My family has been running Koen Plumbing in Richardson since 1946 and what sets us apart in over 60 years is simple. We tell you the price before anyone picks up a wrench.

I took over a few years back after my husband passed. Stepping into a male-dominated trade while grieving teaches you fast that you earn the room by knowing the work, not by announcing a title. We serve Richardson, Plano, Garland and the North Dallas metro and I still price jobs and walk slab-leak calls myself.

Most homeowners I meet have been burned by a quote that changed once the truck was in the driveway. We use flat-rate pricing off a real price book, so the number we give is the number. We also show people what we find, with photos and camera footage from their own pipes, so nobody has to take our word for it. A Plano homeowner told me she picked us over a cheaper quote because we gave her a price on the phone, and the other company wouldn’t until they were standing in her house. The repair is the easy part. Trust comes from showing someone the problem and naming the cost first.

Neighbors talking to neighbors built this company, and honestly that’s still where most of our new work comes from. A family shop that’s been around since 1946 didn’t launch with an ad budget. Someone fixed a leak on one street in Richardson and the people next door asked for the same number.

When I took over a few years back, I figured out pretty quickly that goodwill doesn’t transfer on its own. People knew the Koen name, but a lot of them wanted to see who was behind it now. So I won customers over again one kitchen at a time, mostly by quoting the price before touching anything and explaining what I was actually looking at.

Today the biggest source is still referrals and repeat homeowners across Richardson, Plano and Garland. I won’t put a percentage on it, but it’s clearly the largest piece. Reviews come next. A homeowner in Plano with a leaking water heater at 9pm reads reviews before she picks up the phone, and that’s just the reality of how people decide now. After that I spend time in neighborhood Facebook groups and on Reddit answering water questions for free. Someone posts a $300 water bill, I tell them to check the toilet flapper and read the meter with everything off. Now and then that conversation turns into a call. Plenty don’t, and that’s fine.

The bigger jobs, slab leaks and sewer lines especially, follow the same path. I show people camera footage and photos from their own pipes. They tell their neighbors what they saw. Advertising gets the phone to ring once. Showing someone the problem gets their neighbor’s phone ringing too.

Moving from hourly billing to flat-rate pricing off a real price book changed our direction more than any truck or ad I’ve bought. Hourly was backwards. A twenty-year tech who clears a main-line clog in forty minutes earned us less than a slower tech on the same job, and customers never knew the final number. Once we quoted before opening a wall, my techs stopped racing a clock and callbacks dropped across our North Dallas metro calls.

The mistake that taught me the most was keeping a bad-fit tech too long. He was fast on water heater swaps, so I told myself the attitude would settle. Meanwhile the crew quietly re-checked his fittings and stopped bringing problems to me. A Garland review about a rushed walkthrough ended my excuses, and the shop felt lighter once he left. Keeping the wrong person isn’t loyalty. It’s a tax your best people pay every day.

Homeowners now expect to see the problem before they agree to pay for it. A few years ago a customer mostly took your word that the water heater was finished or the sewer line had a belly in it. Today they want a photo, a camera clip or a note they can read at the kitchen table and I think that’s a healthy shift for the trade.

The second change is how people shop. A homeowner in Plano with a leaking tank at 9pm reads reviews first and compares a couple of companies before anyone gets a call. They also expect a price up front. Waiting until the truck is in the driveway to say a number feels dodgy to people now, so we moved to flat-rate pricing off a price book and quote before we open a wall.

On the shop side, we went to digital dispatch with job notes. Every ticket carries the address, the tech, the photos and what got done. Before that, spotting a repeat visit to the same house depended on my dispatcher’s memory and a stack of paper tickets. Now a callback links straight back to the original job, and once a month I read through those notes to see whether it was a parts issue or a skipped step. Callbacks dropped noticeably within a couple of months of doing that. Our techs snap photos into the ticket from the field, and those are the same photos we show the customer. The other shift is prevention. More homeowners across Richardson, Plano and Garland ask about leak sensors now. A $40 Wi-Fi sensor under a water heater on a Texas slab can flag a slow weep weeks before it turns into warped flooring, so I put them under heaters and behind toilets on a lot of our jobs. Much of the North Dallas metro was built decades ago, so original supply and sewer lines are aging out and people are more willing to look early instead of waiting for a flood.

For mw, what customers want hasn’t changed. They want a fair price and someone honest in their kitchen. They’ve just gotten much better at checking.

Work under a good licensed plumber before you chase anything else, because you can’t learn to price a slab leak or read a sewer camera from a video. Then get your books and pricing straight from day one. Know what a truck roll costs you, quote before you open a wall and hire slowly on character. I can teach a fitting. I can’t teach someone to be decent in a stranger’s kitchen. Ignore the pull to chase every call and be the cheapest. A Plano homeowner in our North Dallas metro market picked us over a lower quote because we gave her a number on the phone. Cheap wins one job. Clear and honest wins her neighbors too.