If I had a dollar for every time a customer asked me, "How does one find a good contractor," I swear, I'd be rich. Admittedly, I never gave much thought to what the lay person needs to know to find a good contractor. Being somewhat subjective, the very question, "What makes a contractor good"? - is inherently vague. Above all, can someone please define "good."
Does good mean lower priced? Does good mean high quality work? Does good mean honest? Does good mean attentive to details? Does good mean fast? Does it mean repairs that work forever? I would suggest it means all of those things, and then some.
Although this website is primarily a resource for contractors, I'm sure a few homeowners and property managers stop by. This then, is more for them than us, but perhaps we could use this information to re-think how a potential customer might actually view us.
Good contractors always return phone calls; or have real good excuses (like, they just had a full frontal lobotomy and forgot how phones work; or, they went out for a beer and came back a year later; or, they were abducted by aliens and their cell phone batteries were stolen to power the mother ship). I try to return every message on my answering machine before I go to bed - every day, weekends and holidays too. Is it possible to actually return all calls all the time? Nope. But 98% of the time we do.
Our customers should always try to get references from other customers that are nearby; like their neighbors. Never use the telemarketers with the lead in line, "We're going to be in your neighborhood next week and…" They're no more going to be in your neighborhood next week than they'll be on Mars. Yellow pages are strange too. Many buyers believe the bigger the ad, the more desperate the contractor? Guess who will be paying for the thousand dollar a month plus ad in the yellow pages? The customer will ultimately and they know it.
