SIR Home Improvement rip-off UNFAIR BUSINESS PRACTICES TO HANDICAPPED Kalamazoo Michigan

Pretty much everyone at Sir has a shelf life. The only thing I would say about the last poster is that they must have worked in sales or marketing.

If they worked in production (like I did) they would realize that the owner works very hard to squeeze every last cent out of the installers just like he does the customers. This results in a lot of turnover and frankly a messed up job here and there. It's not easy to consistantly find new subcontractors (suckers) who will drive 20-120 miles one way in their own truck & trailer to install a few window for <$60 per window and no trip charges. The pay for roofers and siders isn't anything to write home about either. Talk about a shelf life.

To the companies credit they do keep full time service techs on hand to run around fixing (looking at) problems with jobs and have an excellent warranty (war of attrition).

As is often the case in Home improvement, there is absolutely no correlation between cost and value received.

Funny....the guy who backed the company up and wrote this was fired about that same time and there's been at least 5 other people fired or quit, from that same management position... "marketing director".  Sounds impressive but it only means you're in charge of  hiring and firing young kids (highschool or college) from a door to door telemarketing job, after a turnover rate of about 2 months because the president says they have a "shelf life" of how long they're good at marketing.

The MOST greedy company I have ever laid eyes on. Average roofing estimate is between 20-30 Thousand dollars...anywhere else it's more like 8 Thousand as an average.  Make sure to get other quotes! They are good with customer service and the finished work but extremely over priced, stricktly for greedy profit. I am sure anyone who has put in time or effort into this company will agree in saying, SIR Home Improvements is or has been nothing short of failure and/or disappointment.

I would also like to add that the sales manager of this company, Scott Walkup, has a criminal record.  He is CURRENTLY on probation for FORGERY, and has a criminal record for cocaine.  He also has DUI's and a drinking problem.  The owner, Frank, is aware of this and still has him employed as a SALES MANAGER!  How is that okay?  That's not a guy I would want in charge of filling out LEGAL contracts.  The State of Michigan Department of Energy, Labor, and Economic Growth has issued a prohibition against Scott for unsafe financial business practices.  Not a good place to do business.  I'm not even sure that it's legal for this sales manager to be in his position?  There is also a lawsuit against the company right now, but obviously the owner is looking to settle.

As a sales professional who has worked in a few different industries, it's common practice to make sure ALL the decision makers will be present when going out to give a 'free' estimate. As mentioned above, it costs a company hundreds of dollars every time an employee makes a personal, customized visit to a potential customer, not to mention all the money spent to pin-point that potential customer. This is a risk and cost they assume, the estimate is often hard work, and many times ends without any sale, which is fine -part of doing business of course.

The very least the consumer can do is be considerate enough to be 100% present without requiring further visits and repeat presentations if they realize they are actually interested. Which they already are somewhat, otherwise why are they getting the estimate?! Unnecessary spending is avoided when everyone is involved from square one. Why waste anyone's valuable time, employee or customer? The consumer should be serious and prepared to do business if the product and price is what they are looking for. Consumers are so pampered they often forget THEIR common courtesy.

A final word on SIR Home Improvement.

I was employed in a managerial position at SIR. In fact, I was the call center operations manager and trainer. AT NO TIME did I ever train or accept any illegal activities from the sales personell or customer service agents directly or indirectly under my care or management.
At no time before or during my employ did the ownership or other departments including Josh's (Marketing) or Tony's (Sales) ever try to infuse any "shady" or misleading practices into what I was doing with inside or outside representatives that I managed or trained.
I find it disturbing that one (or any other) individual can try to bring down a company because they may have been asked if all interested parties be present during an estimate, measurement or product presentation.
I asked this myself of those seeking "free" estimates.
I laugh and quote the word free because it costs the company, SIR, hundreds of dollars to send out tradesmen and sales professionals to make sure you get an absolutely no cost estimate.
The request that interested parties or homeowners be present covered a couple of areas, most importantly, the safety of the homeowner who proactively called the company for the estimate in the frst place. Is it too much to ask that there be more than the one person sitting home alone to be present while a man/women walked around their home (inside as well as out) with a tape measure and pad of paper?
We offered a premium product installed and serviced by competent people.
I have nothing to gain by this as I am no longer working with SIR.

