How Many Times Should You See These Top Mentions in Painter Reviews Before You Can Feel Confident Hiring Them?
In our recent blog, “Top 7 Painter Reviews You'll Want to See Before Hiring Your Next Contractor,” we discussed some of the key phrases and words found in online reviews that reveal a painting company’s merit. Professionalism, expertise, timeliness, communication skills, reliability, and results -- these are just a handful of markers that paint a contractor in a positive light. However, many of us have been burned before by goods and services that didn’t live up to their supposed reputation. As a result, many of us are now skeptical when reading online reviews.
Indeed, it can be difficult to tell whether or not a given review is even written by a genuine customer or planted as some deceitful scheme. We at Nash Painting are no strangers to this problem -- last year our online presence was temporarily tarnished by an onslaught of fake reviews sent by a nearby competitor. It’s also no secret that some businesses purchase or write their own reviews to boost their prestige. Read another blog of ours, “How to Know You're Reading Real Painter Reviews to Ensure You Get the Best Service,” for more on how to distinguish legitimate remarks from false ones.
Even if you’ve seemingly mastered the art of separating the real from the fake, however, you might still struggle to find local painters you trust. After all, an individual review is subjective and may not reflect everyone’s experience. Multiple positive reviews help drive home a contractor’s worth, but how many glowing reviews does it really take to feel confident in a given painting provider? The answer to this question will vary from one person to the next. With that in mind, here’s our advice for browsing online painter reviews and how much weight to put on them.
Dig Deeper than Star Ratings
Unless you’ve got extra time on your hands or just really enjoy reading customer reviews, you’ll probably prefer to skim them and/or simply look at the bigger picture by way of star ratings. While aggregate scores can certainly give you a general sense of customer sentiment, they don’t reveal much about the actual experiences various people have had with a commercial or residential painting contractor. As you compare companies, make sure you fully read at least a handful of reviews (ideally across the spectrum of ratings). The more information you have, the more informed your hiring decision will be.
Look for Common Terms and Themes
There’s no need to read every single review out there, of course. After you’ve gotten a glimpse into real customer experiences, briefly scroll through reviews, keeping an eye out for those keywords and phrases mentioned earlier (e.g., professional, timely, trustworthy, etc.). You can use the “finder” tool on your computer to type in words you’d like to see and then jump from one highlighted example to the next (assuming those words can be found in multiple reviews).
Seek Trends Across Review Platforms
Don’t limit yourself to a single review platform either. While somewhat overwhelming, there are dozens of popular sites used to rate residential and commercial painting companies (among other businesses), such as Google, Facebook, HomeAdvisor, Angie’s List, Yellowpages, and more. A given painting contractor might not have a presence on all of these platforms, but it’s worth browsing at least a few of them. As you go from one site to another, look for certain trends -- if a painting service provides consistent quality, this should be reflected on every review site they’re on. In other words, a given contractor should have similar ratings and reviews regardless of the platform. If this isn’t the case, there might be something fishy going on (or the company simply happened to receive more negative/positive reviews on a certain platform for some reason).
Quantity Does Not Equal Quality
While it’s helpful to look for trends and numerous examples of specific keywords, note that quantity isn’t everything -- quality counts when it comes to online reviews. Simply put, not all reviews are created equal, and not just in the sense that each review is subjective and unique or that some may not be authentic in the first place. Rather, some people carefully craft their reviews to help future customers while others merely blurt out a single sentence. While both types of review hold value, the former kind should be weighed more heavily than the latter. Those thoughtful, well-written reviews are more likely to explore specific details about a project and the contractor in question. So, even if you’ve found countless instances of positive words and phrases, make sure they’re backed up by well-related written experiences.
Negative Reviews are Valuable Too
Even the best, most qualified painting contractors make mistakes or encounter a customer that’s impossible to please. While it’s natural to want to see only positive reviews about a painter you’re thinking of hiring, don’t cut and run the moment you come across a negative review. On the contrary, negative reviews are sometimes more revealing than positive ones for multiple reasons. For starters, these remarks might indicate a very real flaw that other customers either didn’t experience/notice or were too polite to mention in their reviews. Moreover, you might glean from a negative review that the customer actually had unrealistic expectations. And perhaps most importantly (depending on the platform), negative reviews provide an opportunity for the company to respond to criticism and potentially amend the issue in the public eye. An earnest response to poor marks can say a lot about a home painting provider, perhaps pushing you even more in their direction.
Of course, if the majority of reviews are scathing and/or you notice multiple instances of negative remarks across review platforms, you’re probably better off taking your business elsewhere (unless said reviews are maliciously fake, which is what happened to us).
A Test of Testimonials
Hiring painters for your home or business is no small investment. It’s no wonder that most of us spend at least some time checking out online reviews before making the final call. As long as you know what to look for and how to analyze the reviews you see, you can almost always feel confident in your hiring decision. Despite the aforementioned attacks on our reputation, Nash Painting is proud to have received countless detailed testimonials from our customer base across Nashville, Brentwood, and Franklin, TN. Click here to read some of these glowing customer testimonials. To learn more about us, our services, and our values, call us at 615-829-6858 today!