[Mr. S]

Finished a house today, upstairs wfp and downstairs trad and went to get paid.
Customer about 60ish had a moan saying didnt like all this pole thing. I asked why and he said all this water on windows. My reply was "you did read the information sheet last month?" He replies "Yes". So i went through all the hassle of reminding him of the process"
He then said "Well the upstairs sills are still dirty!!!" I said "Im ever so sorry would you care to show me?" (99% sure he was trying it on). He obliged quite smugly!
With a stern "OK then" I followed the customer upstairs, he opened a window, and to my utter amazement................

SPOTLESS!

He said "See not as clean as downstairs sills"

I had a little chuckle,  and reminded him he was getting all his upstairs frames brushed clean, not just wiped, and he still insisted he wasnt happy!

It really is silly, any one else had similar?

Think in 2 mnths time this house is going to be the biggest price increase just purely for wasting my time!!!!!

[AuRavelling79]

I thought Victor Meldrew lived on my patch!

[jinky230]

got a customer who cancelled, he said thats not health and safety that is just pure lasiness, did not want to know- threw the money at me and said dont come back,was going to give him his cash back and say if your not happy you dont need to pay, but he looked the type that did not matter what you said he would always be arigant towards you,Put me on a downer with wfp, carried on with the rest of the street, and the customers were over the moon I was getting windows that where impossible to get before with a ladder.Moral of this is that you cant please all of the customers all of the time when you are dealing with the public

jinky

[callum macleod]

Hi i've had this sort of thing happen before your right you can't please everyone I've had customer's cancel for no apparent reason i've actually checked the windows afterward and nothing was wrong they just didn't like the way you now cleaned the windows! Though i would have said the customer in question does not have the right to treat you like that!

[supernova77]

If I ever get any complaints then I try to rectify the problem... But, if after trying the customer is still unhappy or grumpy I'll just drop them from my round. I can't be bothered with moaners and complainers.

I had a customer who agreed to having her windows cleaned every 8 weeks. I did the first clean (wfp), she was happy. Went back after 8 weeks and she says "No, they don't need doing yet - please leave it another 4 weeks". Went back after another 4 weeks and before I even started she complained about wfp, saying that it does't give a very good finish, but please try it again as they do need cleaning now!?!?! I refused to clean them and just left, I just really can't be bothered with people like her!

[Paul Coleman]

Finished a house today, upstairs wfp and downstairs trad and went to get paid.
Customer about 60ish had a moan saying didnt like all this pole thing. I asked why and he said all this water on windows. My reply was "you did read the information sheet last month?" He replies "Yes". So i went through all the hassle of reminding him of the process"
He then said "Well the upstairs sills are still dirty!!!" I said "Im ever so sorry would you care to show me?" (99% sure he was trying it on). He obliged quite smugly!
With a stern "OK then" I followed the customer upstairs, he opened a window, and to my utter amazement................

SPOTLESS!

He said "See not as clean as downstairs sills"

I had a little chuckle,  and reminded him he was getting all his upstairs frames brushed clean, not just wiped, and he still insisted he wasnt happy!

It really is silly, any one else had similar?

Think in 2 mnths time this house is going to be the biggest price increase just purely for wasting my time!!!!!

A price increase?   A customer like this will almost certainly always be trouble.  I would not work for him again.

[Terry_Burrows]

and they wonder why they cannot get good wc we never did houses those were the reason, people are just to petty

[bumper]

hi
when i clean mine by trade i get my dry towel out my pocket and give it a good wipe, nice and dry, no water dripping of the window sills just how my customers like it  how do you wfp manage to dry the sills off, do you just squeege  the water off.

[windows_chepstow]

hi
when i clean mine by trade i get my dry towel out my pocket and give it a good wipe, nice and dry, no water dripping of the window sills just how my customers like it  how do you wfp manage to dry the sills off, do you just squeege  the water off.

When I did trad I didn't earn nearly as much as now, and I mostly only do first floor and above.

