To those very few who are still bored enough to keep on ingesting my amateur and bland writing style, “Sorry it’s been so long since my last post!”
For us Kansas City deck builders, March through May is by far the busiest time of our building year. I know, that’s a poor excuse for not posting more often. However, I’ve also recently expended a significant amount of time and energy battling some erroneous and unfair reports on our Angie’s List profile.
Any professional deck builder or other business owner in the United States has most likely heard of Angie’ List. In fact, if you watch network TV long enough, you’re bound to see one of their national commercials. Their popularity, and therefore size, has grown tremendously over the last few years.
When Angie’s list first originated, it had a very unique niche. It was a forum for which consumers could join into an organization and gain UNBIASED information on companies. Whether the testimonials were good or bad, authentic reports on real experiences were placed any business put into the list. And the only way a business could get onto Angie’s List was by a member’s submission. Only Angie’s List members were allowed to report and review the information on the businesses within the list. This was checked very closely by administrative follow up calls and a direct line of questioning. This also held true of some other referral based services. However, the main difference Angie’s List had going for it was that it NEVER allowed for businesses to buy their way onto the list and enhance their position by financial contribution. That philosophy is what ORIGINALLY set Angie’s List apart and made them such a reliable source for consumers to research a business, organization, or professional. Those moral and ethical principles are what grew the organization so quickly. But that was then, this is now.
Today, I see more and more business easily adding flawless reports to their Angie’s List profiles. It’s amazing how some of these notoriously inferior deck builders and contactors who I always hear horror stories about have perfect A grades on Angie’s List. Oh, and by the way, they are also the same ones investing a ton of advertising within the list. The other gripe I have is the lack of oversight and evenhandedness given to the reports written about a company. For instance, I believe our company has ten or eleven reports attached to our Angie’s List profile. If you look at the reports, we have something like six or seven from people we’ve worked for and three or four who we’ve never even done business with.
The ones we’ve worked for have all given us A grades and even straight A’s across each category, except for one customer who gave us a B on price. I can’t argue with him. Frankly, I’m surprised we don’t have more because we’re not cheap. However, that same customer still gave us an A on everything else and said he’d definitely hire us again.
Then we have three or four from people who have never even walked through neither our door, nor us through theirs. We received very poor grades, mostly F’s, from these people who never received our services or gave us one red cent! One said that the price we quoted over the phone was too high. Another didn’t like the fact that we said her project was not within our scope of expertise. One lady even went as far as to accuse our salesman of being sexist because he showed the proposal to her husband before herself.
Another, and this one I still can’t get over, gave us a C grade. He initially contacted us through a contact form on our website. Our salesman tried returning his email and calling numerous times to set up a time to come out and give an estimate. The emails kept coming back “undeliverable” and the phone number he gave us didn’t work. All of our salesmen are mandated to save records of contact and attempts of contact, just in case. Sometimes in today’s world, you even have to prove your attempt to service a bid request. So after never being able to reach this gentleman, and he never attempting to contact us again, he decides to go onto Angie’s List and give us a C grade. I’ll just copy and paste his exact response verbatim, and you can derive your own opinion:
(Part of the member’s report posted)
Description Of Work:
This supplier was delayed in responding to my inquiry. A contract for the work had already been let at that time.
Member Comments:
A problem with my phone line may have been the cause of the delay.
Our company returned four separate emails and returned two phone calls for this gentleman’s bid request. He is the one who failed to respond to our attempts of contact. By his admission in his member comments above – “A problem with my phone line may have been the cause of the delay.” Yet, he finds it necessary to go onto this forum and give us a C! For what? Trying to contact him?
Keep in mind, a grade like this not only affects our overall Angie’s List grade, but is also posted before we’ve had any opportunity to rebut, dispute or state our side of the story. That chance is only given after the report is made public to Angie’s List members. Even then, it’s only attached to the bottom of the review which stays no matter the validity or reason. They sure could take some tips from the Better Business Bureau on how to responsibly arbitrate material posted for public viewing. Angie’s List claims to not be an arbitrator, but they really should take some sort of accountability since they are publishing and promoting a forum which displays this type of unfair and unjust slander. If not, they’re simply destroying the reverence for business ethics that claim to be the founding principles of their service.
Nowadays, Angie’s List will sell positioning and advertising to any business which is willing to give it to them. They sell advertising slots such as phone ads, web campaigns, and even gold highlighted profile listings which moves a company’s name to the top of their category no matter what their actual grade may be. All of which insinuates to its own members the business which is featured and being pushed in front of them is the best company to choose. Whereas, in fact, it’s actually just the business whose just fronting the most dough. Truly, an astonishing deceit and betrayal of the very people who make the organization what it is.
You see, Angie’s List used to solely take revenue from its memberships and didn’t allow business to buy in. Now, they’ve decided to have their cake and eat it too. They’re double dipping in the cheesy sauce our free enterprise system allows. Being a business owner myself, I have no problems with what they’re doing to get rich. That’s the American dream. However, I truly believe it will be their demise.
They now lump themselves in with every other referral based service such as Service Magic, Reliable remodeler, and a thousand others. The only difference in Angie’s list now is that they’re charging both their members and the businesses which join. Now that’s something that really sets them apart! For their sake, I sure hope they’re highly profitable right now because the American consumer is much savvier than that, especially in today’s world. Before too long, this kind of gluttony is liable to catch up with them.
Angie’s List 2010 is a whole different organization. Like many business and characters before it, it appears as though Angie’s List has succumbed to the greed and money making capability of today’s society. They seem to have used their righteous principles only as a platform to leap off of instead of a foundation to build from.
I can tell you that a plethora of Kansas City deck builders, contractors, and other companies echo my sentiments on these issues. And although I don’t often communicate with many other businesses across the country, I’m sure we’re not the only ones.
Hope this helps,
Dan Milford (DW Elite Decks – Kansas City deck builder)