Certainly much of my frustration with Landfare was related to their quality of work and attention to detail, but I think the part that frustrated me the most was their attitude. On the surface, they seem to be relatively invested and accommodating. However, that goes skin deep.
When dealing with a service company I want them to control their quality. After all, I am paying them for their expertise as well as time and materials. One typically won’t return to a restaurant that can’t deliver consistent quality. If your medium rare filet comes out as a well done New York strip, that’s unacceptable. Then, if the waiter takes it back after you point out the error and it happens another time or three, I can’t see any reasonable person not being bewildered and frustrated. This sort of scenario tells you a few things:
- The waiter is not paying attention. He should have spotted the error immediately before the plate left the kitchen.
- The kitchen isn’t paying attention. There should be a clear order they can deliver on.
- The order may never have been taken correctly in the first place meaning the waiter was not paying attention.
- You would expect some sort of higher level quality control. How is a manager not on top of this issue after the first time let alone the second time? You would expect a manager to be on high alert and making absolutely sure that the issue did not arise a second time. They may even come out to your table to apologize and make sure the customer is well taken care of.
These are all of the questions I asked myself with Landfare. How is it that they repeatedly left the job site with things so obviously wrong? Who is maintaining the quality? Why am I, the client, having to drive quality, inspect work myself, and then call them to the carpet to remedy? How is it that the owner, whom I copied nearly all of my emails, is not absolutely beside himself? How is he not falling over himself to show the customer that this is unacceptable and he will get to the bottom of the issue once and for all?
The situation would be very different if I had pointed out a few things and gotten a response like “Thank you for pointing that out. We noticed that too and just hadn’t had a chance to let you know. That said, we will fix it on date X.” This was never the case. Issues were constantly and consistently found through out the project by me. There was no acknowledgement of them being known or any sort of proactive inspection regiment. It was apparent that no one was inspecting work. This is simply unacceptable. One hires a general contractor so that the contractor is making sure everyone under their authority is maintaining quality. That’s part of the the value of a GC and why you pay the 15% mark up. If I wanted to coordinate the project and maintain the accountability of quality, I would hire my own subs and run the project myself.
At the end of the day the only thing I could surmise is that Landfare did not care and hoped things went well OR had no concept of proactive quality control and inspection. In either event, this is not someone I want working on my project.