[lisa123]

Hi all
Hope your all busy.
We have had a funny day today.

Last Tuesday Lisa and I did a monthly clean for a customer who was away, and worked bloody hard, their properrty was neglected for a while, kitchen filthy, especially floors and shower room took an hour to scrub top to bottom etc,
Nearly a week later and I sent an email asking for payment as i hadnt received it yet, and terms were payment to be sent the next day.
Apparently she is not happy with our service, she expected total gleaming house in 3.5 hours. I did tell her about the limitations, if house v. dirty then it will take a lot longer than 3.5 hours. But still she was away for a few days, her husband was in and out the property during and after we left, and she tells me on the email that we are not up to standard. Areas were left dirty etc.
We know the state we left the house in and we were really pleased since the state it was in to begin with. She has cancelled our services. Obviously in the T&C's complaints are to be made within 24hours, but she didn't complain straight away. She could have, her husband was there while we worked, he seemed alright.
i sent her an email back to say sorry she didnt think we did a good job, but we did the best we could in the time allowed etc. and that if she wanted a gleaming house (her words) it would take a few more visits to bring it up to standard. I'm still awaiting payment. It's being sent apparently. She also thought £8 per hour per cleaner was very expensive, this was our base rate for trial.
Bit disappointed really, it's our first complaint if you can call it that. 

On the other side of our day the local bbc radio people were wanting to do a programme about spring cleaning and were doing a phone in for people with the grottiest houses etc to call in and the winner would have a visit from us with the bbc radio reporter live on the radio and talk about cleaning and actually do a bit of a kim and aggie i suppose. very surreal. would have been great fun, shame they only gave us less than 24 hours notice. Got a big job on tomorrow that we couldn't change, think of the publicity we could have got!  :

Sorry to rant on, its been a very strange day. Thought i wopuld share it with you 

[handyali]

days like that can be frustrating. people like that are everywhere unfortunatley. we've all had em and will still in future im sure. think they all expect us to run our businesses on minimum wage  . try and focus on the positive. we had a famous customer. we did an end of tenancy complimentary clean of a house very cheaply and she moaned like MAD that we hadnt cleaned the inside of her cooker    we explained that it would take a professional hours to do it and she soon shut up.
we still giggle at that one 

[Paul Kettless]

Would not worry about this kind of customer, unfortunately they come with the trade.  We have had three or four like this one, and you will never make them happy.

So long as you are 100% happy that you did everything that you could within the timescale given, you have done your bit. and you stand by the professionalism of your company.  I have on many occasions told customers that I think that they are being unreasonable, or that there expectations are to high.  Sometimes we have parted company, and on other occasions it has improved the customer/client relationship.

Regards
paul

[Lesley J]

we did a 10 hour clean in a house that was minging last Friday, we all stood back when finished and said ahhh it looks a lot better now, no cobwebs, no dog hairs
worktops clean, bath, showers sinks shining etc, etc, within 30 mins of us leaving we had an irate phone call to say that we had not cleaned a shelf in the childrens bedroom, that was holding toys, as you say there is no pleasing some people.

[handyali]

remembered another incident today !! landlord moaned at letting agent while inspecting a property.one shelf in the kitchen had not been wiped by accident. my boss was called, squirted shelf 3 times then wiped it once in front of them and made sure they were happy.result-happy (ish) landlord. it was all my boss and the letting agent (who we know well) could do to not just break down in hysterics. !!! BEWARE !! these people are everywhere !! 

[REGINA]

Yes, I too have had the retired anal military officer complain there were still cobwebs whilst I was on hour 6 of a 20 hour job. This was an extremely large house with children and pet and was very cluttered and dirty. Some people expect us to be magicians.

On another job - the lady of the house followed and inspected every corner wearing white gloves!

[AJCleaningServices]

...On another job - the lady of the house followed and inspected every corner wearing white gloves!

and? 

[Jan K]

that's the forces for you 

[REGINA]

AND?..

Well I laugh all the way to the bank at people's little quirks. For all I care they could follow me around the house and videotape it all. My rates are £25 and up.

[Clean 'n' Tidy]

I had a customer a few months ago that was a pain as well. We did a spring clean of the whole house 3 people 5 hours each. The house was really dirty and full of cobwebs ets...

I rang the lady up in the evening to make sure that all was ok. She said all was fine except for there was a couple of crumbs left on the worktop by the cooker. I was so surprised that she could acually say anything.

Sometimes the worst the house is the more fussy they seem to be.

[dustdees]

White Glove inspections, no problem, my husband did white glove inspections on miltary march outs, we do those as a matter of course, if it's done properly then it doesn't really matter.

P.s I hope that womans white gloves were starched for full effect!!!!