. Sometimes plumbers and electricians make mistakes, that is understandable, but what is not understandable is not being willing fix those mistakes.

So, before going with a company, make sure you know what sort of customer support they offer. Beware of companies that offer minimal customer support, it is a sure sign that you are not dealing with experienced professionals.