I've talked with a lot of folks who've had less than stellar experiences with some Contractors I would love to see go out of business due to their utter lack of respect for people and their property. I'm sure you've had your fair share or known someone who has. You know the story; you did your due diligence. You called multiple contractors and had them out to do a quotation. You spoke with them face to face to ask questions and get a feel for their knowledge and expertise. You hit all the marks when asking for a detailed quotation and felt good when you made your final selection only to move into a project that fell short of your expectations.
I've heard it all; the quality was poor, the project was late or the project came in WAY over budget. I've done a lot of thinking about why that is generally speaking, across most projects and have come up with the same root cause most of the time; Communication, or lack thereof.
In fact, studies site that between 28-57% of projects fail due to poor communication.
What does that mean to you as someone looking to have a successful home improvement project?
Here are my 6 tips for ensuring poor communication doesn't kill your project:
1) Test out a Contractors willingness to communicate before you sign a contract
2) Ask for references and discuss their experiences specific to communication
3) Be specific about what quality looks like to you prior to hiring
4) Discuss specific timelines and the budget and agree upon acceptable variances
5) Advise your communication expectations prior to starting the project
6) Discuss and agree upon what "Done" is
Some of these tips seem like common sense but in my experience, common sense just sometimes isn't that common.
Here's to hoping your next project is a success; happy renovating!