Most people in today’s day and age will use Google as a go to tool to find a local or trusted tradesman, however only a small number of customers will successfully book with a local and trusted tradesman. Through the 90s and the early 2000s finding a local tradesman was much easier because of the aid of companies like Yellow Pages and Thomson Local, however over the years online search engines have slowly erased the need for big yellow catalogues containing mainly local companies.
Today, if you wanted to book a local locksmith, for example, most of you will go onto Google and type in the search bar specific keywords to narrow down your searches to local companies, for example “Locksmiths Nottingham”. Then you would click search and expect only local companies to appear in the results, but unfortunately you will get more results of companies pretending to be local, these companies will generally appear on Google in the sponsored listings which companies will pay a lot of money for the privilege.
This has an impact on you as the consumer because you will get passed down the costs of multiple different expenses, such as the cost of the click which can range from averagely 50p-£20.00, the cost of the subcontractor doing the work, company which is usually 50% of the total bill and then you also have to fund a call centre. In the locksmith industry we call them “49ners” or “nationals” – they will advertise for £49.00 making you believe you are getting a cheap deal but once they arrive at your property the cost of the work increases dramatically and often leaving you paying 4 times the amount of which you would if you had booked a genuine local locksmith.
Where can you find sponsored listings?
Local listings can be found right at the top of the page once you’ve clicked search, this is a paid privilege to appear at the top giving them the best chance of the customer clicking and enquiring first. They then proceed to book you in by offering an unbeatable quote which just isn’t sustainable for the company. What they are giving you is a “call out fee” – a fee for them just to arrive on site and take a look without touching a single tool.
Companies with massive marketing budgets usually try to go in as many local towns as cities across the country, making everybody believe they are local to you but in fact they are probably local to London or other high-end cities, they have no knowledge of the trade and rely on any subcontractor who is struggling for work to carry out the job often with little knowledge of the trade themselves.
So where can I find a local tradesman?
Often you will find local tradesman in the map listing section of Google, although some companies find a way to even advertise there.
Once on the map listing section of google you must then do your homework to find the best suited genuine local trades person to you. The genuine local tradesman is usually a sole trader who lives in and around the city/town local to you and often advertises a mobile number or puts up photos of himself carrying out local work. Customers often get confused with big fancy websites and photos of multiple work personnel and vehicles. This creates an image of a company doing well which makes you believe that the job you will get will be a fair price and the work will be carried out to the best standard it possibly can be, don’t be fooled!
The best person for the job is the genuine local tradesman with experience in his own area and no bosses or office personnel telling him ways to save money and cut corners, often the people in the office are novice to the trade and carry no experience.
Experience cannot be brought, it must be earned through hard work and multiple jobs completed by an individual.
Even in a panic situation you must remain calm and never call the first person that appears in the search bar and instantly instruct the work to go ahead, not before trying for another quote first at least, always call 3 different people in the map listing section if possible.
The local tradesman will usually answer the phone and you can talk to the same person you will be dealing with at your front door. Always ask questions about pricing and if they are genuinely local, if you call the local tradesman in Nottingham and the person you are calling picks up the phone with a London or a Newcastle accent then maybe its best to avoid them.
Always look at previous reviews and try get recommendations. A lot of people will also advertise in the map listings as local which is not allowed by Google but companies still find a way, often they subcontract work at 50% and advertise once again in multiple cities, why pay the extra 50% when you can just find the one man band that is excellent at his job and 100% local, they are out there but its down to you as the consumer to find them as sole traders don’t usually have big budgets to advertise which in turn they often appear slightly lower in the local map listings usually 3rd position or less.
In the locksmith trade watchdog has caught a few of the non-local national companies ripping people off, the episodes are worth a view.
One more consideration to make why searching for your local tradesman is to avoid bigger companies in the area with 4 or more employees as once again the cost usually gets passed down to the customers and waiting times are usually much longer. In this situation often there is a person in the office controlling the engineer’s movements and advising on site what to do with no or minimal trade experience for example: in the locksmith world these companies will often be drilling locks rather than picking them because they have a lack of experience and usually trained in house very poorly as the rotation of new staff is quite a big task for them to keep up with. Let the bigger companies keep to the council contracts which they are better equipped for while the local sole traders stick to residential and commercial property visits.
Always go with the genuine local sole trader who takes pride in his job not only are you saving costs, but you are also keeping a local family with food on their table.