This is a copy of a letter I just sent to Hillside Roofing:
Dear Sir:
Thank you for taking my call this morning and being open to my feedback. I am sorry to report that the recommendation you gave me, for Rob at Crown Roofing, did not yield a positive experience. I do not have my calendar in front of me, so my day-by-day account of the last FIVE MOTNHS is not complete, but suffice to say it has been long and frustrating.
I contact Rob as soon as you referred his services to me. At first he was pleasant and responsive and I felt like I had been handed over to someone who was willing and able to solve my roof-gutter problem. He came out for a first estimate and returned the bid in a timely manner. Through no fault of his, the bid was wrong…it covered more work than needed be done and I, embarrassed by my own ignorance of roofing, had to ask him to redo it. The turnaround was not as quick, but eventually (a couple of weeks) I got the revised quote.
Summer kicked into gear and with a new job and some travel I let the gutter project move to the back burner. In late July I re-contacted Rob to get the ball rolling again.
Several weeks and more follow-up calls later we settled on an appointment time for him to meet my owner-partner on the site to get a more precise scope of the project. Rob called that day to move the meeting to another day, but my owner-partner was driving to Seattle from the Methow Valley to make the meeting: rescheduling was not an option. While on-site my owner-partner decided to do some of the work himself and the scope of the project changed. Realizing this might be a drag for Rob I asked, if there was someone better suited to a smaller job and he assured us both that he wanted the job.
That was late-August or early-September. When we left that meeting he promised to get me a revised bid. I have never seen it, in spite of several follow-up e-mails and no fewer than 10 phone messages (all unreturned). The last time I spoke with Rob was two weeks ago this morning, at which time he promised, again, to get me a revised bit before the end of that weekend and call me to get this work on a calendar before the end of that week so that the work could be done before the end of October. The last message I left for Rob asked, specifically, “If you don’t want the job…just tell me.”
This morning I left a message with his service that said, “Having not heard back from you after two weeks and at least eight phone messages I am moving on to another service provider. Clearly you do not want or value my business. You have wasted my time and the time of my partner. I will be sharing my horrible experience with Crown Roofing on two consumer-to-consumer Web sites, Judy’s Book and Angie’s List. Potential clients need to know.”
I understand that people get busy, but Rob failed to communicate or keep his promises and as a result I lack confidence in his abilities and professionalism. Perhaps if he had communicated with me things might have been different. Now I feel stupid and any ignorance about roofing has been compounded by new embarrassment about my naïveté regarding unresponsive service providers.
I would consider carefully before you leverage the reputation of Hillside Roofing to refer Crown Roofing to anyone else.
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