Request Service Request Estimate
Call Today: (713) 224-3667

10 Tips for Choosing a Houston Garage Door Repair Company

10 Tips for Choosing a Houston Garage Door Repair Company

October 27, 2015

Trying to figure out which Houston garage door repair company to take your problem to? It can be difficult to determine whether a particular company has the right combination of expertise, customer service, and affordability that adds up to a great experience—or the combination of carelessness and apathy which adds up to problems down the line. Here are 10 signs to look for in determining whether a Houston garage door repair company deserves your business: 1. Confident answering questions. A reliable Houston garage door repair company shouldn’t hesitate to give you useful, professional answers to your questions. They shouldn’t seem unsure of themselves when giving you advice or letting you know what to expect—honest uncertainty about something they’ll need to know more about it one thing, but if you get the sense that they’re out of their depth, it’s a bad sign. The best garage door repair professionals will exude confidence in their ability to deal with your problem, even when they’re not certain on the details yet. 2. Satisfied customers. Unless you’re the first customer to walk through their door, the best contractors should be able to give you a long list of satisfied customers to peruse. They might even be willing to put you in contact with a few, depending on the nature of their confidentiality agreements and the amiability of their prior customers. On the other hand, don’t take complaints you find on the internet too seriously—if they make specific claims, maybe watch for those, but people make more noise about their unfortunate edge cases than their completely normal success stories online. 3. Options. A good contractor for Houston garage door repair will probably be able to run a few options past you in terms of expense, time frame, and other factors. A good business might offer a single un-budging solution to your problem, but be suspicious if there’s not the slightest hint of flexibility, as that inflexibility might be a mask for a low degree of confidence in their ability to adapt to your needs. 4. Guarantees. Good contract work of any kind should come with reasonable guarantees of that work. Research what a healthy guarantee looks like in your region—if a Houston garage door repair company offers guarantees significantly worse than their local competitors, that’s a bad sign. If they offer one significantly better, that’s a very good sign; companies don’t make that kind of guarantee if they expect to lose money upholding it. Good guarantees mean guarantees you won’t need to use. 5. Web presence. A modern professional enterprise that doesn’t maintain a healthy web presence is a rarity at best; expect dated approaches across the board from companies with outdated or nonexistent online footprints, as this is essentially the bare bones effort a company should put in to modernize. It may not seem like it matters much how modern your garage door repair company is under the hood, but their inefficiency translates to your higher bill and worse outcomes; invest in companies that invest in themselves, and you won’t regret it. 6. BBB report. A Better Business Bureau report isn’t necessarily all you need to judge a company, but it can be a good indicator of a particular problem or set of problems with that company. If you see consistent complaints about a particular issue, consider whether you’re willing to risk being on the receiving end of that problem. On the other hand, a clean BBB record isn’t any more necessarily a sign that a company isn’t up to any funny business, just that no one’s bothered reporting them. They might still be underachievers; just not egregiously bad. 7. Licensing, insurance, etc. Obviously, you want to work with a company that’s properly licensed, insured, and adhering to whatever’s expected from the city, state, and federal governments for your contract work. Any Houston garage door repair company that’s reticent about any of these things should be viewed with extreme caution; there’s no reason for them to be anything but up front and honest about their documentation, unless there’s a problem with that documentation. Be alert! 8. Keeping on schedule. Schedule slippage isn’t always avoidable, but do you really want to spend money on a Houston garage door repair professional when they can’t show up on time to inspect your problem and give you a quote? By the time you notice any other evidence of an inability to stay on schedule, it’s likely too late to back out cleanly, so pay close attention to their scheduling for early meetings, and look out for complaints about schedule slip from other clients—especially if you need your repairs completed in a hurry. Even if you don’t care about the speed of the repair, an inability to maintain a schedule’s a bad sign from any professional. 9. Payment oddities. If a contractor wants you to pay them in some odd way, run for the hills. Be wary of contractors who demand very large up-front sums, anyone who wants cash-only payments, or offer unusually low offers. If you’re not sure what a normal cost looks like, don’t hesitate to investigate other companies in the area to get a basic understanding of the standards. 10. Professionalism. There may be plenty of highly competent contractors out there without the slightest hint of professionalism in how they deal with customers, but they’re a comparative rarity. If a contractor can’t put on their professional face long enough to get through a conversation with you, take it as a warning sign. Not a run-for-the-hills sign, but it’s something you should pause and consider. If something goes wrong, do you want to deal with a professional Houston garage door repair contractor, or someone who comes across as ‘some guy that fixes things’. Make a choice you can live with. Ultimately, finding a good Houston garage door repair company comes down to staying informed, asking questions, and paying attention to the little details. A bad company may be able to put on a superficial ‘good face’, but when you get past the façade the good and the bad separate themselves very quickly. — Sources: https://www.angieslist.com/articles/10-warning-signs-when-hiring-contractor.htm

Archives