Roofing Reviews

I will tell you exactly how I used to get roofing jobs. I paid for a lead, and the same homeowner got sent to me and four other roofers, and whoever dialed fastest won, and half the time the number was wrong or the lady had already told two men no. I have sat in my truck outside a house eating gas station food, racing to call a person who never asked for me by name, and felt like a telemarketer in a roofing shirt. After one spring of that I told my office manager I would quit buying leads entirely and just starve honest. She talked me off that ledge, barely. The calls that come now come different. A homeowner in the next town over called our number, only ours, because she had read our reviews and seen the roofs we did on her side of town, and she asked for me by name like we had met. Nobody sold her to me. We inspected it Tuesday, she signed Thursday, and her neighbor came out while we were tearing off and asked for a card. My manager says I should not take it personal when a lead is junk. She is right about most things. But a homeowner who picked you on purpose is a different job from the first handshake, and I would rather build a company on those.

I run the office at our shop, which for a long time meant I was the follow up department. Wade, who owns the place, sells the roof and climbs it too, and he is a perfectionist about the photos and supplement paperwork. The pile never ended. An estimate would go out, the adjuster would go quiet, the homeowner would go quiet, and I would be at my desk at six thirty writing the same email I wrote the week before. Now those follow ups go out without either of us touching them. A job in the next town over that we had both given up on answered one on a Sunday. Monday morning Wade stuck his head in my door and said, "Denise, did you send that?" I had not sent a thing since Friday. I leave at five most days now, and from what I hear, the table at his house is for eating on again.

My dad started this company with a ladder, a magnet for nails, and a phone number in the Yellow Pages, and if you had told him a website would ever sell a roof he would have laughed you out of the yard. He still hates computers. I took over the office side three years ago and our website back then was one page, our name, and a picture of a roof that was not even ours. I know because I recognized the house from a supplier catalog. People would call us for shingles when most of our best work had turned into metal, and I could not blame them. That is what we showed them. Launchbarr rebuilt it with our own jobs, our own crews, the metal work we are proud of, and reviews from people on streets I can drive to. A rancher out across the county told me at his gate that he picked us because our site had a barn roof near enough to his that he could picture his own. Dad came by that job on tear off day, looked at the sign in the yard, and said, "So the computer got us this one." First time he has ever given it credit. He still will not answer an email. But he quit telling me to cancel the website.

Storm inspections were my no show problem. Everybody says yes on the phone when they are scared about a leak, then the rain stops, the sun comes out, and I drive across town to an empty house. The appointment messages fixed most of that. They get a reminder, they get a text when I am on my way, and if they need to move it they actually tell me instead of just not being home. Last month a lady met me at the curb with the insurance letter already in her hand. That never used to happen.

The hail hit on a Tuesday night and by Wednesday morning half the town had a tarp question and a dented truck. I was on a tear off by seven with my phone in the truck, same as always, because a ringing phone in my pouch does me no good forty feet up. The old me would have come down at lunch to thirty missed calls and half of them already signed with the out of town crews who rolled in behind the storm. This time the calls got answered by the voice Launchbarr put on our line. She takes the address, asks about leaks and missing shingles, tells them when somebody will call back, and she does not get rattled when three people ring at once. A lady across town told me at her door that the girl who answered was the reason she waited for us, because the other company she called just rang and rang. By Thursday we had inspections stacked for two weeks and my foreman was the one doing the calling back, in order, like a list instead of a fire. My wife asked if I missed being the phone company. I told her I still get to be the roofer, which was the job I wanted in the first place.

My husband Dale has run our company for twenty six years and never answers his phone on a roof, which used to mean I answered it at the supper table or it just rang out. Now when a call gets missed, the person gets a text back right away saying Dale will call shortly, and most of them answer the text and tell us what is wrong. A man across the river texted back a picture of shingles in his yard before Dale ever called him. Dale says the text does the part he was worst at, which is sounding quick. He is just not silent anymore.

I am the partner who does not climb. Karl is my partner, he runs the crews, I run the phones, the bids, and the part where homeowners ghost us after we send a price. Our website messages used to sit until I checked them at night, and by then the homeowner had called somebody else. Launchbarr set it up so the texts and website messages get answered right away with real questions, how old is the roof, is it leaking now, what town, and by the time I see it there is a name, an address, and an inspection time already talked about. A woman two towns over told me she booked with us because, her words, we were the only roofers who acted like we wanted the job. Karl read that over my shoulder and said tell the robot he can stay.

I never asked anybody for a review in twenty years. Felt like begging. Now the ask goes out on its own when the job is done and the yard is clean, and folks actually leave them. My grandson read me one that said we magnet swept the yard twice. The phone just started ringing with people who already trusted us.

Dad built this company and I am the son who handles everything with a screen, which he tolerates. Our Google listing used to say we did repairs only and had a photo of a roof in Arizona, which I know because Dad pointed at the mountains. Launchbarr fixed the whole profile, right services, metal and shingle both listed, pictures of our actual jobs around town. Now the calls come off the map from people nearby who say they picked us because we looked real and close. Dad still calls it the Google phone book. He also answers it faster than anybody in the shop now.

I answer the phones and run the schedule at our shop, and for years our website was a picture of a roof none of us recognized and a phone number that rang to a fax line we had cancelled. People would meet Dale, like Dale, want Dale to do their roof, then go home, look us up, and quietly call the bigger company with the nicer site. I watched it happen at the home show. Launchbarr rebuilt ours with our jobs, our crew, Dale standing in yards he actually worked in, and the warranty written out in plain words. A couple from the next town over told me they almost did not call because of the old site. They said the new one looked like the man who showed up. That sentence alone was worth it to me, and I am not the sentimental one in this office.

