What makes for a Positive Remodeling Experience?
While the focus of our efforts revolves primarily around providing well built, quality bathrooms to our clients throughout Columbus and Central, Ohio this is a question I think is worthy for not only all types of remodeling services, but in many areas of exchanges in commerce.
Last night, on a particularly beautiful spring evening, I went out for a walk on Hoover Dam up in Westerville. I found myself thinking about this question. I have had many stories related to me from numerous people over the years regarding their varied remodeling experiences. I was thinking about (what really does) make for a positive experience for people engaging in any type of relationship or arrangement with any sort of business. What separates the companies that are better than others or worse than others? After all, people make mistakes every day. Some larger, some smaller. Everyone has stories of something that occurred or things gone wrong, or accidents, in their own lives and in the lives of people they know.
On every remodeling project there are many people involved in the project: from suppliers, to manufacturers, to shipping companies, subcontractors, our team, etc. What has allowed for the advancement in society and technology is in people becoming experts in one area and then building off and sharing this knowledge in a way that is beneficial to the whole. But there is always some possibility for an error somewhere along the way. I have seen HGTV and other shows highlighting things from rebuilding a house, to tearing out a terrible looking landscape, to building storage solutions. Even in these shows, in which they have everything lined up perfectly with lots of people on staff, and each with their own unique task… there are things that go wrong. Perhaps the truck breaks down that is suppose to bring a crucial component, a miscommunication happens, a broken part shows up, or tile shows up with small defects in it upon careful scrutiny and it is going to take a week to get new tile.
In projects of all types of areas things sometimes happen, people make mistakes, or no one made a mistake but something was manufactured incorrectly and not known about till it was to be installed. What we strive to do best is relate with each other and our clients in a way that every person involved has an important role to play and this truly is a team-oriented approach. Our Clients are part of our team on every project.
An Attitude of Trust, Relaxed Co-operation, and Wanting to always do our Best in Every Circumstance
I think the crucial key to a successful and positive experience during a project is for every member of the team to have a certain type of sincere desire to understand clearly the problems when they do arise and an attitude of wanting to provide the best solutions that make the most sense for each situation. It is also imperative that each person on the team trust and respect one another while acknowledging that we all have certain strengths (in different areas) to bring to each project. Quite simply: an attitude of fairness toward others and desire to do one’s best, and to try to always consider every situation from the standpoint of how another may be viewing it – understanding of another’s viewpoint.
Most everyone has heard stories about bad experiences with contractors (usually always when a situation got stressful or tense) when they got angry or became extremely negative. This is when the conflict began. Something occurred in which in some way, the opportunity to work through a difficulty or variance of understandings between the parties involved went awry. I think it is imperative look at any difficulty as an opportunity to work through something in a shared way with people, and to do this in a way which values people and the relationships with people as much as the project itself. This is the nature of every project from the very beginning. Every project begins with a problem. The process of getting from the beginning problem to the final solution is what is important. The interactions that occur, the way things are worked through – an experience of a positive internal feeling about the project and the parties involved naturally happens.
I have witnessed over and over our team members performing in ways or acting in ways that I feel proud of having them a part of our team, I also feel fortunate to have worked with very good people (in our Clients) over the years.