Had a really rude person today while canvassing.
I was giving a guy a quote for front & back, he seemed pleasant then out of nowhere his gf/wife came to the door, she was polish, she just interrupted and starting saying to him “what?” In a rude manner he replied to her saying “it’s about window cleaning” she turned to me and said in an aggressive manner “how much?” I told her £15 (which is cheap as they had small conservatory) she just shook her head and said I had it done before for £5, I laughed and said no chance, she got all defensive and started saying that was for front I said well front would be £6, she then went quiet the husband then carried on talking to me while she gave a constant death stare, I seen her doing it and she didn’t stop, he said he would have a think then get back to me I said thanks and she gave me deep evil stare and slammed door in my face, nastiest evil bitch I’ve seen in a while.
I don’t think they will call and to be honest I don’t want them to, he seemed ok but noway I would want to deal with her.
I notice these rude people really get under my skin, how can I deal with this better?
It did annoy me a lot.
I'm going with Nathan and a couple of other posters on this one. Even if they come out with the most ridiculous statement and your first reaction is to gasp at the stupidity of it, you have to keep your composure and treat the statement as a perfectly viable one. Even if its not and he/she is lying.
You just have to say that you are very sorry but you can't do the job for £5. You have to show you are apologetic, thank them for asking for a price and bid them a good day. The way I look at it is that if it was the Queen of England you were talking, how would you have responded? I'm sure Ma'am would have come into the answer and a bow would also.
Its all part of gaining experience which takes time. This experience will be in your memory bank and hopefully will help you to find a different approach if you encounter a similar situation again.
This lady had issues at that particular time. She may be a very nice person but you caught her at the wrong time. There has been a bit in the paper ( about Ulrika Jonsson ) recently how some women can become a totally different person when the menopause starts. Maybe this woman is a husband abuser, a control freek, who knows. As Tony says, would you want her as a customer even if she accepted your quote?
I always think you have to be like an undertaker when canvassing and show very little emotion but plenty of empathy. We heard that one of the lads at one of the local undertakers was fired for bringing the company into disrepute. A member of the public saw him laughing in a hearse that was carrying a coffin to a funeral.
Don't take it personally, wipe the dust off your feet and move on.
We live in the North East and there are areas locally where £5 for a 3 bed semi is still the perceived price for a window clean (£2.50 fronts and £2.50 backs). But the customer won't tell you that that's every 2 weeks. If you are cleaning every 8 weeks, your clean at £15 is already saving them money on their window cleaning bill. A shiner off ladders will do 3 x £5 houses an hour and that's good money when compared to earning the minimum wage. It costs me around £4 to park my van outside each of my customers in running costs with wfp. That's before I pay myself a wage. So I now stay away from those areas.
BTW, I've not altogether mastered talking to customers with respect as I have a smart mouth which has often run off into the distance before my brain realised where it had gone. I found that saying "I would love to be able to clean your windows for £5 but the price of diesel isn't 25p a liter anymore" doesn't win them over.
