How to Make Sure a Garage Door Installation Company is Legit?
If you are in the market for a new garage door and are currently looking for a reputable installation company or repairman, there are a few things that you should definitely consider before making your final choice.
You might not be fully aware of it right now, but a poor choice of garage door installers can lead to a number of maintenance issues further down the road, not to mention higher door prices and quite often even unethical upselling.
So how do you make sure that the garage door installation company you have chosen are in fact who they say they are? We’ve done the hard work for you, drawing upon our vast experience to put together this post, which is chock-full of valuable information and everything you need to know about checking up on a garage door company.
Physical Address
A company having a real physical address is an absolute must when searching for a reputable service provider. If you are scrolling through a website, look for the ‘Who We Are’ or 'About Us’ pages and check for authentic-looking photos and Google maps. You can also try to use Google Street Maps to get a look at the premises themselves. Remember, most unscrupulous garage door installers don’t have physical addresses or even dedicated teams, but rely solely on call centers and subcontractors to carry out their work.
Association Membership
Whether you’re looking on a garage door installer’s website, business directory or local newspaper, be sure to look for association membership logos and other forms of accreditation. There are a few of these, but the main ones to look out for are from the BBB, Angie’s List and IDA (International Door Association). If a company has these accreditations, you can rest assured that the provider is a reputable one.
Customer Reviews
Once you have established that your chosen garage door installation company has a real physical address and is fully accredited, you can move on to checking for customer reviews. These should be viewable on the company’s website, with most well-designed websites offering dedicated review pages. When reading, be sure to look out for anything amiss: unscrupulous companies will often write fake reviews just to gain your trust. Make sure the reviews look natural and ensure that the satisfied clients have surnames. Local client names can even be found via the Internet to ensure that they are genuine people.
Check for Reviews on 3rd Party Websites
You can easily go deeper with your investigation by simply continuing to read customer reviews on third party websites. Use the company name and look for reviews and mentions from previous customers. You can even use Facebook to check for reviews and possibly even the company’s profile page. However, one thing not to put too much trust in is a free classified-ad site where information and messages are not always strictly controlled.
Insurance Coverage
Make sure you check the garage door installers you have chosen have full insurance coverage. As you are going to be investing quite a significant amount of your hard-earned cash, you want to be covered should anything go wrong during, or after the installation. Reputable garage door installers will have full insurance cover, so they are covered for just about every eventuality – whether that is damage to your property or possessions, and even medical expenses should there be an accident during installation. Granted, these kinds of mishaps are very unusual when using the services of professional garage door installers, but you can never put a price on your peace of mind.
How Much Experience Do They Have?
As with most things in life, experience is more often than not the key to a job well done. And this rule applies to garage door installation and maintenance just as much as in any other sector. In fact, when it comes to maintenance and repairs of older doors, it’s a very important factor that the team has experience working on older style mechanisms. You can generally check how much experience an installation company has by checking the ‘About us’ page on their website. Again, be sure that the information is credible by doing a little crosschecking on the Internet.
Financial Integrity
Checking a company’s financial integrity is not always the easiest thing to do, but it can generally be done successfully by investing a little time investigating. If you find that a company has somewhat vague financial records, it’s probably going to be a safe bet to steer clear of them. Most reputable companies will have accessible financial records, which you can check.
Well-Stocked Company Warehouse
All reputable garage door installation companies will have a well-stocked warehouse or storeroom. This is especially important if you require a repair job on your garage doors, as the work team will often need spare parts to complete the task. If you don’t use a reputable company, you could find yourself waiting around for days or even weeks for simple spare parts to be ordered. Good companies will always fully stock their working vehicles too, which greatly reduces the chances of delays caused by a lack of spare parts or even specialist tools.
If you follow the abovementioned tips, you will greatly reduce the risk of being overcharged, having a lousy experience or being ripped off altogether. Remember - an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure!