[james peters]

so ... Am I one of those pita customers?
or have I actually learnt something?

for about 2 years now , I have had a guy coming to strim a bank at he bottom of my garden... £15 every 3 weeks from march till November.
last summer I rearranged my back garden so that I could leave my dogs come in and out of the house whilst I am at work.  so I asked the guy to just text the night before so that I can keep the dogs in, and I will leave the gate unlocked.
he never bothered to text and just kept coming....fortunately it never mattered really, as he would always come just after I got home from work, and or if I wasn't in my partner was.
I just let it go as I really wanted him to continue .
last month I asked him if he could tier the bank in a few sections , to which he said he could, he did say it would be a few grand, and he would visit on the following Tuesday to have a thorough look, and give a proper quote....
he never turned up.
then last week he turned up to strim the bank, and I turned him away, as I had decided to get a different quote , as I felt he was not reliable enough to use on the larger job of tiering the bank.

anyways we have now decided to put the tiering off till next year as we have just had an orangery, and put down a patio etc, and we cant be bothered to have another mess going on .

I was half tempted to call him and ask him to carry on strimming every three weeks until next year. but I have decided that on the basis he did not text the night before, or turn up at the agreed time and date to quote for tiering the bank, ... I am going to use some one else .
I suppose I am now seeing things from the other side of the fense

[Smudger]

Good post,

a nice reminder that we ourselves are just a service industry that totally rely on our customers

Darran

[dazmond]

i wouldnt say your a pita customer.......its his own fault for not contacting you the night before......

ALSO if you arrange a day to call round YOU STICK TO IT.......you DONT just let the customer down....if you cant make it for whatever reason then you let the customer know....

some gardeners are well known for being unreliable as ive heard the same stories many times from some of my window cleaning customers....

[nathankaye]

As much as you can get pita customers, you can get damn right rude and arrogant workers/sole traders etc.
In your case, you got the latter. It sounds like he has no respect for you and you did right sacking him. He did not respond to your message and ignored you on both accounts but still wanted his work...... Doesn't work like that.

We have our moans at customers on here and sometimes ones (myself included)  take things personally or think we can just dump customers without giving them the benefit of the doubt etc and then at the same time we can quickly change our schedule to suit our self's and expect customers to be OK with us 😂😂
It's a funny old world

[RPCCS]

i wouldnt say your a pita customer.......its his own fault for not contacting you the night before......

ALSO if you arrange a day to call round YOU STICK TO IT.......you DONT just let the customer down....if you cant make it for whatever reason then you let the customer know....

some gardeners are well known for being unreliable as ive heard the same stories many times from some of my window cleaning customers....

Totally agree with you, and as for the gardeners, I have had that too from my customers. One of them needed a gardener,I called a mate who has a gardening business, he couldn't take the jobs was too busy, so said he would get someone he knew, who was looking for work to ring  me. I passed his number on to my customer, saying I didn't't know him but he was recommended by a friend.He went round looked at the job, agreed a frequency and price, and said he would come on x day at x time, then didn't turn up. My customer took extra time off work to be there when he arrived too.
  a few months later she asked again about a gardener, I knew a chap round the corner went to another customer local to me, asked her if he was ok, she said yes, reliable, and trustworthy, went to see him and asked if he was interested in the work, and passed on the phone number.
Guess what? Exactly the same thing happened again!!It costs coppers to pick up the phone and say, sorry can't make it, or I have decided against taking on the job.If I decide to stop doing someone's windows, I write to them, or tell them in person, and state reason why, unless they are bad payers, or we fall out.

[james peters]

I think the main reason I started this thread is because it shows that we have to adapt sometimes to peoples changing circumstances.
I was very pleased with the price and job, all I asked was for a text the evening before so I could unlock the gate and keep the dogs in whilst I am in work.
it is something I have to do more these days as more and more customers are locking gates.
back in 1992 when I started , I never had to do this ... mind you , we didn't have mobile phones back then..
in fact , its only been the past maybe 10 years that this has been something I need to do ....
I now notify about 30 % of customers the evening before .
when taking on a new custie, I now ask if they would like to be notified the night before I call, I would say that 50% of new ones want this