Amato Painting named finalist for Best Customer Service

Amato Painting is honored to be named a finalist for Best Customer Sevice for 2019 in the Best of the Valley from Lehigh Valley Magazine

Customer service is something we take very seriously and work on each and every day says Tanya Freed who heads up the administrative department at Amato Painting

Voting begins April 15th online and we hope all of our clients and friends can take a moment to help us out.

Playing phone tag

No More Phone Tag

What's worse than being excited for getting work done around your home and deciding to call a contractor and they either call back days later or never at all?

I know that frustration first hand when I had a few things to do around my home and reached out to numerous contractors only to be never called back, called back weeks later or promised an estimate and never received one.

We face that same thing in our office although in a different way. We try to get right back to people the same day but when we return the call nowadays not many people actually answer their phone. So when we attempt to schedule an estimate it becomes a game of phone tag.

I needed this to stop so we just added an online scheduling system, you can schedule your estimates online without having to speak to anyone at http://www.ryanamatopainting.com/contact-painter.php

Simply select your estimator to see his availability and choose the day and time that best fits your needs. That's it the end of phone tag for us.

We want nothing more than to be able to come out right away and give you your estimate right away, the downside to this is we are ALWAYS the first one out and we sometimes get "I need to wait for the other estimates" When this happens we know the other estimates may or may not be coming and were waiting for weeks on our end sometimes for an answer as the schedule keeps on filling your available time to do your project keeps getting pushed back.

Keep that in mind when you receive these other estimates, what happens when the job starts and they weren't attentive when you asked for a price?

Your puppy is ugly and negative people aka bullies

Your puppy is ugly and other positive comments online

I love YouTube, I will say it again I love YouTube, I use it at work, at home and it keeps me company at the gym on those never-ending treadmill sessions. I also use it myself for our business uploading videos, tips and other things to help clients and other companies.

It always amazes me that people can be so nasty but more so they have the time to do it? I barely have enough time in a day to get my things done, I would never have time to troll someones YouTube or Facebook page to write nasty comments. I am impressed they have the time honestly.

Negative reviews

So no matter what video you search for someone will either give it a thumbs down or have a nasty comment, try it now go to YouTube and search puppies, who would hate puppies? You will be surprised, I haven't set this up, the fourth result down for me is "Puppies playing with babies" now that is double the cuteness and it has 15K of dislikes? and reading through some not so nice comments. Ok let's try another search kids like to watch "kids playing with toys"

Puppies and kids are bad?

How can that be bad? well, my first result has 10k of dislikes and comments are disabled most likely because people leave nasty ones. Can ten thousand people really dislike a kid playing with a new toy?

Let's go back to business, I have been lucky on YouTube with people being so supportive, leaving great comments but I am not naive I will get some eventually, now Facebook is another story, we are always on the defensive there and it's not from customers.

We receive messages from other companies pretending to be regular people, spouses putting ads up of their husbands' companies, people telling us the pictures aren't real or the same or they can do it better, faster, cheaper etc. I can only imagine what it must be like to be a celebrity, I do not envy that at all, the money would not be worth the attacks. I also can not imagine what kids nowadays must go through, I can only imagine in age they are already sensitive to how they look when people write nasty things on their pages it must really hurt.

Bullies come in all sizes and ages and can be male or female.

Bullying is not just physical and bullies are not just teenagers in a school, you would be surprised how many bullies we run into, from nasty demanding spoiled clients who verbally abuse our workers and office staff to the general contractors who are so spoiled rotten and are used to getting everything they ever request whether its right or wrong, Kyle could tell you stories of contractors demanding we paint while it's snowing or pouring outside or calling to demand we have painters onsite even though we were there and they have no work ready. Bullies suck no doubt and you cannot reason with an unreasonable person. One day I will do a blog with examples of some of the things we go through with demanding clients that will blow your socks off. If we could only name them.

So what are we supposed to do? Let them bring you down? No way! You smile at them, be the bigger person but let them know they are being rude, I don't let them get away with it, let them know how they are treating you, one thing I always tell our staff is to not accept in any way someone abusing you. pack up and leave or hang the phone up, we don't need those type of clients. 

Who is the most awesome Person this week?

Who was awesome?

We love to let people know when they have done something awesome.

This person I heard about long before I went out to do the estimate, the office told me I would love the estimate. "She has watched all your videos" and is excited to meet you.

