[Russ Chadd]

Anyone have any thoughts on Checkatrade? sounds expensive £500 + VAT per year...
Thoughts gentlemen please...

[heritagecleaning]

"A fool and his money.........."

[Steve Rothwell]

I know that some people on here are members, but could not say how much work they get.

I was visited by them after a customer got in touch with them about me, but decided that I was not going to pay to be "recommended".

[Helen]

"A fool and his money.........."

We are no fools and it has been really successful for us

£11.54 per week and bringing in 8 jobs on average per month.
Also helps at quote stage too for people that have found us elsewhere
Mind you the TV add after the local weather has been really beneficial too

[heritagecleaning]

Then I stand corrected

[Linda - Payatrader]

 
I've met the team at Checkatrade & they are very professional. Started out in a shed 12 years ago and are genuinely committed to their customers.

Hoping they will do a deal with me, at Payatrader one day soon!

Linda

[Neil Williams]

Hoping they will do a deal with me, at Payatrader one day soon!

Well if you do I look forward to any deal you can do, because card payment is something I want to get into but without the 10 days waiting for payment to arrive in my bank, or daft rental/transaction charges.

And back to the topic!
This is our checkatrade page http://www.checkatrade.com/Willclean/ which does help swing customers to buying into us when we quote

[jon barnes]

Hi

Did you know the guy who started  check a trade is an ex carpet cleaner

Terry

[Helen]

Then I stand corrected

 

[Linda - Payatrader]

Hi,

The way we work, to keep the cost of the service down, is to settle transactions once a week.

This means any transaction you take on SSMTWTF week 1 are bulk settled on Thursday in week 2.  So the wait for Sunday's business is much longer than Fridays I'm afraid!

If you collect on Fridays then you only wait 4 working days.

It's a difficult balance, however we think it's far better not having to pay rental or minimum usage charges as this works out expensive if you don't take many card payments from customers.

Thanks for the feedback anyway, I will tell the boss!
Linda

[james roffey]

Trust a trader, checkatrade, so many of these companies and most are very expensive it always a gamble with this type of marketing.

[Buckland]

Russ you are on borders hants/surrey right?

Why not sign up for Buy With Confidence scheme its run by Trading Standards County Councils - you could join either scheme - its not as expensive as the other schemes and it deserves people's support - it opens up a ready avenue of communication IF IT IS NEEDED - and its part of the local government setup - I'm not saying they do but the commercial companies have a vested interest in accepting anyone who approaches them because they pay and they need more members

The only drawback is their website search facilities are a bit wooden but they say they are planning to re-launch the website at some stage. They give you that confidence in terms of being a trusted source of information (non-commercial) and can act as arbitrators if anything should go wrong - the more people that join the better - its a natural sort of process to have Trading Standards involved like this - you get a big decal to go on the van as well! Also you get feedback cards for each visit...

Check out the website

buywithconfidence.gov.uk

dave

[Neil Williams]

Buy with confidence..... checkatrade are basically identical in what they do.
The BIG difference is that checkatrade run a 20 second advert on ITV at the beginning and end of every weather update. That's prime time advertising and by being continuous means that everyone sees it, granted it's only across the South at present but I'm sure they would spread it across the country if people contact them.

Alternatively if you think £500 is a lot, then don't buy into it because that's less competiton for those of us who do