I was doing a regular customer yesterday who i charge £16 for house & conservatory, which is pretty cheap compared to my other work. As i was getting started he came out & asked me to clean the white plastic awning above his bay window which obviously hadn't been done for a few years. I agreed but there was no discussion about cost.
After completing the work & ringing for payment, he comes to the door with £16 pounds in his hand. I say, "that will be £20 pounds today" & he almost falls over with shock! He cant believe that i had the audacity to charge him for the extra work that he asked me to do!
"Your charging me £4 for cleaning that?! Its only took you 2 minutes!"
"Well its the result that your paying for, not the time it takes" I replied.
"I think thats completely unreasonable!" He said.
"You weren't planning on paying me anything at all, how reasonable is that?!" I said.
Needless to say i got my £20, but i've dropped him as a customer.
I never really liked him, always very condescending. If i'd have liked him as a person i wouldn't have charged him for the extra. But the thing that really annoyed me is that he assumed that i wouldn't charge him at all. I'm running a business & that business is cleaning stuff. It took me 2 minutes because i've spent hundreds of pounds on equipment which enables me to do the work that quickly. If he'd tried doing it himself it would have taken 30minutes & he'd have probably fallen off his ladder!
I'm happy to help people out if they need it, doing extra work free of charge or a little food shopping trips for older customers who cant get out of the house etc. But some people feel that they're so entitled that they can extort free labour out of you.
Ok, rant over. have a great weekend everyone