When I arrived I could see right away Paula would be fun to work with, she had a great personality, was looking for someone to work with her on the project and was very interested in my ideas.

It is great to go on any project and form a relationship with the clients, they respect your opinion and work so that is a bonus.

When I left I knew she would push hard to have us as her contractor and as I expected we were awarded the project a few days later.

That is where my part ends but when the job leader came back from his meeting all he could say is Paula is great!

Once the job started the painters all said the same thing, she was very accommodating, fun to be around and enjoyed the whole process.

So for that we love Paula, I wish everyone could "be like Paula" the world would be a better place

What you can expect on your painting project

Expectations

Expectations are the number one reason for complaints, unhappiness and also at the same time satisfaction on any project, painting or other. 

A painting project involves much more than calling up, having an estimate and someone shows up to paint your home. many things go into preparing and knowing what to expect on your painting project.

From choosing colors, sheens, knowing the date the project will start and an estimated time of completion. We see missed or unknown expectations as the number one issue for any customer complaints and it is not always the customers or the painter's fault, there is a share of the blame.

Here are a few missed expectations:

1. Start of the project: This missed expectation may have never been told to the estimator if you have a deadline that needs to be met it needs to be expressed. With so many projects going on many things can affect that start date from, weather (even if your job is interior) Any rain will push back exterior jobs and also pushing back all the other projects behind it. Other jobs taking longer before yours, this is out of anyone's control and will push yours back.
2. Completion of the project: This is an unknown, there are so many variables that go into a project from paint and spackle drying, paint not covering, sickness, car trouble etc. Finish dates are variable.
3. Prep of the surface. One of the top issues, did you explain your expectations to the estimator and did they explain what will and not be done? An old wall will not look like a new wall, have the correct expectations and you will be much happier, nothing is perfect in life
4. The number of painters on the project. Unless we are talking about commercial painting the number of painters on one project does not necessarily mean a faster job, you can only put so many painters in one room, there is a process that needs to be followed. It amazes me each time a client will tell us we need more painters with no knowledge of the painting industry.

These are just a few of the expectations that may be missed.

Here are some tips to have a great project.

• Be home for your estimate
• Have everyone who will have any critique at the estimate
• Express all of your expectations to your estimator, it may be were not a good fit for each other or we cannot deliver what you may need
• Know that everything will not be perfect. Painting is an art and will have variables, old walls will not be new, wavy walls will not equal a clear straight cut line. 
• Spend the money on top of the line paint and materials 
• The lowest price may be the highest once a project is complete having to go back and fix it, change orders, additional work.

Expectations are so important on any project, think of it this way if you tell your mechanic to just go in and fix anything and they hand you a bill for a huge amount of money without speaking to you even though you said go ahead with anything, what type of argument and dissatisfaction will you have ?

Dealing with clients who are irrational

Dealing with "that" client

When I started my own business after about a few months I realized a hard lesson.
Not everyone respects the other person or has the same values as I do or our employees do.

This was a hard lesson at first and made me question many things, were our systems wrong? Did we do something or not do something we were supposed to do? Was our work just not great on some jobs? What broke down?

I went back and adjusted our systems, policies, checklists only to find we would still have some issues with only a few jobs but those issues would seem like the end of the world even though they were in the grand scheme of things small.

So what is the problem? I speak to many other businesses small and large and they all have the same issues whether they show on the outside or not. One company shared some horrible reviews and emails that are nowhere to be seen on their website or Google, I find that as a cost of business they have budgeted in dealing with these reviews and tough customers.

Their approach was to just manage the bad ones because they know their systems are tight, some customers there is no system in the world that will put a stop to the complaining.

We have a very tight system where the office will call at the start of the job, a few days in and at completion even while the painters and project manager are on site doing the same and still we have clients attempt to go directly around them to get to me. Although I care about each and every job it is just impossible for me to manage a job site especially when we have very qualified people in place to do this. When I hire someone to work around my home, I trust that they hired the correct staff to handle my project, if something would happen would follow THEIR correct chain of command, not the one I believe is right.

We recently had a client who interfered on a very delicate epoxy floor job, he felt he could manage the project, dictate to the painters how to apply and wanted to help every step of the way, all the while leaving emails and voicemails on how upsetting this was to him. There was a material issue which was a small inconvenience but one that we corrected without any question along with the manufacturer of that material. This still was not good enough and he became verbally abusive via email and phone calls and to quote "this has been the worst thing that has happened in my life"
Now if this has been the worst thing that has happened he should thank god for that. Comparing a paint issue to other serious things that could happen in someone's life makes us shake our heads.

