Reviews are Like Reputation Equity
Let’s hear what Sylvia has to say about Ecopainting
Sylvia’s Video Review (transcript):
Hi, my name is Sylvia O’Brien and I am the owner of Colour Theory, a colour consulting firm in Toronto Canada.
How Did You Discover Ecopainting? I met Ecopainting on the Benjamin Moore PDS Program. It was a colour consultant – painter referral program that Benjamin Moore set up in the in the early 2000s. I was about 2 or 3 years into my business.
How Long Have You Worked with Ecopainting? About 11 years, and I was thrilled to find them! Because I am really, really particular about the painters I send to my clients. I want the clients to be as happy with the painter as they are with me, otherwise it reflects on me. And I‘ve always had a really good rapport with Ecopainting.
Why Do You Recommend Ecopainting to your Clients? I recommend them to my clients because they are very professional, they do an excellent job and they have a really good rapport with the client. The client is always happy at the end, so why wouldn’t I refer them to my clients?
What is a Colour Schedule? A colour schedule is simply a written report, sort of a chart, with colour swatches and location and special instructions about location. It’s for the painter to follow.
You Recently Worked With Us on a Large Condo Project. How Did We Do? Ecopainting did an amazing job for me. I was so pleased that I was working with them on that. Right from week one the feedback from the client, the board of the directors and the homeowners, they loved them! Everything went so smoothly, it was just wonderful. So I went every week to check up and nothing was new, everything was just perfect…so it was great!
How was Your Working Relationship With Uma, our Job Manager? Uma I find very nice to work with, he is very communicative, very personable and very skilled. I think he sets the tone, he is really wonderful.
Should We Trust all Painter’s Reviews?
As customers, we are all faced with a plethora of choices – and it can be so difficult to decide, especially when the options we have are so similar. So, what do we do? We turn to online review sites for clues and answers about a product/service we are considering. This is especially common practice when evaluating home service providers. But let us not be naive about consumer websites that promise ‘unbiased’ reviews.
Have you read some of the reviews home painters have in places such as Homestars and other sites? No doubt you saw some painting contractors with more than 300 reviews and average ratings of 9/10. These almost perfect ratings should alarm you, because they are inaccurate and ridiculous. How do get an average of “9.9” or “10” from hundreds of customers? This is an inaccurate representation of customer satisfaction in our industry.
When you see a business with hundreds of perfect ratings, do ask the question – are all these reviews real?
Is this ‘contractor utopia’ even possible?
Fortunately, after all the recent publicity about review sites, “the cat is out of the bag” and the verdict is in. A large number of these online reviews are fake. Reviews are often written on behalf of customers and all they have to do is approve them. In addition, there are companies people who will post an excellent rating for your business for a price.
Consumer review sites have paid inclusion for contractors and they often receive preferential treatment. We think that consumers should be informed upfront that the review site collects money from the reviewed companies. This is a big industry with a lot of money exchanging hands.
How to Protect Yourself as a Customer?
While not all online reviews are real, a few of them are legitimate. As you are considering painting contractors, make sure to ask the painting company for phone numbers of past customers, references and even hand-written/signed testimonials. If feasible, ask them if you can visit any of their job sites. Ask about the crews and how they hire and train their painters. In other words, equip yourself with as much information as possible.
“Fabulous Job! Glad we chose to use your company again! Your staff were friendly, polite and left the place tidy. Thanks so much!” Linda Milberg.
Ecopainting has been very fortunate in this matter. As evidence of all the hard work we have done, we collected hundreds of signed reviews and testimonials from painting customers all over the GTA.
Most customers that left us reviews agreed to be a reference for our company. Phone numbers are available on request. Words like ‘pleasure to work with’, ‘friendly’ and ‘professional’ are often used to describe our painters.
Ecopainting’s Client Testimonials
A professional painting company has a systematic process of gathering, responding and sharing client testimonials. At Ecopainting, before anything else, the emphasis is on a job well done. How do we achieve this? Read on…
When a paint job nears completion, the job manager of the project will inspect the project. The customer will be asked to do a final walk-through. Before the painting crew leaves the site, the goal is to ensure that the job exceeds customer expectations. In the rare occasion that there are any concerns, the team will address them immediately. No empty promises of returning at a ‘later time’ to fix the issues. This is not just important to customers but also to us as we like to take care of any and all issues immediately.
Once this is done, the customer is then asked to complete a brief job completion form. In the completion form, there is space to leave comments and a rating form for the crew. In the last two decades, Ecopainting has received hundreds of these testimonials. Apart from these documents, feel free to browse through customer comments on social media sites such as Facebook and Google. Still not satisfied? Ask us for email reviews. We would be more than happy to share them with you. Contact information of reviewers is available upon request.
“Rachel was excellent! She was friendly and courteous and very communicative. I had no hesitation about leaving her in my home. She also did a great job. Karon and George were also great! I really appreciated your updated communication as well as your prompt and professional responses to all my queries” Marla R.
Painting Success Stories – In the Words of Customers
Kim and Peter M. (Porch and Interior Painting in High Park)
Karon and her team surpassed my expectations. Not only was the prep work meticulous, but great attention was also paid to all the coats of paint. In addition, George helped with paint colours and visited our home twice before the work began. I‘d recommend Ecopainting to anyone.
