Lowe's Stepping Up

Floorwizard

Installation Guarantee
Training - From Head Office
Friday, March 18, 2005

Contact:
Bob Hutter (bhutter@ccaglobal.com)
Manchester office
800-450-7595 Recently, Lowe’s announced its new Installation Services program, “Bottom Line - - If you’re not 100% satisfied with the service we provide, we’ll make it right. Guaranteed.”

In an effort to redesign their position in the residential install market, they are starting to encroach on what Carpet One considers its “specialty.”

The improvements Lowe’s has made to their new Installation Services program includes:

keeping open lines of communication with the customer from their first visit in the store to completing the installation
having customers rate their installers
screening licensed, independent installers to ensure they meet or exceed the highest professional standards in the industry
ensuring the customer’s job is done at the customer’s convenience and on time
standing behind the service they provide
(For more information, visit the Lowe’s Installation Services page on their web site.)

Look familiar? Although Lowe’s has always placed a higher value on service and installation than Home Depot, this is an aggressive move to become more like Carpet One and differentiate themselves from Home Depot.
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Carpet folks:

your thoughts?

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"in 20 years you will regret more what you did not do than what you did"

Teetorbilt

If they decide to dump the middleman and pay like Carpet One does, I might look into it again. They have a lot of making up to do here.

Mike Finley

I think the guarantee if it truly works out to be one will go a long way in solving the achiles heal they have had in regard to doing installation work.

However, unless they pay more and raise their rates I don't see how they are going to attract and retain any better contractors than before.

Floorwizard

I don't think it's about better contractors, it's really about making clients happy.
Although they are saying they will screen contractors better, what they are really saying to clients is "we are taking more liability"
Now it's true that the better the contractor- the lower the liability.
So we will see if they can put their money where their mouth is.

Carpet One warranties the carpet for the lifetime of the product, and that includes restretch. So if the installer moves away, the customer will still get the work done at a no-charge.
That costs money to the supplier.

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"in 20 years you will regret more what you did not do than what you did"

TimWieneke

What's that line from Tommy Boy "I could take a dump in a box and slap a guarantee on it. Sure, I got spare time."

IMHO, outside of state regulatory requirements, if the name of the company isn't enough of a guarantee nothing is.

Tim

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As Steve the Foreman would say, "Forgive him Lord, for he doesn't know what he's doing."

Teetorbilt

If they want to make an impression:
Let ME measure and spec materials. Not some doofus from the 'Design Dept.'.
Get some inside QC so that the delivery doesn't come in with the wrong transitions and shoe mould in 2 different colors.
Explain to the customer that they need to buy and store a minimum of one extra box of material for repairs.
Cut out the middleman. I can handle my own scheduling and paperwork, thank you very much. The last time that I thought about working for them, they were charging $2.75 and paying $1.10. Too much getting lost in the translation. Oh! They also want you on a moments notice.
That's why they got the rep for their 'soup kitchen' help.

Paul Staub

im with Tim on this one. From my perspective which is only on windows and siding, the only difference is that the customers are now getting a guaranteed peice of s--- rather than an unguaranteed peice of s---

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-Paul

Mike Finley

I was in Home Depot today and noticed in the tile department that they are advertising tile installation @ $5.00 a square foot. I charge exactly double that for my most basic installation. I guess I better cut my rates in half or get ready go out of business.

Who the hell are they getting to do that type of work for that? That means they gotta be paying something like $3-$4.00 a square foot to the installer? I guess I should look around and get some guys to do it for that and never lay another piece of tile and take a 60-70% profit margin for doing nothing!

Floorwizard

I hope you don't.

Set yourself apart from them. Make sure that HD clients are not YOUR clients.
If you can afford to.
If not, you will need to sink down to their level.

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"in 20 years you will regret more what you did not do than what you did"

Teetorbilt

Most of my customers are not the boxstore type but occasionally.........
The first thing that I do is distance myself from the boxes, be upfront. It doesn't take a mental genius to understand that I am not in a position to buy 10 train loads of tile, all of one type and color. I go on to explain that bulk buying also has it's drawbacks in that they have to limit their selection and quality. Step 3 is explaining why I'm the better deal. If they're flipping or just can't afford it, maybe we can make a deal. Most often I end up walking.

Tom R

In all reality, - - I would say Home Depot is actually doing you a favor, - - and 'weeding' out the customers that aren't willing to pay for your quality of work anyway, - - think of the time you'll save on bogus free estimates.

Teetorbilt

Free estimates? What are they? A.= A waste of time.

Floorwizard

A free estimate is not a waste of time if you can

A: Discover what kind of customer you are dealing with during your first encounter
B: Are good at selling

If you want to seperate yourself from HD then do not charge for estimates.

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"in 20 years you will regret more what you did not do than what you did"

Mike Finley

LOL, I know guys, you're preach'in to the choir. Usually in my presentation of the quote in regard to not only educating them on how lucky and blessed they are that I am going to let them purchase their tile right from the manufacturer through me, but that basically that without mincing words I don't install the crap that you can buy at Home Depot - besides do you really think you are going to be able to find what you want out of their selection of 20 tiles in stock?

LOL

Teetorbilt

Flor, I'm a remodeler. An estimate, for me, can be from a few days to a couple of weeks and involve 2-3 employees and an Interior Designer. ID's alone are getting from $125-250 an hr. Then we get to all of the paperwork, office staff time.
An estimate can run into some serious money.

Floorwizard

Oh...I see...

Then you have nothing to worry about with HD or Lowe's.
Their customers should be nowhere near your business....They shouldn't even call

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"in 20 years you will regret more what you did not do than what you did"

Teetorbilt

Call, they do though. Most of them are turned off by no free estimates, the rest are,generally, turned off by the fee.
There is no hope going up against the box stores. You have to go above them or below. Below means that you're willing to work for $10.00 an hour, uninsured. Where is your niche? Got to go up.

PipeGuy

Are there fees above and beyond the advertised unit cost for installation that'll push the overall unit price of the job up to what you'd expect to see?

As to who's doing the work...I wouldn't be surprised if it's six guys that share one car, a two bedroom apartment and three sequential social security numbers.

Teetorbilt

Pipe, I work with these guys almost weekly on one job or another.
Here, they are under contract to a middleman. Most are recent transplants from up north and this pays the rent until they can find a real job. The unmentioned middleman makes the most money.

Mike Finley

Yes, there were some, after about the 5th exception I couldn't even tell what was or was not included. I then saw another sticker next to marble tiles that said "Installation" with the number 10 written next to it with nothing else. I assumed that could mean marble is $10 sq/ft for install?

I'm not even sure if HD knows what it is supposed to charge. I was having them price out a granite counter top once and depending on how they were trying to figure out their own sale they were having the cost was either $1800 or $3900, one or the other but they couldn't tell which one because with one class of stone the edging was free, or there was a free upgrade to a higher cost class of stone, of course the upgraded class of stone was ambiguous whether you got free edging anymore. They needed to talk to their superviser to quantify it all, but the supervisor wasn't the supervisor that day because he was only the supervisor when his boss wasn't there... blah, blah, blah...

Bottom line is how hard is it to sell against an organization like this?