Steve Payne
Contractor referral program claims “less than 1 per cent” of Quebecers “very confident” in renovators
Canadian ContractorReno-Assistance makes some pretty big claims in this press release. Contractors, let us know what you think of them.
Press release below from Canada News Wire, whose client is obviously a contractor referral program called Reno-Assistance…
Editor’s Note: OK, so in this survey 0% of men were “very confident” in renovation contractors in Quebec. 0% of respondents in Greater Montreal trusted the renovation industry more than the auto industry, banking or telecommunications industry.
Hmm….
Contractors, in the COMMENTS field below, please let us know what you think of the credibility of this particular press release. Let us know if you are “very confident” in its accuracy.
Exclusive survey on consumer confidence in renovation contractors – Less than 1% report feeling “very confident” in them
Montreal, June 16, 2016 /CNW Telbec/ – As the renovation season hits its stride, a new survey shows that more than half of Quebecers polled don’t trust renovation contractors. According to this Réno-Assistance survey conducted by Léger, 55% of respondents indicated a lack of confidence in renovation contractors; that percentage rose to nearly 2/3 for male respondent. Even if women are slightly more trusting, only 1% of them report feeling “very confident”, as opposed to 0% of men.
0% of Montrealers trust the renovation industry more than the automobile, banking or telecommunications industries
The results also showed that the reputation of the construction and renovation industry is at the bottom of the list, when compared with the automobile, banking and telecommunications sectors. Only 3% of respondents claimed to have more confidence in the renovation and construction industry. This percentage drops to 0% in the Greater Montreal Region.
If you’re wealthy, beware!
This distruct of the construction and renovation industry can perhaps be explained, among other reasons, by negative personal experiences. In fact, 39% of those who completed the survey reported having had or knowing someone who had a negative renovation experience. This percentage rises to 48% among households with an average annual income of $100,000+. It is interesting to note that wealthier households are more likely to be overcharged or have their deposit stolen.
Work that is often botched and needs to be redone
Among those who reported having had or knowing someone who had a negative renovation experience, 83% say it was botched work that needed to be redone. The second most cited reason was work that took much longer than agreed upon (45%), being overcharged (25%) and projects that were abandoned by the contractor (14%). This suspicion towards the construction industry is also nuanced by the fact that 54% of respondents indicated that they didn’t know any trustworthy contractors. This number rises in larger cities, as opposed to the regions, where more respondents claim to know a reliable contractor.
The renovation industry is not sufficiently regulated to protect the consumer
According to this survey, consumers do not feel confident when dealing with a renovation contractor; 70% of respondents think that the industry doesn’t have enough safeguards to protect consumers.
These results do not surprise Eric Périgny, President and Founder of Réno-Assistance: “The results confirm what we already know. Moreover, despite my training in the field and my studies in administration, I have personally lost thousands of dollars in bad renovation experiences before launching Réno-Assistance.”
Réno-Assistance to the rescue
It’s in order to minimize risks for consumers dealing with construction and renovation contractors, that Réno-Assistance was launched in 2010 and implemented the 360° Verified Contractor process and the Contractor Confidence Index.
“This is not a marketing smokescreen. We have a dedicated verification team that uses exclusive tools to minimize risks for our clients. With our experience of more than 50,000 projets handled, our success rate for avoiding the nightmare of a bad renovation project is very nearly 100%. And since our service is free and comes with no obligation for the consumer, clients have nothing to lose in asking for our advice and assistance,” adds Mr. Périgny.
Methodology
This online survey for Réno-Assistance was conducted by the Léger-Recherche Stratégie Conseil firm with a pool of 485 Quebecers 25 years of age and older with an annual family income of $60,000+, between May 25-27, 2016.
About Réno-Assistance
Réno-Assistance is a true lifeline for consumers who don’t know where to turn when it comes time to start a renovation project. Once a project is submitted on the www.renoassistance.ca website, a renovation expert from one of the four different departments (home extentions, interior projects, exterior projects, commercial projects) will accompany the client with his project. Up to three handpicked contractors will compete in a bidding process and the client will receive a 360° Verified report on each contractor, which indicates their score on the Contractor Confidence Index (CCI), an innovative and exclusive tool developed by Réno-Assistance to minimize consumer risk.
A team of 35 employees, including 20 renovation consultants, will ensure that a maximum amount of information needed to minimize risk and reward those contractors who are honest and organized, and who satisfy their clients time after time.
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Considering the fact that Reno Assistance was behind the survey I would have to say it is all bunk. I cannot believe that they could find so few people that had nothing positive to say about their renovation experience. This just isn’t possible.
For those that had negative experiences I would say that in many cases it was the home owners own fault. I have a hard time understanding how consumers select a contractor. Most people would buy a watch or jewelry from a guy on the street displaying them from the inside of his coat. They wouldn’t buy furniture from a truck pared in a back alley. But they will hire someone from Kijiji without doing any back ground check to work in their house. In most cases the consumer brings the bad experience on themselves, usually because they are simply interested in the lowest possible price.
If you want a great experience from you renovation then start with hiring a reputable, licenced, bonded contractor. Someone with a proven track record of happy clients. And in order to get that contractor you will usually have to accept that they will NOT be the cheapest.
In my experience those customers who are the least likely to trust you are the ones ready to screw you, their business partners and customers. They are also the ones looking for cash deals, under table labourers and the first ones to scream foul if they feel cheated.
Those who make an honest living, who worked hard to get where they are in life are the most respectful, trust your opinion and look for qualified trades.
Hi
My company does high end renovations, restorations, additions etc. in the residential sector as well as some commercial work. All my clients are by referral, so I must assume that at least some of them have confidence in my organization. I’ve worked the Montreal market for 35 years and until I read this article had no knowledge of Reno-Assistance.
If they have 35 qualified employees with the construction building skills required to oversee and intelligently comment and criticize a contractors work, and their service is free, who pays their estimated 3.5 million worth of salaries plus the profit which I’m assuming the company must make.
I’m sure Reno Assistance will claim that it’s the Contractors who pay a referral fee or membership fee which no doubt in turn gets charged somehow back to the consumer.
I submit that if I mandated a Leger pole on “how many contractors had confidence in contractor referral companies”, I would get close to zero. (at least in Quebec)
At one time (during my career), it was not uncommon to have an experienced representative from the City of Montreal visit the job site to inspect the quality of the work. Responsibility for quality control and code adherence etc., has now been transferred to the architect, engineer and builder.
In theory this sounds like a simple solution. The three principals are jointly and severally responsible to the client, kind of like a “Construction Management approach” .
The architect bills the client for site visits.
The engineer bills the client for site visits.
And,
The Cost of the project increases to the point where the owner starts considering black market labor because it’s just too expensive to contract the work legally (unless it’s institutional where we all pay for the overpriced work).
This may be a little oversimplified, but in my sector (in Quebec), if there is a need for “Contractor referral ” companies, the consumer confidence problem has been created by the Government and their “never ending” obligation to continue dancing with the trade unions, financing companies, insurance companies, etc.