Once you decide to upgrade your backyard with a swimming pool, the first thing you must do is find an experienced and reputable pool builder. Selecting the best pool installation company is key to making sure you get a gorgeous, well-built pool that provides many years of fun and relaxation.
It can be a challenge to review the many options available in the Kansas City area. Pools have become more popular as affordable options and financing make the dream of adding a private swimming pool an attainable reality for many. The increase in demand has caused more pool builders to appear. However, not every business has the knowledge and expertise to deliver outstanding results.
Online reviews are a great place to start your research to find the pool builder that meets your needs. Previous customers are an excellent source of unbiased opinions and information that will give you insight into the quality of work you can expect from a company. Online reviews are fast overtaking personal recommendations as the go-to source for trusted information.
That said, it’s important to understand how review sites work so you can identify authentic reviews from fakes that may try to unfairly skew your opinion. We thought it might be helpful to give you some tips on the top review sites out there, along with how they work.
Yelp
Yelp is one of the first sites that many customers use to read reviews about restaurants, shops, and other businesses, especially those in the service industry. This popular review site uses star ratings and leaves room for written reviews to explain the rating a customer gave the business.
The downside to Yelp is that businesses can pay to get a favorable placement at the top of the search results, so you need to look through all of the reviews to find the best businesses. Companies that have many favorable reviews and more stars are typically viewed as the better choice but don’t write off a company just because they have a single poor review. Look and see if the company responded to the customer’s message and attempted to correct the situation.
Most of the reviews on this platform are real and reliable. As with any review platform, it’s impossible to eliminate fake reviews entirely. Yelp tries to flag these where possible, and you can learn to watch for vague language, extreme star ratings, and nonsensical timing and location information that could indicate a review is fake.
Yelp uses software to evaluate reviews and weed out what are likely fakes and trolls, while high-quality reviews that appear to be written by actual people are recommended by the platform. Remember to use your own judgment and trust your gut when reading through Yelp reviews.
Interior Web Site Reviews
Proceed with caution when basing your opinion of a business solely on the reviews left on its website. Many companies are honest and upfront. Others write fake reviews to deceive customers and attempt to bring in more business.
It’s not possible to say for certain whether a review is fake or genuine. Some reviews are honest, some are written in exchange for an incentive from the company, and others are simply malicious and out to malign a company’s reputation. As with Yelp, learn to spot the signs of fake reviews. You can also verify reviews by checking the user’s profile. Comments that share personal experience and specific details are often more trustworthy than vague descriptions. Use your best judgment and get the best picture of a company by comparing ratings across several sites. If the company’s website reports an overall rating of 4.9, but its Google rating is much lower, beware of false information and proceed carefully.
Google Reviews
We have found that Google is one of the best sources for getting a fair and accurate review. Customers can easily leave a comment to share their unbiased opinions. It is virtually impossible to get an authentic bad review removed, but Google has software that tries to limit unfair reviews left by competitors and trolls.
Every company that has been around for a while will have a difficult customer on occasion who leaves a poor review. Learn to take the information as a whole and don’t base your opinion on a single review. If a pool builder has a 4.7 or better rating with over 150 reviews, they are likely a solid and established company. A company with a rating below 4.3 is probably worth a little more scrutiny. Any business that has few reviews is probably new and relatively inexperienced.
Despite efforts to eliminate fake reviews and spam, it’s still possible to find unreliable information on Google reviews. As with all review platforms, use your common sense and read the entire review instead of relying on the star rating alone.
We hope you choose Recreation Wholesale to be your pool builder in Kansas City. We are confident that our exceptional reputation and long history of satisfied customers shows that we are one of the best in the area. Visit our website to browse our gallery and get some inspiration for choosing your perfect pool design. If you have questions, don’t hesitate to reach out and speak with one of our Kansas City pool experts!