Ok, so you’re self employed. You’ve decided to set up on your own and give it a go. Now you need to get rated.....why? Let us explain

The majority of people are no longer using thick paper directories like the Yellow Pages and now turn to the internet to find their local tradesman and check out their reputation. Online tradesman directories like Rated People and Check A Trade give tradesman the power to get their business in front of a larger audience and to show their work.

They basically help re-assure customers that you're not a cowboy and won’t rip them off. You still need to show your competent, competitive and a nice person to win the work though.

Most of the online tradesman directories offer a rating service for each company based on Reliability & timekeeping, tidiness, value for money and workmanship. Each time you do a job, you can ask your customer to rate you on the site and this will help show future customers how great your work is.

All sounds good right? But what if it goes wrong?

Sometimes it does. You do a job and have a misunderstanding or disagreementwiththecustomer,eventhoughthey’realwaysright😉 and you get left a negative review. What can you do?

More and more customers are only using these websites to find tradesman and a bad rating can potentially mean a loss of business for you. Fortunately,

both sites make it clear to the customer that one bad rating is nothing to be alarmed at, and if the good outweigh the bad then it’s usually chalked up to a bad day.

These site’s don’t come free of charge so you need to decide whether you feel it’s worth having your business listed and rated as opposed to your other means of getting new work.

What’s your experience with these sites? Are they worth the money? Do you get more business from being on them? Let us know what you think by texting FIX plus your message to: 81400