Response from First Coast Home Pros
Thanks for your feedback. We try very hard to provide accurate estimate information at the time of the estimate. For our gutter cleaning service, our method is to give you a price based on the linear feet of your gutters (among other variables). This price quote is always the maximum amount of money you will pay for the service - many times we reduce the gutter cleaning charge further when not all of the gutter sections are packed full of debris. We do this for the obvious reason that gutters that are jammed full take longer to clean than gutters that are not. We also do this because we feel it is an honest way of charging for the work - it's much easier to reduce your charge than it is to raise it, which we never do (bait and switch). In this member's case, we DID provide our lowest price for gutter cleaning at the outset. The member then complained that the price was too high ($101.15 after the Angie's List discount), so we explained our pricing policy and then offered to walk the roof to determine the degree to which the gutters were full of debris (normally we don't do this at estimates because of time constraints and the fact that we don't always have ladders with us at estimate appointments). Happily, we were able to reduce the cleaning charge to $75 for this member, which is our minimum charge for our gutter cleaning service. We apologize that this member felt that we "estimated price too high" and that we didn't give our "best price at 1st time offer," but we respectfully submit that our price for this job was quite fair and that we did in fact give our best price in the beginning. While many contractors pull their prices out of thin air, we actually have pricing guides that tell us how much we should charge you for doing the work. We want to be fair to ALL of our clients and because of that, our prices are not negotiable. All that being said, we hope that Angie's List members will appreciate the effort we put into fair and honest pricing and understand that the goal of our company is always to provide outstanding service at the best price. Though we will readily admit that this doesn't mean that we are the cheapest company in town for the services we provide, we are dedicated to and passionate about the idea of being the best value. Hopefully these comments can clarify how we charge for our gutter cleaning service and the type of company we strive to be. Thanks for reading!