Bob's Glass Patch

What started off really well, ended up demonstrating the owner's lack of professionalism and selfish short-sighted view, as demonstrated by how poorly he treated this potential customer. The owner, Tony, took my initial call, and responded immediately by sending out the estimator, David, who arrived to for the estimate within an hour of my initial call. The estimator (David) was excellent in terms of technical knowledge, was articulate, personable and very professional. I received a verbal estimate within an hour after the estimate appointment. I was pleased with their knowledge and quick timely response but told them I wanted a day to think about it. I called the next day requesting a written estimate which Tony agreed to, but I never received it in spite of daily follow up phone messages (as no one was there during work hours to receive the calls and one e-mail over the next 6-7 days). Finally, on day 7, Tony answered the phone. He explained that they'd been out of the office on some big jobs to substantiate why he failed to return phone calls. I was a bit put off by how he thought that that was a good reason not to return phone calls. I even told him that I thought that they had closed down the business after awhile or maybe was on vacation, since no one was answering their phone. I then asked for evidence of liability and worker's comp insurance information but he was bold enough to tell me that he felt that it was too much trouble to do so, and that he would only go through the trouble of obtaining it for large jobs, say over $20,000. What he failed to understand is that knowledgeable home owners who want to protect themselves will ask for evidence of insurance regardless of the size of the job because if the vendor gets hurt on the home owner's property, it puts the home owner at risk of getting sued. A home owners perspective, an injury can potentially result in thousands to a million dollar in liability. About the written estimate he then said that he would "try" to send it to me. At that point I'd had enough. So, I asked him for clarification on his level of interest in doing the job. He responded, "yeah...., it's better for you to look elsewhere". He obviously had no regard for my effort or time. Worse yet, he failed to consider the long term effects of treating customers poorly. Tony's actions spoke volumes about his lack of professionalism and reliability. He is not to be trusted.