Eastman Roofing & Waterproofing
Industry Reputation
Examining the Industry's Reputation
Exclusive new consumer research from QR and RenovationExperts.com shows that timeliness, type of job, and communication (and the lack of it) drive perceptions
Within the world of top remodeling professionals, there is a general sense of pride that comes only from years of satisfying customers and from building a business that has a sterling reputation with many repeat customers, many of whom they consider friends. But among that group there is also a nagging association that sometimes rears its ugly head. These upstanding professionals are often linked in the general public with a widespread notion that remodelers and home contractors in general, should be approached with suspicion.
In recent years, a number of consumer opinion surveys have placed remodeling contractors low on the list of admired or respected professionals.
According to the National Association of Consumer Agency Administrators, complaints about home improvement companies were second highest, surpassed only by the number of complaints about car purchases in 2004. In that study, home improvement complaints included: companies going out of business and reopening under new names; failure to complete work; and not complying with local codes.
To move beyond the anecdotal realm of why the larger remodeling and home improvement industry suffers from a poor reputation and to begin to pinpoint the underlying reasons for this image, Qualified Remodeler teamed up with ReNex Inc. (www.renovationexperts.com), to survey homeowners who had recently remodeled their homes.
Over the course of several weeks, 700 homeowners rated their remodelers in a number of categories, most notably: overall satisfaction; willingness to refer to a friend; willingness to hire again and overall quality of workmanship.
The general results confirm what many in the industry already know. Remodelers who employ industry best practices like setting proper expectations, sticking to production schedules, etc. typically fare much better in the minds of their clients than those who don't. That said, the responses also confirm a low-to-mediocre rating for home improvement and remodeling contractors that generally seems to lie at the heart of why consumer perceptions of remodelers tend to remain so low, year after year.
Jobsite Clean Each Day
Homeowners place a high value on attention to these
types of details.
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Informed vs. Not Informed
Most client-remodeler relationships suffer dramatically
when communication is poor.
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Remodeler Set Proper Expectations
Upfront understanding of the remodeling process is a key
driver of positive perceptions.
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Design vs. Nondesign
Remodelers who offer design services separate
themselves from the crowd.
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Honest and Trustworthy
Candor and integrity are highly valued by remodeling
clients.
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Low aggregate scores
Among more than 700 remodeling clients surveyed, who completed all types of remodeling jobs from siding, roofing and windows on up to whole-house remodeling homeowners rated their remodeler's performance remarkably low.
- Only 55 percent of respondents said that they would be willing to refer their remodeler to a friend.
- Only 52 percent indicated that they would be willing to hire their contractor again.
- Only 66 percent agreed with the statement that their remodeler was honest and trustworthy.
- Only 67 percent agreed with the statement that their remodeler had set proper expectations about how the job would proceed.
On less seemingly less significant matters, remodeling clients gave their remodelers somewhat better marks.
- About 85 percent of remodelers and their subcontractors were deemed to be polite and courteous on the jobsite.
- About 66 percent were perceived by their customers as having minimized inconveniences as much as possible during their remodeling project.
- More than three quarters of the respondents (77 percent) say their customers were kept informed about the progress of their jobs.
- About 65 percent recalled that their jobsite was swept clean at the end of each day.
Beyond these up-or-down assessments of remodeler service and results, the homeowners surveyed were asked to rank their remodeler's performances in a range of categories on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the best score and 1 being the lowest score.
The aggregated scores were poor. Under the category of overall satisfaction the average score was 6.29, and the same trend followed in subsequent categories.
- Professionalism 6.31
- Timeliness 5.82
- Fair price 6.76
- Workmanship 6.61
The better news for remodeling professionals came as each of these ratings were categorized by:
- The type of remodeling project undertaken
- Price of the job
- Whether the homeowner felt their remodeler set proper expectations for the job
- Whether the homeowner felt their remodeler was honest and trustworthy
- Whether the homeowner felt their remodeler left the jobsite clean each day
- Whether the remodeler designed the project or not
- Whether the homeowner felt informed or not during the course of the job
This report includes graphical and analytical information for each subtabulation listed above.
The remainder of the analysis, however, will center only on the satisfaction scoring:
1. by project type; 2. by client perception of jobsite cleanliness, 3. client perception of whether he/she felt informed or not during the remodeling process, 4. client perception of whether expectations were set properly, and 5. by whether the project was designed by the remodeler or not.
