Within just twelve months of 2008 Home Installation Professionals earned 16 customer straight A with one or two B ratings, none lower, in every remodeling category for Price, Quality, Responsiveness, Punctuality and Professionalism by our clients and members of major on line rating services. We also have earned only Straight A ratings from all our major remodeling customers in every category throughout 2009 and 2010 while earning and maintaining the highest A+ Accredited Business ratings available from the Better Business Bureau we are very proud to say.
We continue to earn the respect and support of hundreds of major remodeling customers since our start on the North Shore in 1973. We take extreme pride in our work, and love to design and build every type of indoor or outdoor new living spaces and major remodeling projects for both commercial and residential customers. We design and build about 80 major remodeling large and small projects a year with 2008 being our busiest year ever.
Then in the last quarter of 2008, 2009 and all of this year so far we have all found ourselves in very tough economic times. Along with everyone else in the design and building trades this particular recession has impacted all of us, most very severely, many have gone out of business. We at Home Installations Professionals have not been immune. We have seen a severe impact on our vendors, sub contractors and most importantly our customers over the last 18 months to two years with a steady increase day to day in the recessions effect. Every aspect of our business and all of our subs, vendors, employees and customers professional and personal lives are affected by it in all ways.
While the vast majority of our clients were able to work with us through this recession over the past 24 months (100 large remodeling and renovation clients), a very small number were not (five). At the beginning to middle of 2008 we had 15 jobs going at one time, then the economic cliff we all fell off happened the second quarter of 2008. The recession found us with way to high a volume of work. Trying to support so many projects professionally without our normal and standard financial tools, adequate cash flow or liquidity and reliable vendors in the middle of a free falling economy became very difficult and unfortunately impacted about 5 projects that were all contracted with prior to the crash and with major work being done on all 5 projects during it.
We have been and continue to be in the business of exceeding our customer expectations in all ways in design build home and commercial improvements since 1973. Over the past three years we have been experiencing a learning curve regarding this new economic reality and how it affects all aspects of our business and how we must adjust to it to better serve our customers. This is the first time since 1973 we have ever had challenges such as this occur. We are working through these projects now and working very closely with these customers and all of these projects have been or are being professionally completed by us. Bottom line five customers out of the vast majority of our completely satisfied customers (120 in 2007-2008, 2009 and 15 so far in 2010) and thousands of satisfied, happy customers since 1973 did not like or accept the negative impact this economy had on their projects and unlike all our other great customers who are working closely with us these five choose not to work with us through the economic collapse that we all have been experiencing. Four of these five customers have all talked with each other fabricating everything but the real issues and reasons why we had difficulties with just these 5 clients which were cash flow, multiple projects going on one time compounding the problems exponentially, credit availability for ourselves and our vendors, vendor and materials access (many of our vendors went out of business or had compromised material availability in 2008 and early 2009) and subcontractor, employee and GC personal and professional impact this economy has had.
One of these five customers, Vincent Taylor who’s project was contracted, started and was being worked on in July of 2008, before the economic free fall, with major work being done during it and who’s project has since been professionally finished by my trades not only elected to not work with us throughout his project during the tumbling economy but has since repeatedly, maliciously and vindictively attacked us on line in many different sites in many different ways with false claims and lies including using web sites that don’t verify facts and are run by convicted felons who extort money out of those who are negatively talked about on their site by offering to “repair their reputation” for large sums of money.
We repeatedly offered many many different solutions to him to mitigate the negative impact on his project this economy had back in 2008, including free major improvements, free skilled trades, free site management to keep his project under budget and finished on time, even a free major addition component on his property. All we asked for in return is that he work with us and be patient as we worked our way through this economic mess. He elected not to, finished and self upgraded the last part of his project himself using my trades ordering materials and changing the plans and scope of the project that were never part of the original scope of the contract. Now he feels we should be paying him for his project mismanagement, for upgrades and changes that he made and for materials that he ordered that were never agreed on that he ordered off my wholesale accounts without my knowledge or approval even though we ask him multiple times to allow us bring in the project under budget with a better timeline. This was in 2008 well BEFORE the solutions that we describe below were put into place. Had the solutions that we are NOW USING ON EVERY PROJECT been in place none of the issues we had with the Taylors project or some similar problems with the five others back in 2008, out of thousands of great customers and projects since 1973, would have occurred as our many many current great major remodeling customers we have had since January of 2009 after these solutions were implemented and many before will tell you. Please see some of what they have to say here Click Here. All of these great customers and many many more we have had since 1973 are available to talk with in person and their projects are available to view anytime by appointment.
