Face Off

We get a few qualified leads each day from our own Web site. But we've also received high-quality leads from our sponsorship of neighborhood referral and community Web sites, as well as from members' referrals to our company from those sites. Specifically, we have seen an increase in lead traffic because of our sponsorship of the Neighbors–Great Falls, Va., site [www.neighbors-gf.com]. Because it is a community forum, the site's members — consumers — trust the lead source; it's like getting a contractor referral from a friend or a family member.

The site posts referrals for all types of companies from members [consumers], who are required to attach their names to the referral, giving it credibility. Another critical factor is that the Neighbors site does not allow negative references. We all know that there may be a variety of reasons for a customer's negative experience, and if the contractor's side can't be heard, it is a waste of time to feature negative referrals.

Neighbors requires no referral fee from the contractor. We've tried sites that require such a fee, and I will never use those again, since, most often, we ended up paying for unqualified leads or not-serious buyers.

With the decreasing effectiveness of print advertising, the introduction of “Do Not Call” laws, and the overall rise in true marketing costs, Internet referral sites could be the answer we are all looking for. But be careful of the sites you choose to align your company with. Many fail to make the grade when it comes to fairness, accountability, and integrity.

Kevin Shiner
Shiner Roofing
Fairfax, Va.
Big50 2006

We had read testimonials and heard stories of contractors generating a sizable amount of work from ServiceMagic leads [www.servicemagic.com] and it made sense that as more people are using the Internet, this would be the wave of the future. So we signed on with ServiceMagic some time around 2003 or 2004.

We were sent leads by e-mail. We would then qualify them by type of work and location before accepting the lead. We were only charged for the leads we accepted — about $25 to $50 depending upon the anticipated size of the project or estimated budget.

During the year or so we were signed on to ServiceMagic's program we spent about $1,200 for leads, and did not do a single project from those leads. Most people would not even return our phone calls.

We finally concluded that, at the least, it was a program that our potential customers were not ready for. It may also have been unclear to potential customers as to exactly what they were committing to when they gave their information to ServiceMagic. Hopefully, that company is now doing a better job of orienting its respondents.

This experience also reinforced what we already knew: The people we want to do business with in Small Town, Middle America buy remodeling services from contractors who they know or who have been recommended by their friends.

Tom Menold
Menold Construction and Restoration
Morton, Ill.
Big50 2004

Hanley Wood, which publishes REMODELING, has a business relationship with ServiceMagic.