One other issue we have is clients simply do not read their contract and I am not speaking about any fine print, we are talking about the bold scope of work, what will be done and not done. This is listed many times through the process, during a walk through before a project starts and available every step of the way.

Even when an issue may pop up and we explain this process some people, usually the same type of irrational person will push back from any of this and expect the painters to do anything they need to do regardless of how much it costs the company to do it and not charge them a dime for it.

This me attitude is the worst thing about being a business owner, we want nothing else than to give an awesome job and put a smile on our clients face, but when we meet these people who knock that smile off even before we walk through the door it brings the office, painters, and supervisors down and they want nothing more than to finish these jobs and move on. We also add these clients to our do not work for list. I should charge other companies for this list it would save a ton of time and money for them. 

Yes we make mistakes but guess what?

"Everyone is going to make a mistake and those who tell you they are perfect are not telling you the truth" Ryan Amato

When we arrive at a job site we all have great intentions and there is nothing more the painters want to do than please their clients trust me.

Painters all share one thing in common, they love to look back at the end of a project and see a happy customer smiling. This will make any painter proud and believe me painters have and take great pride in their work.

So when there is a mistake, a spill or something simply doesn't work out this can be devastating to the pride of the painter not to mention the customer sometimes may take a small mistake and blow it way out of proportion. We understand to you this may seem like a horrible thing and the world may be crumbling.

Here is where a good company and great painters step up. They take control of the situation and bring solutions to the table and fix whatever small issue may be happening or something that is bothering a customer.

We sometimes look at each other in the office when we get frantic calls from clients screaming and yelling for an issue that will take an hour to correct. We aren't running away and a great company will correct any issue even when it isn't their fault.

So any company you hire, I always ask if they back their work, the review I want to hear or see is yes they made a mistake but guess what? They corrected it right away.

I had a black top company seal my driveway and when I came home it was sprayed all over the siding of my home, I tried everything I could to get it off with no luck. I emailed that night, didn't receive a response but when I came home the next day it was cleaned up. That is customer service and I would recommend them to anyone and certainly use them again EVEN though they made a mistake.

You will not ruin my day

A typical day in the life of a painting company:

A normal day in our office comes with many emotions and they are affected by the people we come across each day.

This could be a typical impatient general contractor, an awesome residential customer calling to give praise or one that is irrational and demanding but what we cannot do is let any of them change how our day goes.

Their emotions are not necessarily ours and letting them change how we act or feel should never happen.

So how do we do this? I will be honest sometimes this is tough but we stay grounded by knowing we have done our best in everything we do, appreciating what is around us whether that is a co-worker who is going above and beyond, our families or any number of things to be grateful for.

Who are the best people I come across? They are real people who appreciate honesty whether that is upsetting or not and understand the work it takes to produce a quality job and is thankful for someone helping them out.

When I come across these people I always make a note in their estimate folder so we all know this one is a gem and we do everything we can for them and more because of people like this travel together and guaranteed they have more friends and family who they can refer you to who have the same personality.

Now on the other hand if we have a difficult, unreasonable and demanding client the same may be said of their friends because if they act like this to us most likely they act like that in all aspects of their lives.

Don't take these people's actions and attitudes personal, in our office, we keep a list of them and reflect back upon them once in awhile, they don't even know they are treating people badly most of the time.

Forget about them and move on, remember the great ones and cultivate those relationships

Why it is impossible to compare estimates.

Why it is almost impossible to compare estimates.

Comparing estimates seems to be the thing to do, we all do it, get three estimates put them side by side and look at the pricing but when I tell you how impossible that is you may think and look at it another way.

The three estimates you received, if you took those three contractors and had them in the same room at the same time they still would come back with totally different ways to do the job, maybe using different materials, different applications. different workforces and for sure different overhead. 

The most important difference and one we aim for is a totally different experience. You all have called around to contractors, how many call you back? or take forever to call back or never do?

How many keep you updated on the process, help choose colors, train their staff and have a ton of resources behind them to help make sure your job goes well even when something goes wrong?

If they do show up for the estimate how long does it take to get the estimate back to you? For us it is the same day or next.

Do they have one person dedicated to making sure your project goes well and your totally satisfied? We do.

I am asking you to forget the norm and throw away price shopping for a second.

Yes, the price is important for everyone but if it costs a bit more for the satisfaction of knowing you have no worries or responsibilities and can be assured no matter what you will be happy isn't that worth it?

