Getting ghosted by Interior Designers (ID) is pretty common.
And… it is extremely frustrating – imagining spending 1-3hours of your time meeting up with an ID and they simply vanish without even getting back to you with a quote. The worst part is that you’re left hanging. IDs are afraid of offending homeowners, so they employ subtle rejection techniques e.g. delaying replies.
Here’s are reasons why you might be ghosted…
Top Reason: Mismatch
This is the number one reason and one that we’re most familiar with. Many Homeowners who’ve met IDs via clickbait reno sites or visiting random showrooms tend to lament about how they’ve wasted time meeting the wrong IDs.
Why? IDs are extremely selective with the Homeowners they work with. Each ID have their own selection criteria based on their personal goals (even IDs from the same Interior Firm can have different priorities). For example, a design-centric ID would want to take on challenging projects that will add-value to their portfolio while a mass market ID might prefer homeowners with lower budgets and simpler requirements.
How do I know if an ID can’t serve me? The challenge is that most IDs will not mention their requirements or even reject you upfront because they don’t want to lose the opportunity to meet and the chance to persuade you to fit their requirements.
In their defence, most IDs can only juggle up to 5 ongoing renovation projects at a time so you can’t blame them for prioritising.
How do I avoid this problem then? Use HomeMatch, it’s free! 😉 This may come across as a shameless namedrop but… we’re super confident about our product.
Presently, we are the only platform who works with and know the requirements of individual Renovators from CaseTrust-accredited firms. This makes us ultra capable of finding specific IDs who can meet your specific needs.
From there, you can review portfolios and before meeting them:
Other reasons for getting ghosted
We’ve gathered the anonymous opinions of 3 IDs on why they may reject homeowners.
Bad Vibes
As mentioned earlier, due to their limited capacity, IDs must prioritise which projects they take up.
Naturally, they prefer working with Homeowners who make them feel comfortable and treat them with basic respect. Some no-go behaviours we gathered: 1) inviting multiple IDs to the same meeting without their consent, 2) approaching them with the design proposals of other IDs with the hopes of securing a cheaper quote.
Unrealistic Expectations
This could be anything under the sun. However, the most common is having an extremely unrealistic budget.
Setting aside design fees which might be subjective, quotations for execution of works shouldn’t vary too much. Hence, if you receive a quotation that is significantly lower, there is likely to be hidden costs and/or exclusions.
We strongly recommend homeowners to meet at least 5 credible IDs so that they can make a fair assessment on quotations.
