Why you choose a local Rotherham locksmith

One of my favourite British films is the 1983 comedy drama, Local Hero, directed by Bill Forsyth. If you haven’t seen it, I can tell you that it’s delightfully charming, and depicts the conflict between a local community in a small Scottish village, and a major international oil company who want to buy up land for a refinery. It stars Burt Lancaster and Peter Capaldi, amongst others, and the soundtrack was written by Mark Knopfler – the main theme is used by Newcastle United at every home game when the teams run out onto the pitch.

Local v national locksmiths

I was watching the film again recently and it got me thinking about the representation of the clash between local and international and how it relates to my own work. Now, shocking as it may seem, I’m not Burt Lancaster, so I’m firmly in the “local” category rather than the national or international conglomerate. However, I’m in an industry which encompasses both the local and the national. This can be illustrated through a simple web search for locksmiths. The results will include a mix of local and national results to choose from. Often the national firms will appear in the sponsored results because their marketing budgets are so much bigger. But which to choose?

You would probably think I’d say you should go for the local option, given I fit into that category but you’d be wrong. Nah, only joking – you’d be entirely right. I would always encourage customers to make that local choice and it’s not just for my own self-interest, honestly! Let me go over a few of the advantages of local over national.

How to choose a locksmith

Firstly, local knowledge is invaluable. A Rotherham locksmith who knows the area will have experience of all the issues affecting the region. They’ll know the style of break-ins that happen in the area and how best to prevent these happening. They will be able to give advice based on their local expertise, and if they need to direct you on to other companies or suppliers they will have this information to hand too.

Reliability is a big plus of local locksmiths. Being based in the locality, they generally won’t have far to travel to get to you, and you can be sure of who is going to attend your property when you call them out. Should you need repeat visits, you’ll be able to put a face to the firm, and they’ll also know what’s happened on previous visits. This is not always the case with national chains where they will send whoever is available – they might have further to travel, won’t have the local knowledge, and may be unaware of previous work carried out by the firm.

Locksmiths are often called out when householders are feeling vulnerable following a break in, and having several different anonymous faces knowing the layout of your house will not exactly lead to reassurance. It’s much better to have a friendly, trusted face and the consistency of the same service.

Whilst I’d love to say that every  locksmith you come across will be as honest and above board as yours truly, unfortunately this is not always the case. However, with a local Rotherham locksmith you have more comeback on any faulty or overcharged work, and you know they’re not going to disappear into thin air if their business is in the locality. Reputation is everything with local businesses, and often the locksmith will themselves be a sole trader. As such, they rely on good word of mouth and one bad experience for a customer could be disastrous for the business. With national firms, there are always millions more potential customers for them, meaning not so much emphasis has to be put on good customer service. If bad word of mouth gets around in one area about poor practices or overcharging, they can always move on to concentrate on another region with unsuspecting customers.

From a purely economic standpoint, local makes sense too. With a big national company, they have call centre staff to pay, middle men, finance and marketing staff, greater overheads, directors, and shareholders’ demands for increased profits. However, with a local owner Rotherham locksmith firm there are none of these people wanting their slice of the cake. There will be the cost of the work to cover, and a little bit added on so the locksmith can make a living but apart from that none of the extras that are needed with the national conglomerates. This inevitably means lower bills for the customer.

Looking at all these aspects, my recommendation would always be to get the number of a local Rotherham locksmith saved in your mobile in case you ever need their services. You’ll generally get a quicker response time, better customer service, more comeback if there are any problems, and a more reasonable price.