Why are trades people so incredibly unreliable?!

[motherofkevinnotperry]

I need someone to explain why. What's so difficult with "I'm sorry, I'm not able to do that" or "I'm going to be late", "I'm fully booked", "I need to reschedule" etc etc. How long do you give them before moving on and finding someone else?

I have had more than my fair share of trades just not turning up, making false promises on work then not fulfilling it. They're all so unorganised and terrible communicators. It's so infuriating. Just tell me!

Yes I mentioned either on this thread or another that offering to be flexible helped us get a job done sooner than anticipated because we picked up a cancellation.

I've asked this a few times and it's a genuine question because my DP spends most evenings dealing with quotes etc. how do you quote for a job if you're not the trade?

I'm not an electrician so if I did have the time to help (which I don't), how could I do anything useful?

Christ @kirinm 🤣.

Admin and all that entails. The things other people do running a business. Nobody's asking you to quote for a dodgy loo or boiler.

Though one plumber's girlfriend had posted glowing reviews for him under her own name (the stupidity 😀) I wouldn't advise doing that. It turned out to be misleading also.

What usually happens is that they jot down number of hours, cost of parts, etc and the admin person types it up professionally, totals it up, emails/posts it, files a copy, checks the file of quotes occasionally to chase up as necessary. You can even set up "job sheets" with just tick boxes etc for common jobs, i.e. a decorator may always want to include a charge for materials such as sandpaper, caulk, masking tape for every job, so it's a tick box for that. They may jot down "one tin undercoat, one tin gloss" and let the admin person get the prices from the wholesalers, saving the decorator himself from spending time. It's all about reducing the time of the tradesman and getting someone else to do everything the other person can do!

That's exactly how admin/accounts depts work in bigger firms - it's really no different to a one man band. In a bigger firm, the person doing the quotes gives the admin/accounts person all the details they need for formally creating and sending the quote. The admin person, over time, gets to know more and more about the work - yes they may be "raw" and not know much at first, but if you're regularly creating quotes and invoices, you should pretty quickly build up experience and start to "second guess"! The admin person could also set up their own list or database of common parts/materials, prices from each supplier, etc., so that they don't have to "google" for every part on the quote, they can then also do the ordering when the job is ready to start, i.e. order a,b and c from supplier A and items x,y,z from supplier B so that saves time and also saves money as there's more chance of getting the cheapest when you can plan in advance rather than the tradesman having to drive around wasting fuel and time and ending up buying more expensively on the day itself!

So basically everyone expects tradesmen to either have an admin assistant or utilise their family members. That can only be done by increasing prices - which will then be used as another stick to beat them with.

I wish they'd tell you it's going to take longer, then you're all happy when the job finishes early rather than pissed off because it's dragged on!

You don’t know much about trades IRL, do you 😂😂

Do you think they want jobs to take longer than planned? They lose money that way - if they're pricing it on a day rate. They want the job finished sooner than you do.

ah well, at least they have their bank accounts going for them 😂

So meanwhile, I have some (genuine) questions.

Background:
Need a thing done in house. Big thing by my standards.
Asked around, got several recommendations. Contacted all.
All but two didn't respond.
One didn't respond after my first reply to them (for reference, my reply consisted of politely thanking them for responding and answering in the affirmative to their question about whether I was available for them to come and quote on such-and-such week).
The second took several weeks of reminders to come and quote. Then took a couple of weeks to send the quote.
It has now been a further couple of weeks since I replied to the quote saying YES PLEASE WHEN CAN YOU START (but politely, with fewer caps).

Question:
If I now get somebody else to quote and possibly give them the job, will I have become the horrible flaky customer who changed my mind and screwed over the tradesman after he's gone to all the unspeakable unpaid trauma of quoting?
If I do try to get somebody else to quote, how the heck does anybody else get this magic thing to happen?

I'd be looking elsewhere. You're not beholden to them.

🤣
A sole trader plumber with a paid admin assistant! I don't think that's usual.

If they're so disorganised or busy that they can't manage their own admin and appointments then obviously they need help or they'll lose more business.

If you are shit at admin, don't run your own business, go and work for someone else.