Scoring by type of remodeling project
The results showed significant differences in levels of homeowner satisfaction with all parts of their remodeler's performance when tabulated based on the type of remodeling project undertaken.
The survey asked the respondents to pick one of seven categories by which to classify their job: basement, exteriors, handyman/other, kitchen/bath, porch/deck/sunroom, room addition, or whole-house remodel.
Grades by Type of Job
Some jobs generally achieve better satisfaction scores.
The chart Grades by Type of Job shows that porches/decks/sunroom jobs fare a better chance of overall satisfaction (7.13 on a scale of 1 to 10) than any other type of job.
In fact the trend seems to be that the larger or more complicated the job, the lower the overall score. Homeowners who had renovated their whole-house gave an overall satisfaction rating of only 4.95.
There were other notable trends yielded from this cut of the data: 1. The strongest scores were assigned for fairness of price in each of the categories by project type. 2. The weakest scores were for timeliness in each of the categories by project type. 3. Professionalism and workmanship scores tracked closely with the overall levels of satisfaction in this category.
Jobsite cleanliness
One of the conclusions brought home dramatically by the QR/ReNex survey of home-owners who recently completed a remodeling project is the importance of leaving the jobsite clean at the end of each day.
Among the 65 percent of remodelers whose clients said they agreed with the statement that their remodeler made his/her best effort to leave the jobsite swept and organized at the end of each work day, overall satisfaction soared to 7.84. This compares very favorably to the overall satisfaction rating of 3.54 for the 35 percent of remodelers whose clients said they did not keep the jobsite clean.
Keeping the jobsite clean also seemed to translate to higher scores in other areas. Workmanship rose to 8.03. Professionalism rose to 7.86. And scores in the typically hard-to-please category of timeliness rose to 7.24 for companies that kept clean jobsites.
For companies that were not perceived as being able to keep the jobsite clean, scores fell to a range of three and fours. (See chart Jobsite Clean Each Day.)
The pie chart Kept You Informed About Progress should provide plenty of incentive for remodelers to spend more time and effort communicating with their customers.
Among the 77 percent of homeowners surveyed who said their remodeler did a good job keeping them informed on the progress of their project, scores for overall satisfaction was nearly five points higher than for those who did not keep their clients informed, (8.01 vs. 3.28).
Among those remodelers who homeowners said communicated well, scores in Workmanship (8.15), Professionalism (8.12), and Fair Price (7.93) also soared.
In the toughest category to please, timeliness, good communicators were rewarded with ratings of 7.60 vs. 2.72. Keeping clients informed had the single biggest impact on the overall level of customer satisfaction. See Informed vs. Not Informed.
Setting expectations
Setting proper expectations is a different take on keeping clients informed, but the notion clearly had traction among those homeowners handing out good scores for their remodelers.
Satisfaction, professionalism, timeliness, fair price and workmanship scores are all in the mid-7 range for those companies whose clients thought they had done a good job setting expectations about job schedules, completion dates, etc.
Not surprisingly, setting proper expectations seemed to have the most impact on scores for timeliness.
Remodelers who did not set proper expectations were given a 3.10 on timeliness while those who did set proper expectations averaged a score of 7.21 for timeliness. See Remodeler Set Proper Expectations.
Price of Job
Clients spending a lot of money are harder to please.
Projects designed by remodelers
Most full-service remodeling firms offer design services to their clients. This is also true for many specialty contractors who have taken advantage of new CAD software and Internet- based visualization programs to give their potential customers a better idea of what their finished project will look like.
When the survey results were tabulated based on whether or not the remodeler did design work for the client, higher scores resulted for those that did design work, but those differences were less pronounced.
Those who did design work did much better on the question of fair pricing (7.28) and workmanship (7.20), but it had less positive impact on scores for timeliness.
Conclusions
This report indicates there are two separate worlds of remodeling activity. There are those that are well-versed in business and display a wide variety of skills, chief among them: communication skills, good follow-through, accurate pricing, and good workmanship. And there are those whose skills do not match the many challenges of completing remodeling and home improvement projects. The latter group is much larger. Their activities continually generate negative impressions of the industry allowing overall perceptions of the industry to stay at levels below what is acceptable. Education and training can be key difference makers.
How remodelers view the industry reputation issue
Many top remodelers understand very clearly that the industry suffers from negative perceptions. We asked several remodelers to give their veiw of the causes and solutions.
