Commercial Services

kmjt1021

kmjt1021

Member
The hood tag says a (nationwide service company) The company actually doing the work was (Regan) out of the Midwest, which is all I know at this point.
My point is this. Why?
They changed the frequency to 6 months, it should be 3 or maybe 2 and they didn’t do very much. We filled a thirty-gallon trashcan with what we dug out of the duct. I'm not tooting my own horn. I am disgusted. We did that job for about 8 years, had it down to a science, in and out in about 2 hours, not the 5 it took us tonight.
One day they change the name on the sign, and say our Corp office says to use someone else. Ok no problem, happens all the time I can deal with that, but at least someone somewhere check the work being done.
There could be no better argument against subbing out this kind of work than what I saw tonight.
I'm not even knocking the company who did the work, this is a messed up system, and to be 15-20 hours from home and walk in sight unseen to it would make anyone say, "lets just get out of here". This system is easier to clean entirely by hand than it is to pressure wash. It took us three tries to realize that years ago.
I got another one next Sunday. Oh boy!
 
National companies that sub out work ALWAYS mess things up for everyone else for a SHORT period of time. Everyone so far has eventually dissapeared for the very same reason you stated. You will get your accounts back.
 
I have done work for Simplex/Grinnell in the past. My experience has been very slow pay (909 days), they expect you to drop every thing to do their work, they try to beat you up on price. In fact, most of hte national contractors look at price only.

Douglas Hicks
General Fire Equipment Co of Eastern Oregon, Inc
 
I taken several accounts from Ragan. I believe they send their own guys out here in St. Louis, they are only a short distance from here. They are horrible, I don't see how a company with such low quality standard can sell national accounts. They did some Burger Kings that I took over, one caught fire. The others have taken over 5 hours per job to get into shape. I haven't seen a job yet from them that looks thorough.
 
How about those "Non-Compete" clauses that come with those national accounts. If they loose the account you still can not call on the account for 3-5 years?
What gives them the right to tell you not to sell in your own backyard.
 
We have gotten a few calls from companies wanting us to sub work from them. One time they were asking us to do a job that we had been doing for three years, yeah we knew the corp office was going to do this, but we didn't expect to get a call asking us to do the work for $150 less than we were getting. No thanks!
Got a call once asking us to sub 12 Crackle Barrels for $175 to $200 again no thanks.
 
Ragan called me regarding sub and we talked about price and I asked him if my price was the same as other contractors and states. He indicated that he had a national price. Then I said that he was going to pay my workers comp-had no idea of the problem we were having in California. Never got another call.
 
Ragan has contacted myself as well, I was willing to talk until price was a problem... I now use the contracting against them in my speech for work...

Matt
 
Maybe Ragan subs out the St. Louis area work too. From what I've seen all these people are getting from them is $100 jobs. I cleaned a restaurant the other day that used to be serviced by Ragan. It used to be Chinese, but has changed to Mexican. It looked like the cleaned the hood, but left the duct and fan. It was in pretty bad shape. Wouldn't or shouldn't a national contractor require proof of cleaning or proof of quality from a company before subing out work to them? Also why would anyone take this sub work? Get the work yourself.
 
I am seeing less ans less of national contractors . I have taken over some but I cant say they were terrible. One thing they do around here is just show up. No calling ahead to schedule, they showup about closing time and expect to clean. Other places they just forget about and dont answer the calls from the restaurants. Facilitec,I think, is located about two hours from Chattanooga and the restaurants like the idea of me being more local. I will be here to pick up the ones they leave behind.
 
Is this Ragan Steam Specialties out of the(Cantrell sp) Springfield Ill area? I thought he sold out and moved to AZ somewhere. I sold him my company back in 99.

I tried to contact him recently and could not get any leads...
 
I worked for Commercial as a Route Manager for two years and they have in house crews in AL.,FL., GA., TN. They sub out everything else not sure how they pay their subs, but they usually charge a good bit for any work they do.
 
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