Skill sets rather than price are the important factor for businesses when choosing contractors, a survey by ClickSoftware has revealed.

A survey by ClickSoftware conducted with 250 UK business decision makers has found that skill sets are the most important factor for 30% of businesses when choosing third party subcontractors. Just 4% of UK businesses consider cost to be the most important factor when making a procurement decision.

The report: “Field Service Best Practice: Don’t let subcontractors subtract from the bottom line” said that while getting the job done to a high standard is the primary concern for businesses subcontracting work, increasing emphasis is being placed on the experience the end customer has in completing the job.

Of those surveyed, 98% also had some metric for customer satisfaction measurement. "With price no longer a primary concern when making a procurement decision, businesses must be able to demonstrate a high level of customer experience when bidding for work," was one of the report's conclusions.

Businesses reported the quality of work, ability to complete jobs, having the right equipment and materials to complete jobs made up the 41% of complaints made about contractors in the past six months. More than three quarters (77%) of companies had received a complaint about contractors or subcontractors in the past and more than one in ten (12%) complaints are happening on a regular basis.

The good news for the UK subcontractor industry is that complaints are relatively low. Over half of the businesses spoken to rarely had to deal with complaints about subcontractors, the report reveals, whereas a similar survey in the US revealed 95% of customers had made a complaint about contractor service.

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