PATRICIA O'NEILL had been relying on her "handyman" John to fix whatever repairs were needed in her townhouse, when one day John retired and moved away. O'Neill, a widow, faced a quandary.
Angie's List, at http://www.angieslist.com, is one of many Web directories of home service contractors that have sprung up and made it easier to find out a little more about a contractor than just a name and telephone number. They include Servicesagent.com of San Mateo, as well as 1800contractor.com; and ServiceMagic.com and ImproveNet.com, which are owned by IAC/InterActiveCorp, the same company that owns Ask.com of Oakland. ValueStar.com, based in Oakland, lists all types of business services, including such things as attorneys and dentists, and gives consumer ratings of their services. And San Rafael-based DiamondCertified.org lists companies in various lines that it has certified to be of the highest quality in their field.
Servicesagent.com is an online job bidding site in which people looking for home repair contractors post a job they need done, complete with details of floor dimensions or whatever, and contractors bid online to do the job. The consumer then chooses the bid that fits his or her needs and budget, and arranges for work to begin. Afterward, the consumer can post a "word-of-mouth" score about how good the contractor was.
ServiceMagic.com is a matching service — almost like a dating service. Consumers shopping for a contractor are asked to answer some questions about the job they need done and what they're willing to pay. ServiceMagic then tries to match that information with contractors that have signed up for its service. Contractors pay $99 to join, plus a fee for each job lead they get.
The 1800contractor.com site provides geographic directories of building contractors and remodelers, which it screens for licensing and insurance. It also offers users a chance to rate the contractors. Yahoo Local and Google Local follow this model. Then there's San Francisco-based Craigslist, which offers local online classifieds.
Angie's List, which just opened in the Bay Area three months ago, differs from all these others in that consumers compile the list and provide detailed grading of the job performance. The only way to get on Angie's List is when a consumer recommends you — or warns against you. Businesses cannot pay to get on the list. The consumers posting or searching for contractors have to be members of Angie's List. Membership is currently free in the Bay Area, but in its established cities Angie's List charges $5.95 a month for membership.
Angie Hicks, founder of Angie's List, said the lists are based on the idea that it's always more comfortable to ask neighbors and friends who they'd recommend for a home repair job than to just choose a namefrom a list of advertisements.
"You'd like to know who your neighbors recommend but that becomes a cumbersome task," to go around asking numerous people. Angie's List is based on "that same kind of anecdotal information" — without the legwork, she said.
Angie's List has about 250 categories of services — everything from animal grooming to water heater repair. Each service provider listed under a category is graded, from A to F, on things like quality, responsiveness and punctuality along with a description of the work done and what it was like to work with the contractor.
Its approach seems to work for harried homeowners. Angie's List, which started 10 years ago in Columbus, Ohio, now hosts lists in 33 cities and has upwards of 300,000 members who pay to use it. In the Bay Area, Angie's List includes ratings on 7,100 companies with more than 6,300 members using the service.
Members get a monthly magazine and a complaint resolution service in case the contractor they find doesn't work after all or some dispute arises. Angie's List will contact the contractor on the member's behalf but does not promise to resolve the dispute.
Hicks isn't worried about losing money in San Francisco as it builds up the local operation.
Servicesagent.com and ServiceMagic.com are free to consumers. Instead, contractors pay to be members or subscribe to these services. But right now, Servicesagent.com is free to contractors while the new business tries to grow its contractor list.
Launched about 15 months ago, Servicesagent.com now has 75 or 80 service providers actively bidding for consumer jobs on the site.
Co-founders Jim Otsuka, chief technology officer; Gerardo Galvan, chief executive officer; and Noel Rodriguez, chief operating officer, founded the site as a graduate thesis while completing graduate studies in engineering at Notre Dame de Namur University and Golden Gate University.
Otsuka said they are revamping the site and plan a "new major release" by summer. They intend to make it more of a "business networking" service with more of a community focus and more online conversation possible. That would make it more like Angie's List. Currently, consumers are invited to give feedback on a service provider, much the way eBay users provide feedback. But they don't have to.
Whatever the model, these online home repair referral services claim to be more helpful than randomly choosing from the Yellow Pages or YellowPages.com.
Oakland resident Felicia Curran found both a roofer and a heating company through Angie's List.
"It takes some of the guess work out of it," Curran said. She first searched for a roofer in the Yellow Pages, newspaper classifieds and Craigslist.com, but all that search produced was unreturned phone calls.
"It feels much better to get service people who have been user reviewed," Curran said. After her success with Angie's List, she posted recommendations for a veterinarian and house cleaner on the list.
But she found a highly rated roofer in Vallejo who was willing to come to Oakland and did a good job. Then after she found a heating contractor, it was enough to convince her the system worked so she posted a recommendation about her veterinarian, Brent Martin.
Before starting operations in the Bay Area, Angie's List surveyed local residents through telephone interviews and hired teenagers to do door-to-door surveys asking for recommendations of good contractors and household help. That way it would have a base of service providers to offer members.
Even though it may need to grow and add to its listings, Angie's List already seems to be answering some need.
Business Writer Barbara Grady can be reached at (510) 208-6427 or bgrady@angnewspapers.com.