Not at all. If the tradesman themselves are spending more of their day actually doing the work, rather than running around randomly between jobs and suppliers, and doing paperwork, then they'll make more money which pays for the admin assistant. The sheer inefficiency is costing them money. We have an excellent plumber, but he's completely chaotic - he turns up for a planned job only to find he's not brought the parts, so has to go and get them, then he does the same again later in the job because he didn't even buy all the parts he needed. Several times he's not bothered sending us a bill and we've had to chase him, a couple of times, he's sent a bill but missed off some work he did, which we've had to remind him about. When he's here, it's just one phone call after another chasing him for something he's promised and forgotten, etc.

It's a relatively recent trend for tradesmen to attempt to do all their own admin. I've been an accountant for 40 years (close to retirement now!). Back in the 80s when I started, most sole traders had someone doing their admin, often it was a wife or daughter, but lots also had part time admin/book-keepers who just did a few hours per week (some did a few hours per week for several sole traders!).

That's even more possible today with the internet and online PAs working by the hours, who are very common and popular, where the PA doesn't even have to be geographically close to the tradesmen, and can manage the diary from anyway, order goods online from anywhere, do their book-keeping from anywhere, take their phone calls from anywhere, etc.

Unfortunately, the internet, software and apps has given tradesmen the illusion they can do it all themselves and don't need admin support, but most can't!

No, you engage someone who isn't shit at admin to do it for you!

People need to stop making excuses for unreliable tradesmen .

Yeah that works too but @kirinm seems to be ruling that out

This is my experience too.

I would add that any self employed tradesman needs to factor in at least half a day a week for admin and probably another half day for quotes. That means they can only work 4 out 5 days. They need to plan their time and prices accordingly otherwise they will always be running around trying to keep everyone happy.

My latest experience with a carpenter here for the day was that he spent more time outside on the phone dealing with admin issues, ordering materials etc., than he did doing the job. Now he needs to come back for another day to finish what he could have done if he hadn't been dealing with admin.

The better alternative is to find an admin assistant to answer the phone, do the invoicing etc. Unfortunately for them, most of their wives are now working their own jobs so aren't available as unpaid labour like they used to be.

Yes, I can see that lots of workmen struggle with the admin, because their either
a. Don’t allow enough time in their working week to do it themselves
or
b. Don’t organise someone else to do it for them.

Without one of an and b there are going to be problems, because the admin is vital to running the business and giving the customers decent customer service….being reliable.

The trouble is too many workmen aren’t allowing enough time for this. It’s a problem.

I work in property and it’s been harder than ever to get trades this past year or so. I have a good roster but they are increasingly hard to book. They get a lot of repeat business from my projects, which can have huge budgets, but I still have to get in line with everyone else. As PP said, the good ones can pick and choose. Nothing to do with being bad at admin, or ADHD FFS. It’s simply market forces and a lot of European tradespeople going back to their country of origin.

I think you need to have a think again if you believe those who enter the trades are not academically able! Many of them are. In my own family (not meaning just my own children) we have a time served plumber (own business) a time served electrician (own business) and a time served joiner (own business). 3 very different but very able men. The one thing they did not want was to incur student debt.

You won't appreciate it if I say I envy you, but I do! Oh, I've had my share of tradespeople who ignore my initial contact or promise to come but apparently disappear into thin air. But my situation is worse than that and I don't know what to do to make it right. My tradesman came, looked at the job, sent me a quote, came to do the job when he said he would. All very nice. But he's either inept or, because he's had most of the money from me now, is just content to skip off without completing it. And he did it in such a terrible, scary way that I can't face stirring up yet more trouble by calling out Trading Standards on him. Those tv shows about "rip-off Britain", etc, all make it look so simple to call these people to account. But they haven't looked into the eyes of a psychopathic madman as he stands on their property screaming bloody murder at you four inches from your face. Lucky you, that they just aren't as polite as they should be!

I have a fairly reliable company or two that I use and have done for over 20 years because you book by email (my preference which is why I stick with them). They are not the cheapest but have good contacts with a range of people including one man who has been coming here for over 20 years who was here last week replacing the cord on a sash window and is back with electrician next week to replace a light at roof height and mend an internal light switch. I live in outer London so we probably have quite a few workers here and I always pay the day I am invoiced so they probably like me and I always fit around the times they suggest (or perhaps I am just lucky). I have however had other people over the years who do not turn up when they say they will or cancel on the day and it is very annoying.