FIRST RATE SERVICE

After years of having to rely on the recommendations of personal friends - if they were lucky enough to get one-  people are now turning in droves to an innovative new website designed to take the stress out of finding the best tradesmen.

The ratings service, launched in late April, now has over 450 tradesmen involved - from plumbers to brickies to gardeners and glaziers. Taking advantage of the consumer vetting so far are over 700 people who have submitted jobs and are automatically collecting quotes.

Rated Tradesmen fixes what's broken - the relationship between homeowners and tradespeople - by giving people the power to share their experience of working with individual tradespeople. This isnt always just glowing recommendations, the good and the bad are both covered.  The site aims to create more trust betwen customers and tradesmen.

How it works

The way it works is simple:  Homeowners submit their project details online and are put straight in touch with three local tradesmen who are ready to quote.  After selecting a tradesman and completing the job, the customer rates the professional on quality, value and reliability. By sharing their experience, customers benefit even more homeowners - and they validate the reputation of good tradesmen.

Case study

One Surrey resident recently turned to Rated Tradesmen after purchasing a 25-year-old property in Kingston. Upon moving in, he found that the property needed some new light fixtures fitted and electrical sockets replaced. He wasn’t sure who to approach for this kind of work, but after reading about the Rated Tradesmen service in a newspaper, he logged on to give the website a try.

Within days of filling in the job details online, he was approached by three electrical contractors, all local to his area and keen to quote. Dismissing one because he found their approach too pushy, the new homeowner invited the two other contractors to quote onsite. Finding the first quote too high for his price range, he decided to go with the second quote. Within five days of submitting the job details online, his project was completed and his expectations were exceeded.

“The tradesmen clearly knew their work would be rated, and really aimed to meet a certain professional standard. They did an excellent job, tidied up after themselves and asked if I would be putting a rating in for them. I did – and I rated them highly. They turned up on time, did a great job and charged the original quote – overall a job well done,” he said.

When submitting his rating online, the homeowner didn’t at first realise that he would have to rate all three tradesmen that contacted him, not just the tradesmen that he chose, but found this was also beneficial as he could provide a thorough account of the whole experience.

“What I really like about Rated Tradesmen is that you decide when your job gets done. Instead of making lots of calls only to discover that no-one you contact can do the job for another six weeks, you simply enter your details online and only the tradesmen available during the time you specify will ask to quote.

“I will definitely use Rated Tradesmen again,” he continued “possibly for a landscaping job I have coming up. And I wouldn’t be more than happy to recommend the service.”