Posted by Don Moore in : News and Events
In 1999 when we started our business as twentysomethings, we didn't know how long would be our customers' list today. 25 years fast forward and countless number of driveways and patios construction later, we can now confidently say that the following 3 key rules have earned us thousands of wonderful customers.
What we've learned from day one is that no matter how small or big the project scope is, they are all equally important to our customers, so we treat each job as if it was a million-dollar project. Whether it is a small corner of a broom-finish concrete driveway that is cracked or sunk that needs a repair, or a complete redo of a 1,500 square-feet stamped concrete driveway construction, we treat them exactly the same and give our best efforts with top priority. Our work quality is not project size-dependent.
We are not gonna lie, there were times we really wanted to take on a specific project and did so by undercutting the competition. Big mistake! When you quote the lowest, often times, you find yourself in a position where you need to find ways to adjust your expense in order to do your payroll. And the shortcut to that adjustment is by using less materials than needed or skipping a step or two in the process. The inevitable consequence of this approach is that the final quality does not meet our own standards. Since we can't stand compromising our own quality protocols, we end up taking a loss instead.
So, we are OK being not the cheapest contractor to do the job. We quote our customers a fair price that strikes the golden balance between the quality we can master and our bottom line.
Over the years, we've had our fair share of honest mistakes or miscalculations which resulted in project completion quality that we couldn't ourselves accept. One example that comes to mind is a big driveway job we completed in Richmond many years ago. The property was located right next to a heavy dump trucks route and what we didn't know or anticipate was that the entire area was prone to good amounts of tremor-like vibrations continuously occurring when big haulers zoom by non-stop. And the next morning we discovered that the beautiful driveway we finished the night before had a surface that looked like a spider web!
We ended up removing it and redoing the whole driveway with different specs. Yes, it wasn't fun experience to go through, both morally or financially, but it wasn't our customer's fault so owning up to our mistake was the right thing to do. We have, however, gained another loyal customer who have hired us for several more projects since then.
In fact, our records show that over 20% of our customers are repeat customers for whom we completed more than one projects over the years. If we were in a type of business that provides much more frequent services, such as gutter cleaning or lawn care, then a 20% may not be that much. However, considering the fact that hardscaping and concrete work we do last decades, winning a big pool of loyal customers who confidently hire us again is a big deal for us.
Here is one example. Photos attached to this article came from one such customer's yard in south Surrey. At first, he hired us for a drainage work to solve a serious water pooling problem. We then were re-hired to do Allan block borders and retaining walls, followed by paver patio construction a year later. And in 2021 we built a beautiful stamped concrete patio with channel drains that were connected to an original perimeter drainage work we did several years earlier. We thought we were done at his residence, but last year he called us one more to have a country brick planter built, which we happily obliged!
This is what has made Moore & Sons one of the most-trusted concrete driveway and patio construction contractors in Langley, Surrey and surrounding Vancouver areas and we intend to keep our playbook intact for years ahead.
Our records show that over 20% of our customers are repeat customers for whom we completed more than one projects over the years. If we were in a type of business that provides much more frequent services, such as gutter cleaning or lawn care, then a 20% may not be that much. However, considering the fact that hardscaping and concrete work we do last decades, winning a big pool of loyal customers who confidently hire us again is a big deal for us.