If you had an issue with someone calling you back or showing up on time for your estimate what happens once the painting project starts?

You will always find someone cheaper but at what expense to your home or project?

💪👊

Why you should love bad feedback

Sometimes bad feedback is a good thing

We all want each and every project we do to be perfect but that isn't real life.

So you have been on a job, you were excited to get started, you set everything up, all the painters show up on time, paint is delivered and you get going, everything is going smoothly for the most part and then something goes bad. You spill paint, you scratch something, you break something. The office doesn;t get right back to someone, you missed a spot, they think you need more painters than are onsite(different blog for another time) you get the point almost anything can and may happen at any time. 

Some of these are accidents and there isn't anything you can do about them, others are missed expectations either from the customers end because they never shared them, think they heard something else or the estimator didn't relay this information to the painter or the painter just simply didn't follow through.

So your great job you were going to be profitable on no has an angry customer and one that can make everyone miserable for the remainder of the job if not addressed right away or one that has everyone walking on eggshells and rushing to get done, or worse yet you have the customer who says nothing, you have no idea they are upset and they hir you with a bad review with your painters and office thinking everything was great.

This happens all the time and it knocks the wind out of everyone each time, trust me the painters and staff want nothing more than to make people happy from the customer to their supervisors to themselves, if you're in the painting industry you are a people pleaser for the most part and any bad feedback cab send us into a dark hole.

But don;t crawl in that hole, sometimes yes it may be a customer that no matter what you do nothing will make them happy, for people like this, smile and get the job done and move on, learn how to pre-qualify your leads better and learn a lesson but for the issues that are real where you missed satisfaction step back and thank the customer for bringing these issues up and use it to train yourself, your crew and staff in the office.

It is a magical moment and gift that customer gave you by telling you what is wrong in their mind!

They are letting you know how to get better, imagine if everyone did this around you it would be a daily chance to make things better for the next time and next customers and better yet win that damn client back by your service and gain new work from them and force them to refer you to other people, it has happened, we have had just the worst clients, most difficult people and in the end they thank us and refer their friends because we listened, got better and as it may have turned out they weren't really being difficult we just weren't listening and we were running scared of disappointment and negative feedback.

Again use this as a gift handed to you to make yourself and your company better.

The HGTV customer

The HGTV customer

How tv has made estimates and work difficult.

Everyone seems to watch all the how to and fix it shows flip this flip that.  They portray these easy and quick rehabs and renovations that make it seem like it can be done in a day with no disruption to your home.

What they fail to show is the difficulties throughout the projects, the mistakes, the long days.

What these idealistic shows have done is make a real renovation or repainting project difficult by giving homeowners a false sense of knowledge on their end and expectations that can not possibly be met with a normal budget.

We go through this all the time on estimates, with the homeowner that wants consultation work for free on the 15 different ideas they have from trim to specialty finishes they would never be able to afford under normal circumstances to how long a project will take or how it should be done.

Here is a video I just produced this weekend that can explain this a bit more.

When you realize these are ideal situations, produced and overly managed under budgets that the normal person cannot afford you will understand it is a show, yes some great ideas but I watch shows about $150,000 cars too, it doesn't mean I am going out to buy one.

When you need a real, truthful consultation give me a call I Would be glad to come out and take a look.

www.ryanamatopainting .com

Painter for a day is a great deal

Sometimes small projects get pushed away from other painting contractors as they are sometimes more work than it is worth, we saw this issue and created a "painter for a day"
What this means is you don't have to take time meeting 3 or 4 contractors giving estimates and many of them won't show, so you took off of work and lost even more money.
We offer one fee of $500 for one experienced painter for one day.
We are offering a painter for a day:

Our Painter For A Day program includes all of the following for the low cost of $500.00. Job Specific Materials & Equipment are billed at our cost plus 25%. Job specific materials are paint, tape, roller covers for example:

• One experienced painter during normal working hours
• All necessary tools such as ladders, drop cloths
• 8 hours of quality painting service

Painter For A Day services can include:

• Painting your Office, Hallways, or Lobby
• Painting your Common Areas or Stairwells
• Touch-Up Interior or Exterior Trim
• Paint your Doors and Door Frames to make them look new
• Work on both interior and exterior surfaces
• And Much More!
• This would be great for a smaller job such as that one wall that needs to be painted, or a few doors and trim that you need to be spruced up before the family comes over.
• This is not for large exterior work, anything needing an extension ladder or more detailed projects, for those you would want to get a proper estimate. This is for residential projects only but doesn't fret our commercial friends we also do offer painters for daily projects.
• For you,  it saves time, no need for an estimate and knowing you will get your small project done in an efficient way.
• For our end, it reduces costs as we do not have to come out for an estimate as those costs are built into the jobs, for a painter for a day you get a drastically reduced price and an expedited service saving weeks when normally placed on the schedule.
• If you would like more information please visit our website at www.ryanamatopainting.com or email bidrequests@ryanamatopaintingllc.com

How to not lose money on commercial painting jobs

How to not lose money on commercial painting jobs

We were recently the featured guests on PaintED a PDCA Podcast. Painting Contractors and Decorators of America was founded in 1884 with the purpose to help painting contractors succeed.

The one area for us they are worth any penny is the Industry Standards they developed.

The Industry standards take the guess work out of any situation and application and level the playing field against those contractors that demand and insist on wrong applications and additional work that is not yours to own.

These situations arise on each job whether touch ups to damage done by others, when they tell you once you paint the wall you own it, that is not the case at all, or how about caulking, they would have you caulk every inch of the building would there not be standards.

Sequencing of jobs is another very important topic, was the flooring done before you painted? If it was how much did that slow you down, was that listed in the schedule? Probably not

This list could go on and on, here a few key ones

• Caulking
• You paint it you own it (WRONG!!)
• Touching up spackle work after you primed the walls
• Additional coats because walls were not prepared correctly
• Overtime due to sequencing of jobs

You know you have all lost money on the items above, it depends greatly on who is managing the job, the quality of the other subs and your own man power.

Not all contractors are bad at all, in fact, we have been lucky enough to work with some great ones and I can count on one hand the bad ones but they do leave a lasting impression.

Take a listen to the podcast and listen close, it could save you some grief and money in the future. 

Quality, timing or price?

Quality timing or cost?

Each job or estimate we do these three things are most important and we need to know which are important to you on your project.

It is virtually impossible to be able to get all three for many reasons I will go through in the video attached. But basically

Top Quality=Cost

Timing, we need it done right away costs money to mobilize and make this happen

Price means you want the lowest price, this will affect quality most certainly

For example, we just did an estimate for a customer who was selling their home, low price was not their issue but the timing was so they needed it done right away and with average quality so the price would be higher than your normal project.

We had another which was a rental unit, they need the lowest price but dome right away, so quality may not be the highest and in this instance didn't matter much, they needed it done so they could rent it out quick.

So knowing this going in will certainly help avoid frustrations, take a look at this video blog I just did and listen closely.

Remember you cannot have the lowest price, top quality and done right away, pick and chose your most important

I have a secret for you about painting companies

I have a secret I would like to reveal, most painting companies offer the same thing.
Well, why is that a secret you may ask?  When you're getting an estimate listen carefully I will bet each one says the same exact thing.

They will put two coats on the wall using this or that paint, cover the floors and it will be a super awesome paint job, they are the best company to do this job, hire me

This means nothing at all, yes we have good painters, but so does company b and c what will totally blow those other companies out of the water is SERVICE and VALUE

It is no secret the other company may have good painters on par with ours but what really sets our painters apart and the company is the service. We may even not be the cheapest and in some cases, it may be the highest price you receive but even at that, we are booked for months and in demand so it must be something other than price.

Here is the other secret, We go above and beyond in what we offer, the first thing you will notice right from the start is someone answers the phone and promptly returns a call.  We don;t take on each and every estimate that comes through and Brooke or Tanya may ask a slew of questions to make sure were a great fit for each other. Once we get that set we schedule an estimate and 99% of the time we are early and guess what if were running late we call.

We promptly get the proposal over if we do not do it on the spot and then we set a time up to go over the estimate together. Now although we will not reduce the price just because someone asks there may be other ways to get the project into your budgeted range, one is by the value we offer, maybe the guys will do something extra for you, we offer an experience when you hire us not just a few painters painting your wall, should you need help with color or moving something please ask, the guys would be more than happy to help. So you need help bringing in the groceries? No problem where do you want them. We go above and beyond on service.

If something is messed up, yes we all make mistakes we will promptly take care of them and it will be better than before.

This makes your proposal more than simply a paint job, you will be gaining our experience and knowledge as well as a company striving for ultimate customer satisfaction and service.