Frankly, I am surprised that our industry has not usurped car purchases for high levels of dissatisfaction, says Bert Lebhar, president of Atlantic Remodeling in Baltimore. This reputation is certainly not a case of a few' bad apples. In fact, it is almost an industry standard for contractors to be late to everything, from arriving tardy to appointments as well as installations, to starting projects well after approximated start dates, and projects taking far longer than expected and communicated to the homeowner.
From the perspective of Bob Bell, CGR, CAPS of Bell's Remodeling in Duluth, Minn., the blame should be shared between the remodeling industry and consumers who tend to let price govern too much of the choice they make about who to pick to complete a job.
The remodeling industry, for the most part, is unregulated, says Bell. Anybody can go into the business with little or no training or education. We don't or we can't police our own industry. Some states are passing licensing requirements, which helps if there is a pre-education and continuing education component. At the same time, many consumers want the best product for the lowest price. They don't check references or compare one estimate against another to make sure they are getting the same materials, etc. They give money to people they don't know. And sometimes they pay the total amount of money before a project is started.
The issue really revolves around motivation, says Finley Perry, CGR of F.H. Perry Builder in Hopkinton, Mass. and a trustee of the Remodelors Council of the National Association of Home Builders. There are a number of differing motivators in the remodeling realm: pursue a trade; run a business; and get rich quick. Get rich quick' is an obvious problem, and main source of complaints. And pursue a trade' often comes at the expense of business-like behavior, a more subtle source of irritation to customers. But those who seek to run a business' are often a consumer's best choice. It is a choice that may appear the most costly at the outset, but provides the best value and satisfaction in the end. |
About the Research
ReNex Inc., a provider of Internet-based contractor leads to consumers through its www.renovationexperts.com Web portal, contacted 50,000 homeowner/subscribers. Through a combination of e-mail responses and outbound telephone calls, 756 responses were generated. Consumers from nearly all of the 48 continental U.S. states were represented in the sampling. The survey began on May 1, 2012 and was completed on June 7, 2012.
The following questions were asked.
1. When was the last time you hired a remodeler to work on your home?
- a. within six months
- b. six months to a year
- c. 12 months to 24 months
- d. over two years ago
- e. have not remodeled your home
2. What was the scope of the work you had done?
- a. whole-house renovation including exteriors
- b. kitchen or bathroom remodel
- c. room addition
- d. exterior renovation (windows, siding, gutters and/or new roof)
- e. basement renovation
- f. new deck, porch or sunroom
- g. handyman work, other
3. What price range best fits the remodeling work you completed?
- a. under $2,500
- b. $2,500 to $10,000
- c. $10,000 to $20,000
- d. $20,000 to $50,000
- e. $50,000 to $100,000
- f. over $100,000
4. Was the home you remodeled your primary residence, or was it a vacation home or investment property?
5. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest and best rating and one being lowest, how would you rate your level of satisfaction with your remodeler?
6. On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your remodeler's overall level of professionalism?
7. On a scale of 1 to 10, how timely was the work completed, with 10 being slightly early or ahead of schedule?
8. On a scale of 1 to 10, how fair was the price charged by your remodeler, with 10 being most fair and 1 being unfair or overpriced?
9. On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate the quality of the workmanship for the finished product, with 10 being the highest quality craftsmanship?
10. If you were to undertake another remodeling project, would you call the same remodeler again? Yes or No.
11. Do you agree or disagree with the following statement: My remodeler is honest and trustworthy.
12. Do you agree or disagree with the following statement: My remodeler was polite and courteous when working in my home.
13. Do you agree or disagree with the following statement: My remodeler kept me informed about the progress of the job.
14. Do you agree or disagree with the following statement: I consider my remodeler a friend.
15. Would you be willing to refer your remodeler to a friend? Yes or no.
16. Regarding product selections did you agree or disagree with your remodeler's recommendations?
17. Did your project use design ideas offered by your remodeler?
18. Who purchased materials for your remodeling job: you or your remodeler?
19. Did your remodeler set proper expectations for the level of disruption that the remodeling activity caused? Yes or no.
20. Did your remodeler do everything he or she could to minimize inconveniences associated with your remodeling project?
21. Do you agree or disagree with the following statement: My remodeler made his best effort to leave the jobsite swept and organized at the end of each workday. |
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