You can never be too careful

I received a disappointing call this morning from one of my best clients.  She called to inform me of multiple unpleasant experiences that she has had with a home warranty company that I've referred a lot of business to over the past couple of years. 

If you aren't familiar with what a home warranty company does, they basically provide coverage to the home buyer for the first year of the home purchase to make sure that if anything goes wrong the buyer is insured against major repairs.  The more technical name is a residential services contract. 

As a buyer, if you never have to contact the home warranty service, you are in luck because that means that nothing substantial occurred with the house.  But, like all other warranties and insurance, the residential services contract is in place in case something happens. 

To make a long story short, this client of mine has had two negative experiences with the service that was provided during two claims she has had to make recently.  It turns out that companies (one plumber, one A/C) that were contracted to do the work through the home warranty company both turned out to be less than professional and very unhelpful to say the least.  To the point where my client recommended that I never refer future clients to this home warranty company.   That's a strong statement. 

Knowing this home warranty company well and the way that they do business, I made sure to give my account representative a call immediately to discuss the issues.   I gave him the names of the two companies that did (or did not really) do the work.  As I expected, he was very apologetic and promised to call my client directly to apologize and do what he could to make it up to her.  He said that he will make sure to take both companies off of their list so that nothing like this happens again.  While, I feel this was an isolated incident, it doesn't make me feel any less frustrated for my client. 

The main lesson to be learned through this experience is that your reputation is only as good as the people you associate with, or in this case the service providers that your company uses.   You have to be extra careful who you affiliate yourself with because not only is their reputation on the line, but yours is as well.