Black Diamond Paving Inc. Comparative Summary

Selecting one paving contractor from among a group of reputable competitors can be a daunting task. Often, there’s no single right way to do a paving project, and different companies will sometimes submit radically different proposals for the same project. This can result in confused customers who don't understand what they’re paying for or contractors needing to re-bid the project—a time-consuming and costly process.

When Megan Reger and Joanne Devlin co-founded Black Diamond Paving in 1996, they had a different concept of how a paving contractor should operate: Invest all the time necessary before a project to listen to customers and determine their precise needs, and then deliver a proposal that’s right for them. Once Black Diamond Paving learns what a client’s needs are, it puts together a detailed proposal that includes a site plan (with optional photographs) showing what work is to be done in each area.

“If you’re a retail business owner and you want to keep your shopping center for just a couple of years,” says Ms. Reger, “you're going to treat your maintenance very differently than if you want to keep it for 20 years. If you’re in a homeowners’ association—and we do a lot of homeowners’ associations—you have reserves that you can spend on maintenance. But ultimately, you need to keep up a certain appearance and solve certain issues, and if a contractor just comes in and gives you a price without really finding out what you want to achieve, everyone's going to be frustrated.”

At Black Diamond Paving, each job’s schedule is tailored to the customer’s particular needs, explains Ms. Reger. The work plan may call for everything to be done at one time, or it may stagger the project over time, deferring lower-priority aspects of the project to conform to maintenance budgets or other requirements, such as scheduling work to create the least impact on the business or lives of the residents.

The benefits of the detailed proposal and site plan go beyond streamlining and improving the bidding process. Once the go-ahead is given, Black Diamond Paving can proceed quickly. Any delays or unexpected cost overruns are minimized, allowing the crew to get the highest-quality job done fast and efficiently.

“Sometimes, when you open up the asphalt and get underground, there are surprises,” says Ms. Reger. “That happens from time to time. But we did 357 jobs last year, and there were only 18 that had a change order that wasn’t related to the customer saying something like, ‘While you‘re out here, can you do something else?’ We like to make sure our customers know exactly what they’re getting up front, including the price they’re going to pay. We don’t want any surprises, and neither do they.”

Here are some other aspects important to Black Diamond Paving:

• Asking, listening and making client-beneficial recommendations
• Seeing the job from the client’s point of view
• Leaving the job cleaner than when they arrived
• Guaranteeing 100 percent customer satisfaction
• Preceding all proposals with thorough research and due diligence
• Treating customers with professionalism, respect and courtesy
• Giving back to the community (they participate in the Pave an Acre/Save an Acre program)
• Making their idea of value the best in the industry