5 Star Success: Chicago's Great Contractor Experience

"The best contractor I've ever hired"

The Mustafoff family has hired contractors to stain the cedar exterior of their Roselle home five times in the 24 years they've lived there. It's a major undertaking that can be a long and messy process of power washing, bleaching, sanding and staining.

Last summer, when Theresa Mustafoff used ServiceMagic to hire Precision Plus Painting, Inc., she had her best contractor experience ever.

"It was so professionally done," she says. "I've never had a job done like this before. It's almost a year later, and I'm still raving about it."

Mustafoff acknowledges that she is a demanding customer. She wanted the stain to match the previous coat, but the manufacturer had changed its formula. So the Precision Plus team spent an entire day testing different stains on the house until the color precisely matched what Mustafoff wanted.

"They lost almost a whole day working with me on that," she says. "It was a lot of work for them, and most people would put their hands up and say forget it."

Up to the Challenge
But Precision Plus is committed to pleasing its customers. For co-owner Fernando Calles, that means going the extra mile for customers like Mustafoff. In fact, Oak Brook-based Precision Plus won't take a dollar from customers until they are happy with their finished project.

Calles and his partner, Lori Stahl, started Precision Plus in 2005 to create the reputable painting firm Calles couldn't find for work at his house. The company seeks to be professional at every turn by immediately returning phone calls, arriving at appointments on time and asking customers if they are completely pleased.

"Unfortunately, it's a concept that a lot of guys don't understand," he says. "That's the foundation of our business, and it's been going gangbusters."

Precision Plus also treats its painters extremely well, expecting they will do the same for customers. That's something Mustafoff noticed when the company stained her house.

The painters were courteous, considerate and professional, and they even worked on Memorial Day to finish the project by Mustafoff's requested deadline.

Though Mustafoff was already impressed with the company's work, Precision Plus proved its excellence again when she noticed bubbling paint on one door. About nine months after completing the job, the crew returned to repaint the door at no charge.

"They stand behind their work," she says. "If every business ran like they run theirs—what a wonderful world."