Many homeowners have horror stories about contractors who show up late or not at all. Gavin Hepp and Travis Ulrich, co-owners of Webfoot Painting Co., have made it a goal not to be those contractors.

“There’s the reputation that they show when they want, they don’t communicate well enough,” Hepp said. “All those things we sought to fix, to separate us from the crowd.”

Ulrich and Hepp have been friends since childhood and began painting houses in high school for one of their teachers. They started Webfoot Painting as a summer job in 2003, painting houses near Hillsboro while they were home from the University of Oregon.

“Each year we were getting better and better at the painting, so it held our interest,” Ulrich said. “How good can we be if we did this full time?”

The two moved to Bend in 2006, forgoing their customer base in Hillsboro to knock on doors and pass out fliers for their business here.

“It takes a lot of fliers to get a call,” Ulrich said. “But we didn’t need a lot of volume, because there was only two of us and a van.”

Ulrich said the company stopped painting new construction entirely in 2006, which allowed them to work with homeowners and helped insulate them from the recession in 2008.

“Homes still need to be painted,” Hepp said.

Though the company has expanded to deck and drywall work since 2008 and now includes some commercial painting, they have never shifted back to new-home painting. By working with existing homeowners, Ulrich and Hepp were able to focus more on the customer service side of the business. Hepp said the company has myriad ways to make sure their employees are on the same page, ranging from biyearly staff meetings on “How to Create a Raving Fan” to report cards for customers that are handed out after every job.

“We definitely saw room in the market for someone who wasn’t making those mistakes,” Hepp said. “A lot of it is just fundamentals.”

While every company pays lip service to customer service, the results for Webfoot Painting speak for themselves. Webfoot Painting has 41 Web reviews through services like Google and Yelp. None of those reviews are below five stars.

Furthermore, on April 10, the Bend Chamber of Commerce awarded Webfoot Painting the SAGE Award for the Large Business of the Year, three years after naming it the Small Business of the Year in 2012.

“Our reputation is probably our most valued asset right now,” Hepp said.

Community engagement helps as well. Hepp said the company has donated painting work for the Ronald McDonald House and the Bethlehem Inn in addition to hosting a pumpkin-carving event every October.

“As we’ve been able to grow each year, we’ve been able to turn up the volume on some of those community projects, just make them bigger and better,” Hepp said.

— Reporter: 541-617-7818, shamway@bendbulletin.com

Q: Where do you see the business in five to 10 years?

A: Ulrich: We’re looking at ways to add things to the customer experience. We have a drywall-patching service now, which fits in with our painting. We’re trying (to) add little things that fit with what we already do.”

Q: Did the Webfoot Painting name come from your time together at University of Oregon?

A: Ulrich: Yeah, the school’s mascot was the Webfoots before it was the Ducks. We were a college business, so we wanted to stick with a cool, college name.Hepp: It’s a lot better than “Gavin and Travis Painting.”