Having spent time as an employee of K-Designers, I want to help make people aware of the tactics used by this company to trick, deceive, entice, and lure people into doing business with them.
Despite the claims the company will make, they've been dramatically effected by the economy. The various branches and the corporate office have sustained many layoffs. Many people I would talk to in the home didn't feel that it made fiscal sense to spend double or triple the cost most other company's would charge for their windows or siding products just because of the history of the company. The reality of the situation is that all that "needs" to happen is that the Marketing Director (the title given to their sales reps) takes measurements of your home, shows you the features of the product (so that you know what your getting), then give you a price. What actually will happen in the home is that you'll sit through a long presentation which will sell you on the promotion of their "new" product into a specific neighborhood. This is deceptive at best, as 'the promotion' is a sales tactic, not any type of reality. They may actually send out flyers into the area around homes, but it's nothing more than any other company would do to try to generate more business around a previous customer. K-Designers hasn't released a new siding product in over 2 years and yet has sold based on the promotion in the same neighborhoods repeatedly... in some cases has given the same pitch to the same homeowner. A new window product was released in the fall of 08.
The sales rep will want you to agree to some of the items on a form they bring into the home which relates to company advertising. Rarely does anyone even follow up to get the letters or photos, and they will hardly ever drive people by your home. These are just tactics used to justify discounts so that the homeowner will feel like the got a great bargain and wont cancel. You will be told that you need to agree to accept the offer the rep makes you on that day while they're in the home with you, but you dont. You will be told that they cant make any promise of what will be available to you in the future, but they can. After showing you between 5 and 10 prices, they will offer you the option to buy just one or 2 windows, or a small amount of siding in order to 'lock you in on the promotion', but it's nothing more than any other sales person would do which is namely to get a sale, even if just a small one.
In addition, homeowners will need to be careful to know what they're being charged. Larry Judson (the owner) has the company charge the sales people dollar for dollar for financing fees and some of the rebates the company may offer you. Since the sales people don't like these company fees being charged to them, Mike Burgess (VP Sales) offered instruction to everyone in the company that worked in sales on how to mark up these fees and add them to the price for the product. Charges to also be aware of are added labor charges, delivery charges, window tear outs, etc.
Also be aware that there are long term maintenance issues with the tilt and slide window.in fact, the senior management of the company isn't even in agreement on the proper way to install these windows. The production team and the installation managers dont even like the tilt and slide window because it is a warranty nightmare.installation says the right way to install the windows is to do a complete full frame tear out whereas Mike Burgess says 'it's not needed', and even when asked to check with the VP of Production, he said 'dont worry about it'.
My goal isn't to keep you from buying from K-Designers, just for you to know what you're dealing with.
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