I used to write estimates on paper at the kitchen table and mail my chances away a week late. By the time my price got to a homeowner, he had signed with the man who sent his from the driveway. Now I measure, take the photos, and the estimate goes out by text before I am off the street. A lady across town told me she picked us because our number landed while she was still thinking about her roof, not after she had moved on. Speed is not everything. It is just the thing I was losing on.

My wife Grace owns the company. I married into a roofing company, which my brothers still find funny. Grace's estimates used to sit in a folder because she will climb any roof in the county but hates chasing people. The ones nobody answered started getting followed up on by Launchbarr without her lifting a finger. A roof across the county we bid in April signed in June off one of those follow ups. Grace looked at me and said the folder finally does its own begging. She meant it as a compliment to herself, mostly.

Asking a homeowner for a deposit used to be the longest conversation of my week. Now the estimate goes out and the deposit gets paid by card through a link before we ever roll a truck or order shingles. A soldier at the base paid his from his phone in the driveway while we were still measuring. No checks in the mail, no awkward porch math. I roll into tear offs now with the money part already settled, and the job starts calmer because of it.

I am one of two partners here. Ronnie sells, I make sure we get paid and do not drown. Three years ago we paid close to three hundred dollars a lead to a service that sent the same homeowner to five roofers, and I once paid for a wrong number two towns away and got a credit toward more leads, which is like being robbed and handed a coupon. What changed my mind was ads that only run in our own towns, with our name and our reviews on them. The calls come to us alone. A homeowner in the next town over said she clicked because the ad showed our crew and four streets she knew. I hate losing roofs to the storm crews sleeping at the motel on the highway, and those boys do not get our streets handed to them anymore.

Every call, every text, every Facebook message lands in one place now. I used to find leads in four pockets, a notebook, and my memory. A message came in through Google on a Sunday while I was coaching my kid's game and it was sitting there answered and waiting Monday morning. Nothing falls behind the truck seat anymore. That alone would have sold me.

My husband Roy is the roofer. I am the wife who used to read him his reviews out loud because he will not look at a screen after six. The reviews used to sit unanswered for months, which his daughter said looked like we did not care. Now replies go out without Roy typing anything, polite, with his name, mentioning the job. A customer from the next town over wrote back under hers, "Thanks Roy, your crew earned it," to a reply Roy has never seen. He told me to tell the machine it has better manners than he does. It does. He is fine with that.

Our phone number was different in three places online and one listing had us in Oklahoma. I am not a computer man. I roof. Launchbarr got the name, address, and number matching everywhere a customer might look, and quit sending people to a shop we moved out of in 2019. A man across town told me he almost gave up because the first number he found rang a tire shop. He got us on the second try because it finally matched. I do not understand the internet. I understand that a wrong number never roofed anything.

I run the lead crew at our company. Mike owns it and sells most of the roofs, and he is the first to say the office side was held together with hope. What I notice from the truck is the jobs come with pages now. Somebody searched roofs in one town or metal roofs in the next and landed on a page about that exact thing with our work on it. The lady whose roof I tore off last Tuesday told me she read the whole page about her town before she called. I just nail shingles. But I like nailing the ones that were sold before I got there.

People book their own inspections on our calendar now, evenings included. A schoolteacher in the next town over picked a Saturday slot at nine at night without talking to a soul. I used to play phone tag for three days to do that. I am sixty one and I still climb, but the calendar climbing into people's evenings without me is the best hire I never interviewed.

I am the daughter. Dad, Ray, started this company and still inspects every roof like it owes him an explanation. Our no shows were killing his Saturdays. People would book an inspection, the weather would clear, and nobody would be home. Now they get reminded, and when Dad is twenty minutes out they get a text saying so, and they either wait or they tell us to come Tuesday instead. A rancher out past the edge of town actually called to apologize for almost forgetting, then stood in the yard with his insurance papers ready. Dad said a homeowner apologizing to a roofer is a sign of the end times.

I do not take pictures for fun and I sure never posted any. Somewhere along the way our finished roofs started showing up on our pages without me touching a thing, tear off to finished ridge, the way the customer saw it. A man in the next town over told me he watched three of our roofs go up on his street through those posts before he ever called. He said it felt like we had already done his neighborhood's homework. We had. I just never showed anybody. Now the work introduces itself before I knock.

I keep the books and the schedule at our shop, and January used to be a month I dreaded. This winter Launchbarr ran a simple offer out to our past customers, people whose roofs we had already done or repaired, and the phone woke up. Inspections, small repairs, two full replacements from families we had patched up years ago. A lady two towns over said she had been meaning to call us for a year and the message just caught her at the right kitchen table moment. Pete, who owns the place, said in January, out loud, "Well, that is new." Thirty years I have waited to hear that in January.

I am not a thank you note man, but after a job the customer gets a message from us checking in and thanking them, without me remembering to send it. A man whose roof we did in April sent his brother in law to us in May and told him, quote, they are the only roofers who ever asked how it held up after the rain. That check in cost me nothing and I did not even send it. Fine. I will take credit in person. I am good at that part.

Hank is my partner. He sells, I run production, and between us we used to lose every lead that came in after dark. A call at nine forty on a Friday about an active leak got answered, asked the right things, and was a booked inspection on the board when I drank my coffee Saturday. The homeowner in the next town over thought he had talked to our office. Our office was asleep. So was I. That Friday night leak turned into a full replacement and a sign in a yard on a street we wanted. Hank says the night shift is his favorite employee. Mine too, and I run production.