Considering Gutter Guards in Kansas City: Four Pitfalls to Avoid
- The Company: Even the best products must be installed properly to work. Some questions to ask when evaluating the company:
- “Do they use subcontractors?” If they don’t hire, train and maintain their own employees, quality is hard to control.
- “Is this the company’s specialty?” A jack-of-all-trades often does not lead to the best result in any home improvement project. If our plumber does our electrical, our electrician does our roof, and our carpenter lays our driveway, we likely will end up with an end result we are not satisfied with. The same is true of roofers, carpenters, painters or window installers selling and installing gutter guard.
- “Are the claims made by the company realistic?” Over-promising leads to frustration and buyers regret. Look for honesty, reasonableness and forthrightness when it comes to the company, product, maintenance and warranty.
- The Product: Look for products with proven designs that will take care of the trees and debris unique to your home. For example, just because a product has a good reputation elsewhere in the country does not mean it will work with your unique needs. To know this, focus on a good LOCAL reputation and have any representative explain how the product will interact with your tree debris.
- Sales Tactics: As in all industries, be cautious of high-pressure sales tactics. Many have also found it beneficial to avoid companies that focus on criticizing other people, companies and products rather than fixing your problem. That is often a warning of negative experiences to come. The following guidelines might help:
- Research the company on several different websites and see if there are any complaints about the sales process.
- Be cautious of bogus and arbitrary time-pressure tactics that try to force you into a decision before you are ready.
- You have the right to expect the representative of that company to be professional with you. If they are late, rude, offensive, pushy or negative take it as an indication of what your experience will be with that company as a whole.
- Reputation: As in all industries, look for the following when it comes to online reputation:
- Variety: Look for a good reputation across multiple platforms. In Kansas City look at Google, Angie’s List, BBB, Yellow Pages, Facebook, etc.
- Genuine: Despite these review companies best efforts, we know reviews can be synthetic. So look for reviews with personalized information in them spread out over a period of time.