Tradesman Member Profile - Carpenter Dublin - AW Carpentry

Arnold Wilson from AW Carpentry has grown his business through good customer service and taking pride in his work.

‘Listen to what the customer wants!’

Arnold Wilson, AW Carpentry

This week we're profiling Arnold Wilson, a Dublin based carpenter with 10 years experience. Arnold has seen his carpentry business grow from strength to strength with support from Onlinetradesmen.ie   Arnold clearly takes pride in making a customer’s vision become reality.  

Continue reading below to see how he ensures customers are satisfied time and time again!

OLT: How long have you been working for yourself? 
AW:  I qualified as a carpenter from FAS / Solas with a National Craft Certificate in 2008 and took the leap to setup on my own a few years ago. It was a daunting thing to do at the time with the economy only recovering slowly, but I realised in order to hit my work ambitions it was something I needed to do.

OLT: What type of projects / jobs do you do ? 
AW: I'm a carpenter first and foremost, but do some small building works also. I cover all types of carpentry, joinery and cabinet making.  A number of extensions and property refurbishments have also been successfully carried out by myself and my team. 

OLT: What are your favorite projects / jobs & Why?
AW: I love the creative aspects of being a carpenter, but the bread an butter is often routine structural projects! We do a lot of Interior fit-outs including floor fitting, door installation, skirting, architraves, stairs, and kitchen fitting. I love my work so we always adapt to the job and add our own touches where the customer is happy to take our input.

OLT: How do you approach a job to ensure customer satisfaction? 
AW: Firstly we like to make to customer aware that we are fully insured and tax compliant. We recognize the need to listen to what the customers needs are. We document everything and offer advice on how the job can be carried out. We also ensure photos of similar previous works are on offer to give the customer an idea of what the finished result might look like. We will always use the ratings that we have from previous customers on Onlinetradesmen.ie to ensure them that we know what we are doing - the ratings are gold, like word of mouth but online.

 
OLT: How did you manage to stay afloat during the recession?  
AW: Thankfully we managed to keep work ticking over and kept out overheads low. We are very thankful to our customers for their loyalty to us and for recommending us to others. We spent a lot of time cultivating a strong base that would work for us by referring customers on. When referrals ran dry we were able to rely on Onlinetradesmen to deliver a raft of new business for us. It made a huge difference and continues to do so. 

OLT: What’s the most important lesson you learnt in your career so far?
AW: The need to really understand what the customer wants. The devil is in the detail - Often the expected result can vary between both parties. So it’s vital to listen to what the customer wants, document it and create a detailed deliverable of what you are going to deliver along with example photos from previous work you've done. The customer can then add to or take from what they see. 

OLT:  How would you sum up what OnlineTradesmen.ie has done for your business? 
AW: Being a member of OnlineTradesmen has without doubt been a huge help. It has doubled the work volume coming our way and, after such uncertainty over the past years, it has really given us great peace of mind to know there are always new jobs on offer. We value it greatly. 

OLT: So finally, what advice would you give to someone starting out now in the trade? 
AW: I would advise anyone starting out to look at all avenues to get work through the door and differentiate themselves from the unqualified, poor quality tradesmen that are still out there. Joining Onlinetradesmen.ie helped us to do all of this and brings us new business constantly. 

Check out Arnold Wilson’s website to see his excellent ratings and photos of completed work.

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