I thought since our meetings with CTI and Guardian were so close I would wrap these up into into one post.
CTI - We had our meeting with them on Saturday, this was a tough day because our daughter had her SAT's at 7:45 and our meeting was at 9:00. Needless to say we were a tad bit late :0
Our Rep was nice and patient. In all honesty, I was just a little disappointed because they did not have the darker floor that we wanted, but no big deal. The only thing decision we made was to upgrade the carpet padding throughout the entire house and choose our carpet colors for the basement and the upper floors. We are still debating on whether or not to upgrade the carpet in the family room to Berber. Pics below:
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| Light color is for the upper 2 floors, darker is for the basement. |
Guardian - Meeting was last night. our SR was very nice and even changed is hours to accommodate our schedule. The meeting started off very well until I asked him when did we have to get back to him with our final selections and he told us that we had to make our decisions right then and there! Really???? We don't have time to take this this all in and come back with our final choices? So with that tid bit of info, we kindly provided the locations of our 3 phone lines and 3 cable hook ups and called it a night. Sorry buddy, but we are not going to be pressured into making any decision tonight! We went to the meeting with intentions to purchase the Alarm System, and Surround Sound, but we passed on both.
Oh, I forgot, we also got the pre-wiring for the our flat screen above the fireplace, a whopping $440! The poor guy kept saying so "I'll write up this order for $440.00 right? and we kept saying yes, if we have to make our final decisions tonight, then yes, our order will only be for $440.00. He kept telling us that Ryan told them that they have to have the final decision the day of the appointment, etc. I have never heard of this. The bad thing is that we budgeted $4,000 for this but thought we would have time to work out the numbers at home. So in the end we saved a total of $3560 in options that were not in our Top 5 must have's anyway! Now maybe we can apply those funds elsewhere or no where at all....either way this works for me!
That's great you get an option for them to finish the window treatments. The miniblinds already being installed before moving in would be a great addition! Way to go saving all that money on Guardian options. Around here (Western NY) we don't do those meetings so it is something we just decide with our sales rep. I actually am ok with that since I am not good at distinguishing between things that I think we need (ie: surround sound through the house) and things we actually need so if I had someone trying to sell me something, I'd most likely buy it.
ReplyDeleteBecky, that is so true, in this short amount of time that we have been doing this I have had to catch myself a few times from making choices based on what we need vs what we want. The music playing throughout the house would have been great, I love nothing more than to listen to music while I am cleaning on a Saturday morning or cooking dinner at night, but for now we will continue to use our good ole IPOD with speakers! Not so say that won't add this feature in sometime down the line but just not right now.
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised by the Guardian Rep!! I have NEVER heard of them saying "right now". I know of at least one blogger (who still hasn't broke ground) that was able to go home and discuss and get back to them. Sucks for them!
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like everything else went well!! =) And in the end you saved $$$! =)
Our Guardian Rep was rushy rushy too and i didnt like it...his loss, YOUR SAVE!
ReplyDelete@Noey - At first I was going to bring this us to our SR, but then after I thought about I decided not to. Thought it was best to pick and choose my battles,I am sure that more important things will come up. If we were completely set on purchasing the surround sound and other items I would have brought it up, but the way I look at is that they did us a favor! After seeing Lady's tray ceilings, I just might shift those extra funds to upgrade our bedroom with tray ceilings! Interesting thing...the SR from Guardian lives in the same community as we do...Can you imagine us running into him at the grocery store...AWKWARD LOL
ReplyDelete@ Lady, When he said we have to decide NOW, well that just set the tone for rest of meeting. I patiently sat and listened to his preso, but honestly, all I heard was BLAH, BLAH, BLAH,
It is okay to have walked away from the pushy Guardian guy. That's a bunch of BS and he deserves to lose the sale because of it. I would definitely tell your sales rep...doesn't mean you have to meet with the guy again, just let your sales rep know that was very unacceptable. Our guy actually had no intentions of us making a decision during the first meeting. He told us that as soon as we sat down...first meeting was all about him showing us everything they offered and discussing options and pricing. Also, don't forget you get the alarm system installed no matter what...it is free and comes with the house and is fully functional...just not monitored by Guardian if you don't sign up.
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