Mmm, Roger is right, we do have history, this guy took one shop off me by turning up a few days before I was due to start cleaning it and claimed he worked for me, the upshot being was that she was to scared to make a fuss, ergo, he 'poached' the account
On another occasion he called on every single shop I have in town (and that is 4 days worth of work, week in week out) and offered to undercut my price by a minimum of 50p. (He didn't take a single job)
He has also bragged to others he has knocked me out
( We haven't spoken for years let alone got close enough to exchange blows!)
I always told him when a customer complained about his work, or asked me to take the job over, always gave him the benefit of the doubt, but he would always dump on me (or anyone else for that matter).
Oh, and when he first worked for me, he also nicked scrims off me!
Final straw was when another lad that was working for was asked to clean one of the accounts that ‘S’ did, this chap simply cleaned it and told me I would be along to sort the money out.
So I didn’t really have the chance to intervene before it was too late.
‘S’ was charging £20.00, way, way over the top.
We told the guy that we could do it for £15.00, but that we would inform ‘S’ and he would probably match the price.
It could have been done for a fiver and not been under priced.
I met ‘S’ in town and told him that all he had to do was match the price to keep the job.
Instead he took a pub we cleaned for £25.00 a week.
He took it because he knew the guy behind the bar.
Was all Georgian, so he didn’t do it for long, he only took it to spite me.
So yes, it could be said that we don't really get along!!
Rog picked up 2 shops, the first was as he said, the customer approached him and Roger was unaware that this other guy cleaned them, then the shop over the road approached him, ‘S’ wasn’t doing the glass above the door, even after having been repeatedly asked to do so, So Rog also got to do that one too.
This ‘S’ has had a good couple of weeks, 3 weeks ago I took one off him (one that he poached off me (yet again he knew the new manageress) but in the intervening couple of years he just hasn’t done a decent job, the next manager saw me and asked me to clean it…I’m charging £2.00 more than he was too!
And now I’ve taken a local Spar shop off him too!
I could have taken this one at any time over the past 4 years, I’ve just been waiting for the best time to take it off him!
I’m charging £2.00 more for that one too!
It’s amused me because he has not put up his price on this one for 4 years, my missus is a supervisor in there, and he has been scared I’ll take it off him for years lol
But to lose 4 commercial accounts in a couple of weeks, 3 of them in 2 days…ahh revenge is sweet, he’s going to be steaming!
And unless the shops that Roger took of him tell him which window cleaner has taken them, he’ll think it was me!! And that makes me feel even better lol.
Mind how you go,
Ian