Browning's Plumbing Company Profile

smart consumer who needs a contractor should always get three competing bids and compare price, right?

Not always. That might be an okay strategy for certain services you need only once a decade like a roofer or painter, but it might be a completely wrong approach for services you need more frequently and sometimes under emergency circumstances, like a plumber. In these cases, insiders say loyalty should be a priority.

Loyalty the Real Value

Wallace Browning, owner of Browning's Plumbing in Benicia CA is a union-trained master plumber with 38 years experience and he explained this insider strategy that says it can be a bad idea to get three plumbers to fight over a bid, and then decide on price.

"A good plumber has enough loyal customers that they don't have to deal with price-shoppers", he told us. "So first off, you attract exactly the wrong kind of plumber with that approach."

It may very well be that the plumber you find that way will treat you like a price-shopper. That means when you're in a bind and need a favor or emergency service, they're not going to bend over backwards to help you like a loyal plumber will. And because you were a price-shopper in the past, they'll probably take advantage of your situation and charge you more.

"All good plumbers will be loyal to you if you're loyal to them," Wallace Browning told us, "like working all night or come out on a weekend to do a super rush job when you need it. For example, I just had a customer with 50-year-old tub valves that were leaking. So I did research to find the right handles that matched and special order them from back east. I did all that for her because she's been a loyal customer."

True Cost of Cheap Bidders

A plumber you've picked because of their reputation for quality and service, and feedback from references is more likely to be one you can trust. But a plumber who was picked because they were willing to fight over lowest price often make it up later by charging for things you don't really need.

That honesty was a big part of the feedback from randomly called customers of Browning's Plumbing. A customer named Joanne said, "He was very honest. He did not try to sell me a new water heater. He fixed my current water heater."

"He told me what was needed and no more," said another customer Mohamod, "In fact, if I wanted something that was not necessary, he told me that I didn't need it." Lloyd was another customer and he said of Browning's Plumbing, "They were honest and fixed the problem without selling me things that I didn't need."

 

The degree of well-placed customer trust is evident with the residents of Contra Costa County's Blackhawk, Danville, San Ramon area who work during the day and routinely call Wallace Browning of Browning's Plumbing with instructions on how to let himself in to perform the service call while they're away.

Look For Experience

One of the big attractions to Browning's Plumbing is that Wallace, with his 38 years of experience, still performs those service calls himself, unlike other companies that too often send inexperienced labor to a customer's home who might have as little as 2 weeks of plumbing experience.

Compare that to how people in the trade referred to Wallace Browning as the ‘plumber's plumber' because he was trained by two plumbing uncles starting at just 15 years old. After getting back home from Germany where he was stationed during his Army stint, Wallace jointed the pipefitters local and was a nuclear pipe fitter at Mare Island before joining the plumber's local. He went on to found Browning's Plumbing in 1989 and is on the Better Business Bureau's Honor Roll. He also guarantees his plumbing work.

So since people in the know say that finding a loyal plumber provides more value than getting three plumbers to fight to be the cheapest, it seems that based on actual customer satisfaction expressed during research calls to randomly selected customers, that loyalty is well placed in Wallace Browning and Browning's Plumbing.

---Scott Rhodes
Managing Editor
The Prime Buyer's Report