Eva S. (Apartment, Condo and Scarborough Home Painting)
I always recommend your company to whoever wants to listen. We were very happy with your job the last two times and we will be calling you in a few months for another painting job. Thanks for being nice and friendly, arriving on time, finishing on time, cleaning up afterwards, and for your competitive prices – all of it greatly appreciated. Can’t wait till next time.
Brighid T. (Markham Home Painting)
“Thanks for transforming my 1980s floral wallpaper bedroom! I can always count on you to do a superb paint job, even when encountering non removable wallpaper. You are very thorough, show pride in your work and are always a pleasure to deal with. Thank you for helping with the colours too”.
Karen O. (Deck Restoration in North York)
“An excellent job! They took their time in deck washing and cleaning prior to staining it a few days later. Very professional team. Restored my deck to a vibrant new look from 4 year old greying. It looks like it was just installed. I’d recommend their Eco painting service!”
P. Tremblay. (Riverdale)
Great Job and nice people! You guys went way beyond, giving us tips and advice, eventhough it was about other tasks to be undertaken without your help! Thank you and see you when we decide to repaint but that’s not for quite a while thanks to your great service!
Kathryn B. (Interior Painting in Vaughan)
“The painting work was outstanding! All the painters were professional, efficient and completely focused on their work – and very friendly and polite. We appreciate the fabulous new look of our walls and the quickness with which it was completed. Eager to recommend your company – I have already done so to my neighbour. Thanks for a great job”
Rose D. (Pressure Washing in Don Mills)
“Hope all is well and this hot weather hasn’t made working too bad for you and your crews. I haven’t had a chance to thank you for the deck work. It looks great and I love the colour. Your team did a wonderful job and were very professional and as I mentioned you had great customer service. We’ve had many compliments on how great it looks now.”
Bruce T. (Deck Staining in Thornhill)
“This year, when it came time to refinish my deck, I was overwhelmed with the extent and difficulty of the task. Ecopainting stepped up to the job and did a superb job for a great price. My deck looks great! I will certainly call on Ecopainting again.”
Tim L. and Helen B. (Exterior Painting in Weston)
“Karon, George and all the Ecopainting team, thank you for a fantastic job! Everything, from your meticulous preparation work, through to your attention to detail. Your quote was quick and accurate and you stayed on track with the schedule agreed upon. We have already received several compliments regarding how nice our property looks (even before the job was finished!). Looking forward to working with Ecopainting Inc. on our future projects. Thanks so much again.”
Luci and Doug Crawford. (Interior and Exterior in Aurora)
“This is the second time we have used Ecopainting and once again Karon and her team transformed our newly purchased house into our dream home! They were able to remove the wallpaper in a number of rooms and the finish is flawless. Even with last minute changes, ie. let’s add an accent wall, they completed the job on time and they were easy to work with, dependable, trustworthy. They left the house spotless – both inside and out. They make sure you are pleased with the results and they did a fabulous job. We highly recommend Ecopainting”.
It is not possible for us to display all the numerous accolades we have received from happy clients. The list above is just a small piece of an otherwise rich and long history Ecopainting has had with both residential and commercial clients in the GTA.
Interested in reading more reviews? Call us on 416-733-7767 and we’d be glad to furnish more!
Are Most Online Reviews Authentic? How can You Tell ?
Good question! Not everything you read online is true. Similarly, not all you read is fake either. There are good painters and legitimate contractors on all the major review sites. With a little investigation, it will be easy to separate the real reviews from the fake ones. It is quite simple to do this.
Here are some tips on spotting a contractor who’s gaming the review system
- How are the reviews worded? Do they sound like a marketer wrote them? Run!
- What about typos, identical linguistic mistakes and same lingo repeated everywhere?
- Does a company have an outlandish number of reviews? In the hundreds? All of them are rated ‘9’ or ‘10’? This level of success is hard to achieve in the contracting world. Run!
- Is the review site receiving advertising money from contractors? No harm in asking. If you don’t get a straight ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. Run!
- Do you see the term ‘assisted reviews’ anywhere? This is when the contractor either writes their own reviews or on behalf of customers. The customers may have approved them but the thoughts and views are not their own. Do non-paying/non-advertising contractors have the same opportunity to write reviews on behalf of their customers? If the answer is ‘no’, it simply indicates that advertisers given more importance and rated higher than other contractors.
Can you go by positive reviews alone? Obviously not. It is not wise to make any major financial decisions based on what you may have read about a contractor. A few years ago, there was quite an uproar about a contractor that duped a number of innocent homeowners. The story appeared on CBC and has been an eye opener to Toronto consumers.
GarCon (the contractor in question) had excellent ratings on HomeStars. The unsuspecting homeowners thought that they should have been informed that HomeStars takes money from the contractors being reviewed. As per the article, GarCon had “paid HomeStars $150 a month for services that could include advertising on the site and having a hand in posting reviews.”
The best advice is to take online reviews on certain sites with a grain of salt. Google reviews tend to be more accurate than most. Google does not (directly) benefit from reviews and it is more difficult for someone to leave a review. Some reviews on Google are fake, but it is in Google’s best interests to get rid of them. Here are Ecopainting’s Google reviews.
Dealing with an honest, reputable painting contractor will bring you peace of mind. Using your own judgement, listening to word of mouth, and asking for evidence of testimonials are some ways of differentiating between a professional contractor and a ‘fly by night’ type of operator.
This page was updated on 12/06/2017.