“What is the easiest or most difficult upgrade you offer your customers?”
Al Carvalho
Max Hardwood Floors Corp.
The easiest would be to educate the client on necessary upgrades to the project or upgrades that would better serve them and achieve the best results they’re trying to achieve.
The most difficult is when you know the project is on a tight budget and you find necessary upgrades or change orders to finish the project accordingly.
Joni Rocco
Artistic Floors by Design Inc.
The easiest upgrade is flush-mount vent registers. Most homeowners have seen them, currently have very basic metal ones, and want the wood look. They also like that pet hair and other debris won’t get trapped in the metal lip because everything is flush.
Ben Totta
Totta Hardwoods
The easiest upgrades are the ones that are not only easy to sell, but also easy to execute, like installing wood flush vents. They’re a nice upgrade to any floor and don’t pose a significant challenge. The most notable finish upgrade we do is a UV-cured finish. It’s not something we push, but when someone has a situation where it makes sense, we recommend it and it’s not a difficult add-on to a job if the floor is needed back in full service quickly. When it comes to a difficult upgrade, I would say hand scraping since it is such hard labor.
As a company, we operate at a different level of quality and materials, conduct, and craftsmanship. This level of excellence comes at a higher, premium price point, but it’s justified by the value we bring to our customers. We might be higher than some of the bids they are getting, but it’s not really apples to apples. The other bid is probably going with the cheapest wood they can source, and we are not. They’re probably subbing out most of the labor, and we are doing it in-house with well-trained employees who are growing careers in this trade. We try to sell the experience of having us in your home.
