Trusted Trader Schemes

[Ferdinand]

Interesting little development.

 

My local County Council - Notts - seem to have outsourced their entire scheme to CheckaTrade.

 

http://www.nottinghamshire.gov.uk/business-community/trading-standards/approved-trader-scheme

 

That may not help. The first year of CheckaTrade membership costs getting on for £1000 for the trader.

 

The only stat I have is that within 15 miles approx of me, searches on the CheckaTrade website are about 100 per week under categories related to Home Improvement, Handyman etc.

 

Ferdinand

 

 

[Ferdinand]

Supplementary question.

 

Are there any of these schemes that are useful for finding tradesmen. Clearly they help with basic checks, such as CRB or trained in trade certifications, but are there any more general schemes that are useful from both sides.

 

Is TrustMark any use, for example, as the ‘only government approved scheme for trusts traders’, whatever that means.

 

I have two angles on this.One is that I want to know as a customer; the other is that I am working on some marketing with my handyman to broaden his customer base since I do not have enough for a full time requirement. Hope I am allowed to say that much.

 

Cheers

 

F

Edited June 8, 2018 by Ferdinand

[Hecateh]

My "brilliant" builder uses Checkatrade.  All his reviews are excellent.  He was bragging to me how he got negative reviews (only 2 ever, honestly) removed by proving how they were unfair.  The 2 he was bragging about seemed reasonable.  One had (he said) said that he had pretended his daughter was ill to excuse not being there.  I know his very young daughter was very poorly at the time. The other was a bathroom job, where the customer complained that the drain wasn't working - H showed me pictures of long dark hair clogging the drain.  So I think it was fair enough to get those off BUT how often does it happen?

Edited June 8, 2018 by Hecateh

[newhome]

1 hour ago, Ferdinand said:

I have two angles on this.One is that I want to know as a customer; the other is that I am working on some marketing with my handyman to broaden his customer base since I do not have enough for a full time requirement. Hope I am allowed to say that much.

 

 

I don't know anything about the schemes but I would have thought that a few ads on the local FB pages would be the ideal place to advertise / build up his client base. A decent handyman is worth his weight in gold so he will soon build up clients if his work is good and his prices reasonable as he will start being recommended. On the flip side there are plenty of posts from people on my local sites who are unhappy with the quality of work from various trades and although the posts are often taken down it's not before many people have seen them and noted the name (photo evidence is often posted too). A handyman's work can be so diverse I think it's important that they only do jobs that they can actually do well, not play around with things they 'might' be able to do and make a hash of it. That's where reputations are lost. I had a handyman out here to do a tiny job (sealant in bathroom). After having a run of poor experiences with various trades I wanted to let him do a small job first before asking him to do more. He actually advertised sealants as one of the jobs he covered, but I kid you not he was here an hour, charged £60, and made a worse job of it than I could have done myself. And complained that the bath was the most difficult one he'd done (not clear why!). 

 

 

Edited June 8, 2018 by newhome

[Ferdinand]

3 hours ago, Hecateh said:

My "brilliant" builder uses Checkatrade.  All his reviews are excellent.  He was bragging to me how he got negative reviews (only 2 ever, honestly) by proving how they were unfair.  The 2 he was bragging about seemed reasonable.  One had (he said) said that he had pretended his daughter was ill to excuse not being there.  I know his very young daughter was very poorly at the time. The other was a bathroom job, where the customer complained that the drain wasn't working - H showed me pictures of long dark hair clogging the drain.  So I think it was fair enough to get those off BUT how often does it happen?

 

Not the sharpest knife in the draw to boast about that to a customer :-).

[Jeremy Harris]

I've tried to use one or two of these online "find a trades person" sites but have formed the view that the really good, experienced, people don't need to use them, as they get more than enough work from word of mouth recommendations, there seem to be a lot of pretty dodgy people registered with them, luckily most of these may well show their true colours when you first meet them, and there are a few new trades people, who use these services in order to get established.

 

The latter group can be great, if you can make sure you specify the job very well and give a bit of oversight.  We recently used a young chap who was just starting out and found he was a hard worker, careful, clean and tidy and keen to earn a good reputation.  He was also good value, as by his own recognition he admitted that his rates were a bit lower than average because he knew he was still learning on the job, so was taking a bit longer to make sure he did a good job.  We're as pleased as punch with his work, especially as he popped in earlier this week, three months or so after finishing the job, just to check we were still happy with his work.  I doubt he'll be using the online service for long, as I'd guess that he's already building up a pretty good reputation.