You are about to let a stranger take apart something expensive in your kitchen, on the strength of a phone call. These five questions cost you two minutes and they sort the trade out quickly.
1. What will you charge me if I decide not to go ahead?
There should be a straight number, and it should be the diagnostic charge. If the answer is vague, or if it depends on what they find, you have learned something. The follow-up worth asking: does that charge come off the repair if I say yes? It should.
2. Have you worked on this brand before?
Not “do you service that brand”, which everyone says yes to. Have you personally worked on one. A Sub-Zero and a Whirlpool can behave identically for completely unrelated reasons, and somebody meeting your machine for the first time will get there by replacing things until it works. You pay for each attempt.
3. Will I get one price covering parts and labor, before you open it?
One figure, given after the machine has been tested and before anything comes apart. Not an hourly rate plus parts at cost plus a trip charge, which is how a $200 job becomes a $460 job with nobody having lied to you.
4. What happens if it fails again next month?
You want a length of time and you want it written on the invoice. Thirty days on the work is the honest standard in this trade. Anybody promising a year on labor is either charging for it somewhere you have not looked yet or does not mean it.
5. Will you tell me if it is not worth repairing?
Ask it directly and listen to how quickly the answer comes. Every honest company in this business turns work down regularly, and the ones that do can tell you when they last did it.
The one you do not need to ask
How soon can you come. Everybody says today. What matters is whether they arrive inside the window they gave you, and you will only find that out once.
Ask us all five. Call 866-264-9578.
