[Daniel Watson]

Had a recent run of 3 complaints over the past week and would like some advice of what you would do in these situations.

1, had a customer phone me to cancel my service saying that the windows were S$£@ and i better not come around as her husband is up a ladder re- doing them and if he sees me he will thump me.

she didnt give me chance to say that i was 10 doors up from her and had a direct line of sight to her house.

i started to walk towards the house to see what the problem is at which point she saw me and drew the curtains, i walked around the back of the house and inspected my work, (which was fine).

i walked away.

2, did a first clean and afterwards handed the man a letter which explained wfp and told him that first cleans can be unpredictable but if he has any issues the call me and i will sort any problems out.

i returned a month later as was agreed and the windows had minor specs so i set about cleaning,

halfway through he ran around the back and told me to leave because he had never re booked me and didnt want his windows doing with wfp as they had specs on. i asked him why he had not called me over the past 4 weeks to complain or at least cancel me (if anyone cleaned my windows and i was not happy i would be straight on the phone).he was very rude and followed me around as i was packing up my equipment telling me how i should clean windows and trying to give me a fiver for doing half a 20 quid job.

i refused his money but i was losing my temper so through my teeth told him to get back in his house and leave me alone. I didnt yell turn violent.

3, got a call at 7.15 this morning off a lady trying to cancel me. i convinced her to let me come round and rectify my work.

on arrival i notices one line of drips on the front window which i buffed off with a cloth and went to see the conny that she had complained of. it was gleaming apart from a few bits of bird muck that was hours old i cleaned that off but could not see what the problem was at all.

i re- cleaned all. her windows including the velux on the roof which i didnt include in the original quote and did the conny trad when i noticed all the smears and dirt on the inside of the glass. she has cleaned the inside with a dirty cloth and was showing huge streaks running down the glass.

she returned home as i was packing up my kit and said that they were much better and they are crystal clear (which due to the insides they were not).

I just agreed with her and left.

I am a newbie so i take every complaint seriously as i may be in the wrong, I am not so arrogant to think that i am a wfp master.

What would you do in my position?

[Grant Whyte]

Hi

Your work appears to be cleaning windows - that's your job, right? While at each customer, are you trying to do anything else that your clients don't want? Do you ask them the same question you've posed in your subject line? Are they getting turned off with any religious stuff by any chance?

If you give customers what they want they're usually happy as Larry. Thinking you might be doing something they don't want, not just the quality of your work.

Grant

[Pristine Clean]

Well from the way you have explained in your post I would say that

1. You are not informing/explaining clearly to the customers correctly about what happens with Water Fed Pole Technology
and you should certainly explain the system prior to starting..not hand a letter afterwards. ...not professional. you need to consider altering your approach.

2. You are NOT asking what they want? Traditional or WFP - if you only offer WFP then have you asked how their windows were cleaned before?

3. Maybe you should check your work more thoroughly before going onto the next job that way you wouldnt need to rectify any previous work.

We all get bad days.

[The Great One]

Hi

He would probably call down his dad to smite the lot of them, his dad seems to do that quite a  lot with whingers!

Regards

Martin

[Tim82]

Are they getting turned off with any religious stuff by any chance?

[Tim82]

1) If you think he really would beat you up just leave them to it, no point in risking your neck! You don't need petty customers like that. But if possible go back and apologise and ask what problem there was with the job you did, and try and rectify it. Often this disarms people. Just be professional, keep calm...I've had irate customers like that that have been out of hand, unreasonable and have cancelled but have asked me to resume at a later date after calming down. Sometimes they just don't get wfp to start with.

2) I would have tried to keep calm, asked for half the money, if I'd done half the job, and if he refused just accept the money offered and just leave it at that. Fair enough. (and keep well clear in future!) Some customers are often that stupid and don't read the info sheet you give em.

3) I would have done what you did, maybe not clean the whole house if it didn't need doing, just wiped the drips etc. You can point out that marks are on the inside (or even inbetween panes) if they are, and people are often apologetic because they don't always realize marks can be  on the inside!  I would be wary of her in the future though and make sure you get paid before you go back again.