FAQ - Frequently asked questions. So that we're clear.

No. We’re not. And we’ll explain why.

All of these (Check a trade, Trust a trader, Trusted traders, Rated people, My builder, Bark or The little green book?) are commercial, money making marketing organisations – trade versions of national business directories – Yell, Cylex, Yelp, Find open, Bizify, Plumbers Directory, Homeandgardenlistings, Thompson, We are local and Scoot, and local directories Choose Caversham, About my area and Reading.co.uk.

So, what’s the difference? 

With the national and local directories businesses can sign up for a “free listing”. And with this comes the “opportunity” to pay for a “sponsored listing”. This ensure that you’ll come up higher in results when people search for certain terms say emergency plumber. The cost to the business – a monthly charge for some in the hundreds of pounds plus a fee of as much as £30 each time your sponsored listing is clicked on.

Membership fees? Pay to be on a “shortlist“?

With Check a trade, Trust a trader, Trusted trader, Tradesmen, Rated people, My builder, Bark and The little green book, for a listing trades people have to pay either “membership fees”, or for a lead – essentially an opportunity to be included on a short list of 3 or 4 chosen trades business sent out when there’s an enquiry’s. With some, it’s a double whammy and both a membership fee and short-listing lead fees are payable!

Make no bones about it, these costs are big money. Monthly membership fees of £200 aren’t unheard of. And to be on a shortlist, well this can range from £2 or £3 up to not £50, not £60 but an eye watering £70! All with no guarantee of work. This isn’t great, but for many trades businesses, small family firms and skilled individuals it provides some work, which although pricy can fill gaps and quiet times.

The bad news for customers, is that these advertising costs have to be recovered and result in higher tradesmen prices as well as corners being cut. Often jobs end up being rushed or done with cheaper, lower quality parts and materials.

Trade directory reviews – are they reliable?

No.

Trade directories try to keep this in check with their review systems. Hmm. A nice try on their part – but no cigar! This is because what may seem to be a fantastic piece of work when newly finished. And receiving a 5 out of 5 or 10 out of 10, can within months or even weeks need repair or to be completely done again.

For some customers, this can be an expensive problem – with most of the trades directories not guaranteeing work. With the few that do, this usually only covers the cost of the work (typically a maximum of £1,000) and not the damaged caused – which can be substantially more! And too boot, we’ve often been told by customers that getting compensation is a long, drawn drawn out and painful process with the trade directory regularly using spurious terms and conditions to avoid paying out on the substandard plumbing work that the customer thought was apparently guaranteed.

Make sure that your plumber guarantees their work and has valid insurance

At AngusPLUMBING we’re fully insured and always guarantee our work. And don’t need to recover these advertising costs – as we don’t and won’t pay for advertising!

We’re more than happy with relying on our local reputation, providing a great service and of course helping people to build and develop their own plumbing skills. Check out our CanWeHelp? webpage, blog, social media and other publishing if you haven’t already.

We’re pleased to say that since we’ve been going work has been non-stop which is great, and fingers crossed this’ll continue.

We also know that we can do a better job of advertising and marketing our business than a trades directory. Our website and our social media are examples and show how we help our customers, how we’re different to other plumbers and why choosing AngusPLUMBING is a good decision.

We’re trusted by Google. And for the terms local people most often use to find a plumber – “Caversham plumber” and “Caversham emergency plumber” we’re on page one and just below the sponsored adds. These are taken out mainly by large national businesses with no connection to Caversham (Plumbing immediately – www.plumbingimmediately.co.uk, Plumbing force – www.plumbingforce.co.uk, The local plumbers – www.thelocalplumbers.co.uk, Rightio – plumber.rightio.co.uk etc.) or by the traditional directories – see sponsored listing above and can cost in the region of £10-£12 each time the sponsored advert is clicked on. Ouch.

By now we hope that you’ll see why our approach is different to our competitors’ and that being different is a good thing for our Caversham, Henley and Reading customers.

Being in charge of our own destiny has been central to our business from day one.

And being different is part of this – helping customers make a better and more informed decision over the plumber they choose to use. It’s also why we won’t and don’t need to pay third parties for leads or their membership-based cookie cutter advertising. As you’d expect of us – being a Caversham business, we pass these savings on to our Caversham, Henley and Reading customers. Again different.

We like being different. Different is good. It’s the AngusPLUMBING way.

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Other plumbers working in Cavesham that come with good reputations include –

GJ Button – based in Calcot and cover from Arborfield to Woodley and Marlow.

Reading Plumber – The Small Job Plumbing Company  – they used to be based in Caversham but have moved and now HQ’d in East Reading and service a large area that stretches from Abingdon to Marlow!

Gilkerson plumbing and heating. No website.