Before engaging significant service providers, consult your network—ask relatives, friends, colleagues, and professional contacts for recommendations and warnings. This network-based vetting reflects the understanding that quality is difficult to assess in advance and that people with direct experience provide more reliable information than credentials or marketing. Take platform reviews seriously as an extension of network information sharing; read them carefully, consider patterns, and use ratings as meaningful quality signals.
When you receive good service, be prepared to recommend providers to your network; when you have bad experiences, share those too. Understand that network reputation has real consequences—recommendations and warnings shape provider prospects. Provider selection based purely on credentials, advertising, or price signals, without network consultation, misses the most reliable quality information available.
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