With Checkatrade reviews dating back over a year, it's about time I gave you my thoughts and opinions on it, after all, this is a blog, right? So what better place to air my views!
So what do I think? It is good! Yup, that's pretty much it, CheckaTrade is good, well actually, maybe I'm being unfair- it's excellent. And no, they're not paying me to say that. Let me explain - of all the trade directories and lead generation sites I have used CheckaTrade does the most stringent checks and is head and shoulders above the rest. If you find a company or tradesperson listed on their site then personally I believe they are professional, trustworthy and serious. I don't think you will find cowboys or "fly-by-night" types on there and the monthly fee certainly puts off the people who are just looking for a little bit of extra pocket money.
I do have some gripes about CheckaTrade, feedback from customers is slow to upload to my page (compared to other trade sites I'm on), they have taken months to update the description of my company and verifying my qualifications was less than easy. These are gripes not dealbreakers though.
As my existing customers will know, I love to get online feedback and reviews, after all, it is the new currency! In this day and age without an online presence and reviews new customers may struggle to trust you and go elsewhere which is understandable. In the past when I've looked for tradespeople I have always wanted to vet them online. That is not to say that good olde word of mouth is dead - the two need to exist in tandem.
Of course, CheckaTrade comes at a cost - it is not free! This is why I ask customers to also leave feedback on FreeIndex. It's not to try and look like I have more feedback than I actually do, I'm trying to collate all my feedback in one place rather than have it spread over four or more different sites. This makes it easier for customers to comprehensively review me and my business.
