The two on-line services have been going for some time. Improveline was set up in October and hi-revolution in February. Both aim to improve customer service in the £15bn-a-year home repair and improvement sector, and both use similar language to the government’s scheme: they promise to protect the public from cowboy builders by screening contractors before allowing them to register. And, like the administrators of the quality mark, they promise to vet contractors’ credit and legal histories, to make sure that they have been in business for at least two years and to seek references from previous customers.
Their aim, they say, is to match domestic clients with reliable construction professionals and take the distrust out of the transaction. It appears that this proposition is music to the public’s ears. Both dot-coms feel confident enough to launch £4m-plus advertising campaigns – which is not surprising: customers are signing up to improveline at a rate of 2500 a day and 500 people register at hi-revolution every day.
Meanwhile, the government’s first quality mark pilot in Birmingham is cranking slowly into action. The DETR started sending mailshots about the scheme to contractors in the Midlands only this week. The quality mark hotline, manned by Capita from a call centre in Coventry, has so far received only 100 enquiries from contractors, and 40 information packs have been sent out. The scheme will not be publicly launched until a “critical mass” of contractors have signed up. The target date for this has been put back from June to July. The second pilot will be launched in Somerset in May, but the DETR will not roll out the scheme nationally until 2001.
So, is the government’s initiative being overtaken by events? Will the proliferation of approved builders’ registers confuse the public and queer the government’s pitch? Or can the DETR learn something from its forerunners in the anti-cowboy market? Stephen Walker, project manager responsible for the two quality mark pilots, is sanguine about the competition. “They believe we are launching a successful initiative and want to be part of it. They are not a particular threat or a hindrance. They have seen a commercial opportunity like web entrepreneurs in every other sector.”
They are not a particular threat or a hindrance
Stephen Walker, Project Manager, Quality Mark Pilots, On The Dot-Coms
Walker points out that the government’s target market is not the same as the dot-coms’. Whereas improveline and hi-revolution are targeting well-heeled, web-surfing consumers with the cash to shell out on a conservatory, the government’s priority is to protect elderly and disabled people and social housing tenants. He says: “There is a place for the Internet in disseminating the quality mark scheme, but consumers need to access the information through a range of media, so no element of the general public is disadvantaged. A large number of households do not have access to a computer and 2.5 million households are not on the telephone. That is why we will aim to forge partnerships with local authorities and ‘care and repair’ organisations [drop-in centres where public sector tenants can get advice on the repair and maintenance of properties].”
Walker is right: the dot-coms are aimed at homeowners with plenty of disposable income. Marshall King, who founded improveline, and Kim Rehveld and Adam Burdess, who set up hi-revolution, are themselves successful professionals, and all have had disastrous home improvement experiences. What’s more, anecdotal evidence of out-of-control budgets and shoddy workmanship, compounded by complaints statistics (the Office of Fair Trading received 100 000 grumbles about builders last year), convinced them that they were on to something. However, according to Charles Pearce, marketing director of improveline, it was the advent of the Cowboy Builders Working Group and the Department of Trade and Industry’s white paper, Modern Markets: Confident Consumers, last July that alerted them to the size of the market to be exploited. This, together with the spate of television programmes such as Changing Rooms that whetted the public’s appetite for home improvement, convinced them they were on to a winner.
Improveline’s key staff are data consultancy professionals – many of them, like King himself, were formerly employed by credit reference agency Dun & Bradstreet. Improveline’s main asset is a register of 90 000 screened contractors that it whittled down from the database of 250 000 that it bought from Dun & Bradstreet. Of these, it has contacted 12 000 firms to offer them job leads. So far, it has found jobs for 350 contractors, worth an average of £12 000 each, and has generated job requests worth £25m.
Hi-revolution counts an architect among its staff. It bought a database of 3500 approved contractors, based mainly in the Midlands and the North, from independent quality assurer Fair Trade when it took over the company (one of the Fair Trade directors went with it). It plans to launch in London and the South-east in mid- May. Hi-revolution uses Dun & Bradstreet to check contractors’ credit and legal histories. It has jobs of an average value of £4000 and job requests worth £15m.
We got 40 or 50 leads from improveline. We ran a Yellow Pages ad at the same time and got two calls We got 40 or 50 leads from improveline. We ran a Yellow Pages ad at the same time and got two calls
Nigel Bessant, Reading Contractor
Improveline, whose service is free to consumers, makes money by charging contractors small fees for leads and 1-4% commission on jobs they win via the site. Hi-revolution provides leads free but charges a similar commission to its rival on jobs. Both sell advertising on their sites. Both sites offer specialist advice on design, planning permission and building regulations, as well as a conciliation service in the event of disputes.
Nigel Bessant of Reading-based Bessant Projects, who has won three jobs worth £75 000 through improveline in six weeks, says registering was “the best thing we’ve ever done. We got 40 or 50 quality leads from improveline. We ran a Yellow Pages advert at the same time and got two calls”. Eric Doel, managing director of Plymouth-based Quality Home Improvements, is also pleased with his experience of hi-revolution: “In three months, I have had half-a-dozen enquiries and I’m negotiating with four customers over jobs worth about £200 000.”
Clearly, the only registers builders are interested in subscribing to are those that win them work. Most are adamant that no quality assurances will combat rogue traders as long as VAT on domestic repairs remains at 17.5 %, and are cynical about forking out cash for quality assurances that appear to be too easy to get. Bessant says: “There are too many quality marks. I subscribe to them as a marketing tool, not because they make me a better builder. The only way to get quality into this industry is to outlaw rogues by cutting VAT.”
So, will the DETR quality mark help beat the cowboys? Improveline’s Pearce says the scheme is a “great idea”. However, he adds that it is a “huge thing to take on and administer and politically dangerous. It is a branding issue – it will need ongoing branding. There is a lot of cynicism among builders, so you have to provide longevity, real value and a real service,” he adds. “We want to work with the government, not against them.”
Walker is confident that the government’s quality mark hotlines and web site will become the definitive one-stop shop for customers to get advice on contracting a building with the maximum security. He says a perusal of the two sites shows that their warranties are inferior. Also, whereas the dot-coms seek references from previous customers to reassure new clients, the quality mark scheme goes further, getting trade professionals to check the quality of work carried out. “The quality mark scheme involves more comprehensive assessment and will be the only one backed by government, the consumer associations and trade associations,” says Walker.
