Another Lowes Subcontractor Question

romeroinstall

I know many of you are against subcontracting for Lowes I am giving it a shot along with working at other local stores to keep busy and food on the table. Do any of you that have experience working for them know if they let you know if a customer decides not to purchase the flooring once you have completed the detail.

I was just wondering received my weekly workload and one of the details i did last weekend is not showing on the report as pending. Maybe if customer tells them no purchase they just delete and do not inform us.

Any input?

mnjconstruction

I don't know too much about it, but I have a friend who does installs for them and loves it. I saw him a few months back driving a new pickup, so he must be doing all right. Hey we all got to do what we got to do to make it through these tough times. Nothing wrong with doing a little work for lowes!

SLSTech

Call your Lowe's rep & ask

I take it the detail is the estimate / measurment?

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JonM

I would think you would call the customer a couple days before the scheduled install to secure it...

romeroinstall

Thanks for the feedback guys. I have a meeting Thursday am with them so I will make sure to ask any questions I can think of. Well see how everything works out. Hope everyone has a great day.

gumba

As a subcontractor of Lowes you will go to a job that is pr3esented with materials supposedly order at POS at the Lowes store, shipped to the store and then packaged for you to take to the job. You will be responsible to complete the job and obtained on your NCR Lowes form the customers approval on your work and the items that they ordered. That's really where you can eat your shorts and then sum. The order is brought in to their stores by private shippers and brought into stock by a part time night crew which has little connection to the Lowes flooring department.There is really no verification by Lowes receiving of all the correct trims and "what have you" on this order that you are about to install.
I think you can paint the picture on how the poop can hit the fan!!

romeroinstall

The 1st thing we are to do when we get to the customer site is inspect the materials with customer to insure everything is correct if anything is missing or incorrect we will not perform the installation. Well see keeping fingers crossed.

Crock

yep truck payment is about 300 per month plus full coverage ins. they must pay good. i think i'm going to look into it.

rusty baker

Just make sure you have good credit. Don't know what it has to do with installing, but they expect you to have good credit.

Floordude

So, they pay you for a dry run, if there is something missing???

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romeroinstall

I am under the impression they would pay a trip charge and if it is over 20 miles from store they pay you mileage even when doing details.

Crock

Not to mention the fact that the store manager makes his money on bonuses. His bonus per quarter is figured on many things, but one is his plus on installs. If he can delay your money he gets a bigger bonus. So be prepared for slow payments 4 times a year.

DavidC

I would make certain to inspect all materials at the store, before loading your truck, with install dept. personel at hand. Lowes management is very concerned with cost control, one method of control is to shift resposibility to the installer. Your best protection is to not leave the store with missing or defective merchadise unless you have a signature to document the fact.

And do not contact the customer yourself to try to close the sale. That is Lowes customer and the sale is theirs to make or lose.

Your original question is best directed to the install manager. Generally speaking they won't show up on your workload until the customer signs and pays in advance. That could be days, weeks or months later if at all. They do have a good closing rate overall.

There is some money to be made doing installs. It will be smaller than you would be able to do on your own but will be reasonably steady. But you must learn the system and play it as much as they do.

Good Luck
Dave

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