In an industry not known for reliability and punctuality, you may experience more contractors who don’t show up/don’t call more than the ones who actually do.
These beliefs hold some weight. In an old (but likely still relevant) poll from 2008, Gallup found that only 23% of people believe that contractors are trustworthy.
Why is it that so many contractors are unreliable? What contributes to their unreliableness? Is it intentional or unintentional?
Inexperience and Disorganization
Many contractors who enter the trade often do so as a “one man (or woman) show” because they have the skills to perform the work. Before long, they realize that running a business is more than completing projects.
It includes invoicing, cash flow management, inventory and supplies, scheduling, and more back office work than they probably ever cared to do.
And thus this is often the contributing factor to the problem.
For people who like working “on the go” sitting down to organize, schedule, and plan simply don’t come naturally. And if you don’t make the time to organize then things often fall between the cracks.
Conflicts for appointments arise, projects get delayed, and things happen without rhyme or reason. This is the perfect recipe for a disastrous workflow.
Therefore a contractor who wants to be more reliable must start by being more organized in order to plan and execute better.
Lack of Tools or Software
The construction industry has undergone tremendous innovations in both the equipment and the software to run operations.
In order to do your job better it requires the willingness to adopt these innovations rather than resist them. Imagine a software that can handle and organize all your incoming leads. Or one that will automatically invoice when you complete a job and continue to automatically follow up for unpaid invoices.
A contractor who is still doing things “the old fashioned” way will fall behind and operate inefficiently (and unreliably)
Conversely, a contractor that starts to utilize these tools will find that the tools and software will aid in them running a better, more efficient business. And in doing so, they will likely become more reliable.
Fly By Night Contractors
Make no mistake that there are a group of contractors that you should never work with under any circumstance.
The ones that “seem too good to be true”. Remember the project management triangle about the three constraints? It explains that among quality, price, and time you can only have two. If a contractor is promising you the moon then you likely want to avoid.
Additionally, we wanted to understand why some contractors are so shady so we did our own analysis on the reasons we think this is true. That article will also give you some tips on how to discern shady contractors from reputable ones.
Summary
While we’re first to the admit the construction industry is riddled with bad apples, we promise there are some good, reliable ones out there. One unique way to weed out which contractor to use would be to have them explain how they’ll fulfill the work. This includes what processes and tools they’ll use, how do they perform quality assessments, and what warranty is offered (if any).
