Reliable Remodeler is a contractor lead referal website service and after using for a few years have determined this to be a ripoff! They charge approximately $10 per month for membership fees. They attract home owners to their website to locate contractors for remodeling & repairs of all types. The homeowner fills out a survey describing their project in detail and determining their geographic location. There is no cost to the homeowner, so what do they care as long as enough contractors contact them. Except as you will learn below, if they are barraged with too many contractors trying to sell their services, they will be overwhelmed and are likely to not answer their phones and work off of their voicemail for a period of time until the new solicitors tire out. Not a win win situation except for this company banking millions of dollars in lead sales.
Once this lead is processed in their database one of Reliable Remodelers customer service agents is to contact this homeowner to discuss the project in greater detail & determine a budget range as well as time frame targets. This is supposed to be their selling point to contractors to have a confirmed lead with all the details so that Reliable remodeler can sell this info (lead) to the contractors that services that location. These leads range in cost around $20 to over $100 if the contractor selects this lead.
As a contractor we expect for this $70 or $20 lead to be legitimate, we expect it to be fresh within 24hrs and for the information to be detailed and at these prices we expect the lead to be exclusive. What I have found is the leads are...
The lead could be days, weeks, or months old, possibly regenerated!
The leads are at times bogus.
The leads may have been purchased in bulk from other lead sources.
The information is many times incorrect.
The lead may have been old enough a contractor is selected or in process.
The details are not details they are written in generic language
The leads may have been sold over & over many times could be 3 to 10 times.
Okay after determining the lead is junk, maybe the homeowner doesn't return calls or email notification or what ever. We have a worthless lead and request credit from our RR rep. As long as it meets their guidelines they will credit the lead towards future lead purchases and you can only apply 50% of the lead towards the purchase of the another lead, meaning you have to spend 50% additional to ever experience some credit. Now how is that good business?
I have been member for many years and have had many different reps come & go. I have purchased thousands of dollars in leads and have received hundreds of dollars in credits of those junk leads that wasted my time & efforts. I think it has been about a year since my last lead purchase/credit runaround from this company. At one point in time this service was tolerable and we just went along with their ways & policy's until the leads were just all bad, I mean JUNK, Crap, useless! I am sending a copy of this report to a higher up at RR to at the very least notify why they have lost another long time customer.
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