A lot of industries and trades stay untouched by things such as advancements in technology population expansion the internet revolution etc, take your neighbourhood garage for example; your vehicle breaks down and you take it into a local garage that you trust, you’re looking for a new dress for that party you’ve been invited to so you head off into town to your browse your favourite stores and spend a few hours trying on dresses, you fancy a good steak for your dinner, off to the local butchers you go.
For industries like those mentioned above and many more industries and niches things will never really change no matter how advanced things get but some industries have changed considerably over the years mainly down to the internet, online advertising, social media etc, now some people call these advancements a good thing, and for the most part they are, however for some industries the internet revolution of the late 1990’s early 2000’s has effected both them and the clients who use them in a negative way.
How The Internet has Adversely Effect Certain Industries
For this article we’ll concentrate on the Locksmith Industry due to the fact that this industry is completely unregulated, call out an electrician or a heating engineer for example you can guarantee that the tradesman who arrives at your home or business is fully trained, professional, fully vetted and has all the correct certificates in place, otherwise they are operating illegally and breaking the law, on the other hand the locksmith industry has no such regulations in place and no official government or trading bodies database to let you know that you are using a professional or even someone competent.
Because the locksmith industry has no official regulation anyone can set themselves up as a locksmith and start to tout for business and this is completely legal and above board. But the locksmith industry has never been regulated so why are things different nowadays.
To set up and work as a locksmith 15 or 20 years ago – before the internet – you had to do some locksmith training course and even in these bygone times there where good locksmiths and not so good locksmiths but all training was face to face so even slow learners picked things up.
Today it’s a different story, no one needs face to face training anymore even though for an industry like the locksmith industry it is a must in my opinion, now people tend to go for the online locksmith courses that are cheaper and the really bad amateur locksmiths don’t even pay for this choosing to watch free how to videos on Youtube, Vimeo or other video sharing website to pick up the basics.
It goes without saying that without adequate training these locksmiths will eventually get bad feedback off their disappointed client’s right? Yes this is correct, however nowadays advertising, web design and mobile phones are also cheap enough that you can keep re-inventing yourself every time the heat is one, so to speak.
What the amateur locksmith does is use a cheap or free drag and drop website builders such as WIX, Weebly, sure these web site building tools make very basic and poor functioning websites, and for most industries they simple won’t cut it and can adversely effect the reputation of your business or trade but they are cheap and good enough for the amateur locksmith to use to promote their trade on social media, the amateur locksmith advertising tool of choice, why? because it’s cheap, no contracts, no checks and no vetting by the social media companies and remember each time the amateur locksmith re-invents his or her self they’ll have a new mobile phone number too making it impossible to link them to a previous tradesman or company who no doubt has a string of bad reviews online.
To avoid falling victim to one of these amateur ‘have a go’ locksmith you should take a little extra time to check them out, OK so you may be locked out of your home or vehicle late at night but what’s an extras 5 minutes going to do.
Do they advertise a lot on Facebook? Are they posting daily ads to local groups yet there was no sign of this locksmith or company a couple of months ago? This can be a sign that they have just reinvented themselves. Is their website one of those free drag and drop monstrosities that looks like it was thrown together in an afternoon? Is their address missing off their website? A missing address is one of those tell tale signs that the locksmith wishes to remain anonymous, now ask yourself; why would they wish to remain anonymous? Do they only display a mobile number? No landline is another giveaway that they don’t want anyone to know who they really are and where they are located.
Follow these simple steps to avoid the amateurs and good luck!
Resourses
Thanks to the following websites and resourses for helping us put together this article.
Always make sure the locksmith that you call out is fully qualified and trained… if in doubt call train locksmiths, the UK’s only fully qualified locksmith training collage to see if the locksmith you are thinking about using is registered with them..