Getting into the customer mode really makes me cringe at how fickle customers are privileged to be.
I go to company A and speak with the salesperson on renovation and halfway through our conversation, I would have made up my mind about him/her/the company.
And when I step out of the office, I already know if I will be coming back here again.
Just like that.
If I don’t like that mole on your face, I can easily let that be a reason and give the contract to someone else.
Or if you don’t follow up with a call, I can brush you off easily because there are so many more out there to choose from.
The interior design/renovation industry is definitely competitive in Singapore.
Me being me, I spent time and effort to meet up with close to 15 interior design firms. Here’s the list of them:
1) Northwest Interior Design
2) The Interior Place
3) Vegas Interior Design
4) Ideal House
5) *****
6) Renozone
7) Everlink Renovation
8) Zhi Seng Renovation
9) Beng Fong Renovation
10) Violet Interior
11) Darwin Interior
12) Home Guide
13) Some firm in IMM
14) One more firm in IMM
15) A firm near Koven MRT
So yea there you go! I actually went to 15 different companies and compared reputation, materials, online/friends feedback, rapport with interior designer, and most importantly, costing.
It’s a cruel cruel world out there.
I wasn’t going to settle for anything without knowing the full picture. So I went out there and spent countless hours reading up online, talking to different IDs and participated in online forums.
In the end, after 4 months of intensive research, I finally narrowed down to 2 firms – Vegas Interior Design and Ideal House.
The person I dealt with in Vegas Interior Design is CL. She is a bubbly person and her enthusiasm and confidence for the job is very infectious. Her confidence and constant assurance also made me feel that she could be trusted to do the job and do it well. Her quotation is not the lowest, nor is it the highest. Vegas is also reputed to be a more design-led company as well. CL has 8 years of experience in the industry. She is also the godsis of a friend.
The one I met with in Ideal House is JY. He’s a very easy going guy. Careless in his quotation description but a fault he is quick to admit and amend. Ideal House is very much raved about in www.renotalk.com There are countless good reviews about the company and the IDs in the company. During the second meeting I had with him, he displayed willingness to think out of the box to solve my storage problems. That was quite a trait that was sorely missing in many of the IDs I met.
I had to make a decision. I only have one house. I only need one ID.
So who will it be?
CL or JY?
Stay tuned!