The media focus mostly on ‘bad plumbers’ and there are plenty of good plumbers, but what makes an excellent plumber?
Attention to Detail is one attribute of an excellent Plumber
Our business is all about excellent plumbers but I realised that most people are so used to bad to mediocre plumbers they are overjoyed with merely good plumbers and don’t even dare to dream of an excellent plumber. So what is the difference and do they even exist?
Well, answering the last question first; yes they exist. At Stopcocks Women Plumbers we don’t just check someone’s qualifications, we test their plumbing skills, and we teach The Stopcocks Way to make sure that we can demand certain standards. But it doesn’t stop there.
We believe being an excellent plumber isn’t just about plumbing, it’s about how we treat our customers.
We know from listening to customers that they are sick and tired of plumbers not calling back, not turning up when they say they will, loafing off, patronising them, talking gobbledygook if they explain at all and leaving the house in a terrible mess… assuming they do actually complete the job, and generally shoddy standards. It’s so bad that many customers simply put up with many plumbing maintenance jobs not being done at all.
Customers put up with plumbers who pay no attention to any level of customer service or go without a lot of the time. Believing the alternatives are put up or shut up. That expecting anything above being technically good is unrealistic.
But that was before Stopcocks
We know that there are excellent plumbers who aren’t part of Stopcocks Women Plumbers, some male and some female and some who are good friends of ours (mostly on Twitter).
There are isolated and excellent plumbers up and down the land who provide a great plumbing service and who care about and provide excellent customer service too. It’s our mission at Stopcocks to make finding an excellent plumber easy and by talking about excellence in plumbing, raising the standards of other plumbers.
Because providing excellent customer service isn’t difficult.
It’s just about communication and doing what you’ve said you’ll do.
Our plumbers have phones and they’re not afraid to use them. During opening hours our freephone will be answered by a human being, on the rare occasions it isn’t we answer voicemails within a couple of hours. Any voicemails left overnight or on Sundays are answered first thing the following morning and our plumbers get back to customers usually the same day – customers who’ve called just before closing sometimes don’t get a call back from a plumber till the following day. Emails are slightly slower because our plumbers aren’t always able to get to a computer till too late for business correspondence.
We’re introducing an online system that makes all this much simpler for our plumbers which will ease the communication still more.
If our plumbers are delayed getting to a customer’s house, they call and let them know – or the office does.
Once looking at work, we give clear explanations in jargon free English, we don’t try to sell customers stuff that isn’t the best solution. We will give you what you want if it’s possible, but if we think it might not be the best thing for your home or your budget, we will tell you.
Plumbing in most people’s houses is unique. The first plumbing was put in when the house was built, but that was changed and added to as new innovations were invented, sometimes by a DIYer and sometimes by a professional. Most plumbers may not have seen anything quite like what’s been created over the years in your house before, if so, they’ll tell you and give our technical helpline a ring to discuss what’s the best solution, because we believe two heads are better than one.
This is what makes our plumbers excellent; it’s just great customer service in combination with great skills and keeping you informed.