"The Truth Shall Set You Free"

I am the Marketing Director at SIR Home Improvements. I can say that with pride and without hiding my identity because I am a hardworking, experienced, and decent guy who takes pride in my work. I have been with SIR for coming up on six years, I am the head of my department and since we have always employed some part-time help from the near-by University I fully expect to have turnover in some areas. As I read through these comments, I know exactly the former employee who wrote these. I write this only in rebuttle to the loose accusations about my company that don't even merrit my response. The former employee who wrote these statements was part of the problem here, which is in no way represented accurately in in the above rant. A few years ago I did discover some inapproapriate behavior in an isolated department of SIR's, Those employees were terminated immediently as you can expect any successful company would do. Currently, we work at a very clean, responsible, and Christian company where we price extremely competitively allowing us to grow in our market and offer new exclusive products that cannot be compared with any of the generic competition. We have over 14,000 satisfied customers in West Michigan alone. We offer every customer at SIR a 100% satisfaction guarantee of they don't pay for the job. I have never witnessed any other contrator promise and live up to that. I took time out of my day to write this because I didn't want some homeowner in need of a good contractor to be swayed by what is written and I want to invite you to contact me anytime if you would like to discuss some work or anything that has ever happened with SIR or myself. I recommend you not be misled by the woman, yes i said, woman who actually authored the critism above. I give my personal assurance there is no drug use, alcohol abuse or any other substance abuse occuring in any aspect of my department due to strong leadership in management positions and the use of drug testing when applicable. In response to the accusations of lying and deceiving homeowners who make appointments with us, I was here at the time this employee worked here and am still here today, I nor any of my employees will lie to a customer, if we cannot make an appointment, we will call immediently and reset or cancel the appointment. Think about it, how could be possibly stay in business for 27 years if we treated our customers like anything else than the very reason we have our jobs, i just don't think we would lead our industry in West Michigan like we have been. Now for this former employee specifically, I can only say that if that was a challenge for her, then i offer you a glimpse of why she is no longer employed. I can be contacted at 269-381-8000 ext 121 to answer any questions or comments and I invite anyone to try out a free estimate from SIR and make your own conclusions.

As a former employee of Sir Home Improvements (I worked there for over 12 months before choosing to leave), I have to say this story is more than common. This individual who wrote should feel lucky that Sir did not go through with the process of actually gettig an estimate.

I would estimate a full 25-40% of the time Sir will not even show up at the estimate. The consumer would not get a phone call letting them know Sir would not make it, and we often no-showed 2-3 times. Near-illegal profiling is used to decide which appointments are run. Sound too black? Sorry, can't make it, salesman's father is in the hospital. Let us know you will be getting other estimates? You will be scheduled as a backup at best. We know our prices are the highest in the business, often for equal quality products and workmanship. If you were lucky when we no-showed on you, we might call you and tell you why we did not show up. I cannot even guess how many times our salesman/estimators have had close family members die or get sick, or have severe car trouble. These of course were excuses 90% made up on the spot. The "prefessionals" you the customer speaks to on the phone are you kids, 18-22, who get 1 day training than are given the freedom to lie on the phone and do what it takes to make/save an appointment. These kids are more often than not drunk or on some other illegal drugs. This is known amoung the managers, and little is done about it. You may ask how we get away with it? I have NO idea. We were sued once over our telemarketing policy while I worked there, and though we were in the wrong we got off an a technicality. Though at the time I left the company this had gotten better, it was still occuring at an unacceptable rate. One of the factors that influenced me to work as Sir was because they claimed to be a "christian" company, I thought I would be proud to work there. This couldn't be farther from the truth. Deception is part of the company culture there, its more the rule than the exception.

This culture was from the top down, influences by the president and owner so any drastic change in the future is unlikely. These are some of the problems in the marketing deparmtent where I worked, some of the practices in the sales department were even worse. Since though, I do not know exacts, I will not go into it. BE careful!!