When your garage door breaks and your car is stuck in the garage all you want is to have it repaired promptly and at a fair price. Unfortunately our industry has attracted some unscrupulous business owners and service techs. Some of their practices include the following:
Advertising a low price service call ie the $29 or $39 etc service call. The problem is that this is usually just the fee to get the service tech to your house. Then you are charged labor at above average to well above average rates for any service work. In the Chicago area it is not possible for a legitimate company to perform service calls at these low ball teaser pricing. For a qualified service technician to get into an insured company van and drive to your location and perform service the service call rate needs to be considerably higher. This does not even include the General Liability Insurance, Workmen's Compensation Insurance, taxes etc. The service call rate for Garage Door Co Repair Pros has remained at $90 for most residential service calls. This includes general maintenance, lubrication with synthetic garage door lubricant by Clopay, safety checks, opener adjustment, ir safety sensor adjustment, homelink programming and removal of any replaced parts. Torsion spring replacement, cable replacement, gear kit installations and safety sensor replacements are done at flat rate pricing (which we publish on our home page). This has been the fairest for both our customers and our company.
Up selling for roller replacement at "just $20 ea" plus the labor. The pitch usually goes something like this: We have these new or high tech nylon rollers with 10 (or 11) ball bearings which have a lifetime warranty. The problem with this is the average 7 foot high residential door has 10 rollers which means you are paying $200 for the rollers plus the labor. The fair price for these rollers would be $4 ea for a $40 parts cost (which is what we charge) not $200.
Technicians get a commission for up selling parts and services. Many garage door companies will pay their technicians a commission (read that as a percentage) for upsells and overcharging parts pricing. Garage Door Co Repair Pros does not pay commissions. Since our pricing is set for each part and service technicians are NOT allowed to charge more for the part than the company standard price. Our parts pricing is on the in vehicle computer which is used for electronic dispatch, invoice printing and GPS monitoring and logging of our techs. Our technicians are paid very competitive wage and benefit packages including health insurance, paid time off, and holiday pay. A significant part of an experienced techs pay is based on performance, customer reviews and customer referrals. After having been in the industry for over 35 years we know how long most repairs should take and whether our technicians are working at an acceptable pace while maintaining safety compliance and ethical behavior.
Charging a separate full labor service charge for general maintenance or minor adjustments to a second garage door at the same house while fixing the first door at full price. It is much fairer to simply charge a prorated rate for the actual time spent on the second door which is what we do at Garage Door Co Repair Pros.
Offering multiple life cycle options for residential springs with the most expensive option having a "lifetime warranty". Many times the higher cycle springs are charged at 2 to 3 times the cost of the standard springs. Beware of the lifetime warranty as it will only cover the single spring when it breaks (which it will at some time) but not the labor. These companies will change just one spring under the warranty and in a few months when the other one breaks you get to pay the labor again. We always recommend replacement of torsion springs in pairs and at Garage Door Co Repair Pros we use 20,000+ cycle torsion springs for all installations without a surcharge. See our web page on torsion springs for general pricing details. Commercial and apartment houses will require even higher cycle springs based on usage and we provide a free estimate for these customers.
Unmarked trucks or personal cars for service technicians. We have long believed that technicians need to be in a marked vehicle with company name, address and phone number clearly shown. All Garage Door Co Repair Pros employees (we do not use subcontractors) arrive in clearly marked company vehicles and in uniforms with the company name and technician name visible. Our technicians will call before arriving at your location. The caller id will match the primary company phone 847-329-8300. We do not give out cell phone numbers for the technicians as it is much more professional and safer for our techs to have phone calls handled by the office and forwarded as needed to the appropriate phone.
IF YOU WANT TO SEE MORE SCAM TACTICS BEING USED BY OTHERS SIMPLY COPY THE LINKS BELOW INTO YOUR BROWSER:
AfterTheWorst_Win2015.pdf-- DASMA
GDS-The%20Worst_Fall2015.pdf-- DASMA
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