Enough doom and gloom. NOW FOR SOLUTIONS and what we have done and implemented as we move forward in dealing with this economy, protecting our customers, our vendors and subcontractors and making sure we don’t have issues again as we did in these five projects in 2008 and most importantly to protect our customers and insure continued great outcomes far beyond our customers expectations on EVERY project.
- As of April 1st 2009, we have re-resourced quality vendors, that have survived and have a strong future and reestablish new credit and vendor lines, some of them are humble compared to what they used to be but they exist and are much more than we had through most of 2008. The new federal programs have helped significantly.
- We have resourced in some cases new subcontractors were necessary and reestablish new payment terms and rules with them to best serve our customers.
- We have limited the number of projects at a time to between two and five maximum to better serve our customers through these difficult times and better deal with the economy.
- Most importantly as of March 1st 2009 we are now protecting our customers, our vendors, sub contractors and ourselves and eliminating economic impact by now only working through professional construction title escrow programs, professional construction coordinators, bank and title companies for all our new and future projects regardless of the size and scope. All funds are directed from the customer to the bank and or Title Company and payments are incrementally made through the title company in small increments directly to the vendors and subcontractors from the Title company only when specific performance based projects steps are accomplished and only after full lien releases and accompanying paper work is provided by that sub contractor or vendor. For example in a basement or an addition project a payment is made only at framing, one at electrical one at HVAC one at finish flooring etc. This payment is only made upon complete approval of all parties, the homeowners, the GC, the subs, the bank and or Title Company, local municipal inspectors and or third party inspectors such as an independent architect, licensed inspector or appraisal company. Performance bonds are included; Each payment to any party is not made until after all mechanics lien releases and associated paper work are provided by the sub, vendor or GC. So each and every incremental step and all payments are inspected and approved by all as the project goes along. A complete project budget called a Contractors statement listing all line items, contract amounts and payments to all vendors, GCs and subs that is available to all, at all times. Upgrades can be added if required to the budget or contractors statement at anytime by the homeowner. We pay all fees for the Title Company, professional construction coordinator, performance bonds and permits.
Since 1973 we have always relied on our very detailed, pro client contracts and our interaction, trust and team work with our customers. This professional approach has always worked for everyone on our projects from 1973 through the first half of 2008. Our recent learning curve has taught us that sometimes this is not enough given and depth and length of this recession which seems to have particularly targeted the housing, build and remolding industries. We know that had we had the Title escrow program and our other solutions we have implemented been in place none of the challenges we had with these five customers would have occurred since every project detail and cost is listed and must be approved by all before any payments are made and in those five cases upgrades would not have been assumed or expected when not contracted for.
We are working on five projects right now that are all Title coordinated through the professional construction coordinator and all are going very smoothly without issue.
We look forward to 2010 and the inevitable turn around and economic recovery we all hope will come much sooner than later. In the mean time we look forward to continuing to exceed all our customer expectations in all home and commercial improvement design and build projects while using our new policies including Title Escrow programs to better serve you.
One great thing this the greatest recession since the great depression has done is LOWERED OUR PRICES. Unlike a year or two ago, we are now offering our customers at least 20 to 50% discounts and more on overall project costs, along with our standard policy of beating any professional proposal in all ways including many free upgrades along the way for our customers, that other builders will not even consider. This always includes our free architectural and professional interior, kitchen and bathroom design services and our free lifetime warranty on everything we do. Please talk to us about other stimulus packages and discounts we offer and please come and see our work, tour our local projects and talk with our customers. We will work through this together, meeting and learning from our challenges while improving today for a better tomorrow and continuing to build on our success to better serve all our customers. Thank you and we look forward to being of service to you with all your design, build and improvement needs.
Update. As of January 2010, ten Months after this initial letter posting we currently have five major projects going in Libertyville, Tower lakes, Grayslake and Gurnee, two that just completed in Ingleside, Gurnee and Lake Forest Illinois all using the new solutions above including new vendors and some new staff, title escrow and all is continuing to go very well while exceeding our customer expectations. Contact and site visits to any of our projects and with our recently completed projects, the project homeowners and the projects we are working on now are available by appointment anytime. We would love to show you our work and have you talk with our customers. Please see letters from just five of them in 2009- 2010 by clicking this link. These customers are available to talk with anytime with site visits by appointment. More are on the way. Click Here.
Thank You
Home Installation Professionals
