Find that Tradesman!!!   "they seek him/her here they seek him/her there., they seek the that elusive tradesman everywhere.." apologies to the Scarlet Pimpernel!

8th March 2006

We were delighted to discover www.findatradeinfrance.com which is a most clever website enabling people to find not only the elusive, registered tradesmen in their particular area of France but also other services too such as Architects and Designers etc.  We think this site is a must for both home owners and tradesmen. 

Entente Cordiale – Or how the French and English can not only work side by side but also provide a trade/artisan finding/recommending service that brings France and all its’ communities together   by Steve Goodman

A French man and an English man, who first met and became friends in the USA, are both now living in France. Whilst working together in America, the company policy was always, “there are no problems here, just opportunities.”

They started to discuss some “opportunities” they had encountered when moving back to France, especially around finding good quality, recommended artisans. It made them wonder if it was just the fact that they had been away and out of touch or whether others who lived in France all the time, thought the same. How easy is it to find good quality trades people who are responsive, do a good job, and are reasonably priced too. They also wondered how did the really good ones get work, other than by word of mouth. They decided to go out and ask their English, French, German, Dutch, Norwegian and other friends for their experiences and views.  

Here is some of the feedback they received. Some from homeowners and some from artisans.

Homeowners said: - 

• I find artisans often by word of mouth and they frequently turn out to be unregistered or uninsured
• If I use a directory it doesn’t tell me how good they are
• If they do good work I like to recommend them to others
• They are often too slow to respond, one guy got back to me 6 months after I called.
• The job frequently takes longer and costs more than the estimate.
• They do not turn up when they say they will
• We have just moved here and I am learning French but do not speak it well enough yet. I would like to know which artisans speak my language

Artisans said: -

• I have just started this business and need to build a client base
• When I am working although I do a good job and my clients tell their friends, I am not able to look for work at the same time.
• My clients often do not know what they want and sometimes take many months to get back to me. By then I have moved onto other work and feel I have wasted my time visiting them and estimating the work.
• I would like a good way to tell possible clients that I do good work other than just telling them.
• People often want something for nothing

They decided that unless they could send all artisans and homeowners on a planning and estimating course and train them in ‘making up their minds’ they could not improve these aspects easily. Although it is something they want to tackle in the near future. they did realise that all these other issues were resolvable or at least could be vastly improved and that at that time, no one was doing this, especially not through the rapidly expanding use of technology through computers and specifically the Internet.

They created 2 fast growing websites www.trouverunartisan.fr and www.findatradeinfrance.com that provide a unique integrated service not offered elsewhere.  The criteria used to build the site included, the sites must be easy to use without clutter, no flashing signs, not loaded with external links/adverts, not confusing to the user and all this meant that they built them to specialise in one thing and one thing only and that is putting artisans/trades people/service providers and homeowners, in touch with each other to the benefit of both.

By linking the 2 sites together Artisans can now List their business contact details, find work posted by anyone in France, by language spoken, by location, get notified by email of new work/jobs and at the same time get a recommendation from customers/architects. Homeowners can find qualified registered artisans, who can only join/advertise if they are confident enough to be rated. They can also select trades/artisans by languages spoken, recommend them to others, post their jobs/work/projects and let artisans contact them and get an email when a new trades artisan joins.

One artisan who already uses this new service said,  “We have found this service to be a vital part of our advertising campaign and for a small yearly subscription our ad was soon paid for after receiving our first job through them. The site was recommended to us from a friend who had advertised his own business on there. We find the site very easy and user friendly as we only get emails from people who are looking for our particular trade and thus save on wasted time visiting jobs that aren’t suitable. We now recommended the site to both Clients and other artisans. The idea of linking trouverunartisan.fr to findatradeinfrance.com is an excellent idea”.