It's still hard work mind, but not as hard as lugging my flabby 13 stone body up and down ladders all day.

Some of my customers actually prefer my WFP, some don't, but most don't care as long as their windows are clean.

If you've a 'fussy customer', and you'll know who they are, it's not difficult to run your brush over their sills after you've cleaned the window.

[bumper]

It's still hard work mind, but not as hard as lugging my flabby 13 stone body up and down ladders all day.
your only slim im 21 stone

[jeff1]

Hi Guys
I'm still doing traditional cleaning, but I am changing over this year, already built my trolly, and got my poles, but getting there slowly,  For the past three weeks I have been priming my customers for the big change over, I'm doing it this way as i wanted to guage there reaction to the change. and the way I have been doing this is by telling them its the EU's fault, this always gets  favourable comments on my side, so far I have had 99% possitive feed back from my customers, so it is looking very good, even had a lot of customers say to me you will have to put our prices up then to help cover the costs, Mind you I have been telling them its costing me about £3,000 to set up.
But am building my own trolly system.
I think about a month before i start I will be going around all my customers and give them all a letter that I have from another forum explaining all about the change over and the system. Author of the letter is Duke.

Jeff
Reflections

[jouk45]

jeff, better make sure it looks like £3.000 

[jeff1]

Hi Joe
If it looks like 50p worth of trolly, I'll Just tell them the rest is at home in the shed.

ABIG machine to purefy the water and tanks to hold it in, and pumps to transfer it into my containers lol

[gaza]

Had a customer moan about the water left on the wooden sills the other day,said i would wipe the downstairs down for her,still more moaning shut her up by asking if she takes her winndows inside when it rains
  she rushed out to pay me,apoliguised and slammed the door shut

 smug b.....D another satisfied customer

 gaza

[peterharwood]

Have been wfp for 2 weeks now no complaints as I normally explain the reasons ect, but today I had my first complaint but i'm not surprised as he is a bit of a moaner anyway, Cleaned windows called for money and he said windows were still wet done all the explaining.

His problem is that he has not even checked the results just did'nt like the fact that he saw me waving the brush at the windows (anyone can do that his wife said) he want's me to do his trad.

Should I turn down £11.50 every 5 weeks or do them trad ?

have asked him to check once dryed if he wasnt happy I said I would do next clean free. will call back in 5 weeks and he will say ok do them or no thank's.

[rosskesava]

People will be as people are. Some will moan. Some won't. Some will cancel. Some will be happy.

With wfp it is not hard to see things from the customers perspective.

It's a different way of cleaning windows. The only choice I make is do we carry on doing their windows with wfp or not.

We've had complaints from customers whose windows were near on perfect. We've also had a lot of complaints that were justified. Some complaints were not about whether the windows were clean or not, regardless of what they said, it was that they didn't like how their windows were cleaned.

[windows_chepstow]

...were not about whether the windows were clean or not, ... the said that they didn't like how their windows were cleaned.

Well then I'd drop them, as I have one (now ex) customer of mine.

Your customers pays for clean windows, which is what we provide.

They don't pay us (or me rather, as Wor Lass rarely climbs a ladder) to see me sweating or risking a fall.

If clean windows and frames aren't enough for them; dump 'em.

One of my customers recently joked that my new system looked 'too lazy'.

You just know that a tiny minority of your more negative-minded customers will get upset that you're earning X-amount of cash in Y-amount of time (Y = a short amount of time); and you're not even risking your kneck to get it.

No wonder some of them get upset.

When I first started window cleaning and 'flyered everywhere', I had a nurse phone me and ask for a quote.  She'd obviously had a drink too.

She was upset that her window cleaner had just put up his prices, again, and told me that it just 'wasn't on'. 

'Come on', she said, 'You guys must be earning a fortune, and there's me getting abuse and violence every weekend in accident and emergency; for a pittance'.

I told her that if she was so unhappy with her 'dangerous' occupation, she should become a window cleaner.