As a company we started to use the Homestars service because several customers that hired us stated that they were tempted to go with another company because we did not have any reviews on the Homestars site. Homestars has become the go to site for many consumers when hiring a contracting company. Personally when I hire a company to deliver a service I ask my friends who they may have used and what the service like. With Homestars I am able to effectively ask the whole city what a company service was like. We had a lot of testimonials from our customers but they were not posted on a neutral third party site. Third party testimonials are a very powerful factor in the decision making process for many homeowners. In the past a large portion of our work came from referrals. What Homestars has done for us is take the referrals we would normally get and allow us to show them to a much greater segment of the city.
Customers, whether booking a trip or hiring a contractor, value what other people have to say. I have used travel sites for years to get a feel for what a resort destination might be like. I read the bad reviews as well as the good reviews and have found that the overall trend tends to give an accurate picture of what I can expect. Mitch Joel, author of Six Pixels of Separation and a daily blog about the impact of social media on our daily life wrote that “We’ve seen the power of testimonials grow through word of mouth marketing and strengthen even more when introduced to the power of the Web, and the masses of people that can (and do) take a product/service and make it spread.”
Jessica Sugar, our account representative, has been extremely helpful setting up our use of the Homestars site to increase our business. She has been very proactive in her dealings with us and has communicated with us in a very professional manner. Jessica has had many suggestions on how we can more effectively use their site to help give potential customers information about our company and the level of service we deliver.
As a company we would like to thank Homestars, and specifically Jessica Sugar, for their professional service, which has been helpful to our company and helpful to the general population in finding good quality contractors.
Stephen Ksiazek
The Waterproofer.ca