Top Service Ltd

We are the only specialist credit reference and debt recovery agency for the UK construction industry. We currently have thousands of companies subscribing to our service with around 6,000 branches and depots between them, spanning many different sectors in the construction industry. Our credit reports contain unique trading experiences which are sourced from our thousands of members, all trading in and around the construction industry. Our members supply us with, and we proactively gather, up to the minute detailed information of how their customers are paying them. For over 30 years we have helped thousands of your fellow traders in the construction industry avoid problem payers and reduce their bad debt. All our members benefit from access to our unique and invaluable credit information and our effective recovery services.

Top Service History – 1991 to Present.
Our company started life as a debt recovery agency in 1991 with a few Worcestershire builders’ merchants as clients. Within a year it became apparent that certain debtors were systematically running up an account with one merchant, failing to pay then running up an account with another merchant, and so on until we were collecting from some debtors on behalf of five different merchants. None of the merchants were aware of a debtor’s true indebtedness because, although they met up occasionally, they didn’t discuss their slow payers or bad debtors. When we pointed out that some debtors were taking advantage of this lack of communication the merchants asked us to act as an unbiased information network, so we set up a rudimentary computer database to store payment histories and trading experiences on behalf of our clients. More merchants joined the ‘club’ including plumbers’ merchants, timber merchants and roofing merchants. The network became so successful that by the end of 1992 companies from the hire sector were asking to join in the pooling of credit information. By the mid 1990s a diverse range of companies had joined our network, but they all had one thing in common – they were all taking a risk when supplying to the construction industry on a credit basis.

Over the years our range of services has expanded as a direct result of suggestions and comments from our customers. If our customers don’t like something, then we don’t do it. For example, many of our customers don’t like the fact that most credit reference agencies tie them into a contract, so we don’t do this. In fact, we don’t ask for any commitment on their part. They stay with us because they like what we do and they like our team members. We know this because they tell us – click here to see their comments.

We have been described as a ‘protection society’, a ‘community’, a ‘credit circle’ and a ‘national grapevine of information’. Apart from identifying slow payers and bad debtors our information sharing network has also foiled a number of frauds over the years.

We started in 1991 with just two founders, Lisa Cardus & Kevin Halligan. Now there are two more directors, Matt Ricketts & Emma Bridges and a team over 30 people. We started small so the ‘personal touch’ was built in from the beginning. To this day we have stuck with the principles of good, old fashioned customer service. No matter how far technology takes us there will always be a friendly voice at the end of the phone, just waiting to go that extra mile.