Story By Katharine
McQuaid
While living in their
home in Michigan this summer, Margaret and Bill O’Neill could see
workmen repairing their summer home more than 700 miles away in
Merrimack New Hampshire.
They don’t have
superhero vision they have the internet. The O’Neill’s were in the
granite state this summer just long enough to hire Kime Construction, a
new Manchester based company that uses the web to let customers see the
work done on their homes when they cant be there every step of the way.
“It was great because
we’re not in New Hampshire a whole lot,” said Margaret O’Neill, who
regularly logged on to KimeConstruction.com to see streaming video of
workers replacing the front façade of her summer home.
“We could just go up
to the site, and put in our code and see the work they’d done,” she
said. “No matter where we were traveling on business we could go ahead,
log in and e-mail him back and tell him what we wanted.
Kime Construction was
started about six months ago by Randy Kime, Jason Fitzpatrick and Rob
Maille, three men who say a combination of old-fashioned customer
service and state-of–the–art technology is allowing them to run a
successful construction business- and still go to bed with a clear
conscious.
The men know
contractors have a reputation of being unaccountable for their work.
“Every horror story I’ve ever heard has been about construction,” Kime
said. And during his years as a foreman for other construction
companies, Kime saw first hand how some people in the business cut
corners and treated customers poorly. He and his partners said
they want to set a new standard for the construction industry.
“We’ve basically seen
all the wrong way to do things” Kime said. “We want to change how
we do business and how people interpret construction companies,” Maille
added.
One way they are
trying to accomplish that is through their website, where homeowners can
access their own “Customer Panel,” The panel allows a homeowner to view
proposals and progress of the construction, and keep track of certain
milestones like payments and completion of each portion of projects.
“The ultimate goal is
they can easily see what we’ve done and what is left to be done.” Kime
said. While they are all web savvy, Kime and Fitzpatrick are the
hands-on guys in the business and Maille, an independent software
consultant, runs the website and takes care of the books.
Having grown up in
the computer generation, the concept of communicating with customers
through the web came naturally to the trio, and they knew it would put
them ahead of the game.
This is what
separates us from everybody else.” Kime said.
In the O’Neill’s case, they didn’t know
the extent of water damage to their house until workers pulled it apart.
But they were able to see the actual damage video and tell Kime what
direction to go next.
“He’s got everything to keep us posted
and alert us to problems,” she said. “There are contractors out
there that will tell you things, and you can either take there word for
it or you can fly out or drive out to see for yourself.” And, Kime
said, customers living in the home during construction can access the
website while they are at work, to look at unexpected problems and give
workers the go ahead to fix them that day.
“This right here makes the working
relationship and customer communication 100 percent better,” he said,
pointing to his web site. It also cuts down on costs, added Maille.
“Anything that helps streamline communications always helps streamline
money,” he said. The O’Neill’s haven’t visited their Merrimack home
since Kime Construction completed its work. But they were so happy
with the service; they are already talking about hiring Kime for more
projects. “We have some other projects we’re considering in the future so
definitely, he would be the person we’ll call.” She said.
