[harleyman]

I have had this customer for a couple  of years then all  of a sudden boom  never unlocking  gate when text can you leave Windows this time.so I explained I don't do it and miss cleanes. So  the next time I turn up gate locked😈 so I knocked  no answer so left.only to get a text....is there a problem you did not do ours.. there was no  answers when I called  next day  Can you remove us  from your round.. already done came the reply... cheeky  get said when we're you going to inform us .. the cheek felt like saying  what's it like being fecked about???

[Stoots]

I have had this customer for a couple  of years then all  of a sudden boom  never unlocking  gate when text can you leave Windows this time.so I explained I don't do it and miss cleanes. So  the next time I turn up gate locked😈 so I knocked  no answer so left.only to get a text....is there a problem you did not do ours.. there was no  answers when I called  next day  Can you remove us  from your round.. already done came the reply... cheeky  get said when we're you going to inform us .. the cheek felt like saying  what's it like being fecked about???

I dropped a bad customer over lockdown. Had a habit of skipping cleans, turned up to locked gates, dog poop garden and a slow payer. Then in April she said can you miss the next 3 months due to covid so I ignored her messaged and never went back.

Anyway last month she starts messaging me asking when I'm returning, she sent me 3 or 4 messages, she must have got wound up as then she decided to slander me on Facebook saying what a bad cleaner I was 😅.  So I eventually replied to her and let he have it, told her all the reasons why I decided to drop her.

Some of them are just oblivious to the fact they are awkward customers. Have to sen them 3 or 4 payment reminders every month and that's ok.

At the minute I'm on a mad push for work, I'm dumping as I go and sending out debt letters willy nilly.

[Pete Thompson]

I take a zero tolerance approach lately, so at the slightest sign of trouble, a customer enters the dropzone.

Had a man recently who I had been doing for just over a year. He’d never seen wfp so I spent time patiently explaining it the first time, and he soon understood it, watched me do it, and was impressed how clean the windows and frames where after. All good.

It is a really easy detached house - monthly clean, upvc windows, tons of easy parking, waist-high back gate, nice area, well priced, paid promptly every time. The only negative was that he was usually in, which isn’t my preference as small talk takes time, but aside that, all good.

Then weirdly he came out as I pulled up one time and said “I’m just not sure this method is very good for cleaning the windows. I did them myself after you left last time.”

I almost laughed at that, as he’s over 70 and, shall we say, portly. I asked him what he meant (already thinking “bye bye”), and he gave a really vague explanation about not being sure about it, but he’ll still keep on with it for now. But to leave them for this time..

Alarm bells. I realised there was more going on, probably he’d had a cheaper quote from another cleaner or something. I politely said “ok fine, we can leave it.” And dropped him.

7 months later I get a text from him asking when we’re coming next! Obviously the new fella wasn’t very reliable I’m thinking. So I replied saying I now have a waiting list of approx 2 years, I’ll contact him when a slot becomes free.

Unfortunately, once a customer becomes a messer, there’s usually no going back. I’ve seen it so many times.

There are plenty of good customers out there who appreciate and value good service. When it comes to messers, drop and move on.

[lee_dewing]

Harleyman,
Whatever you did,  would have ended up where you’re now.

The only thing you could of done is put her on standing order.
She would have refused that 😁 but this put’s a messer in the corner.
They sack themselves or by slim chance if excepted problem solved. Customers don’t like being sacked by the window cleaner “how dare they 🧐!”

Forgot to unlock
Tough front only full price, it will take slightly
Longer next clean doing the back.

Not the attitude for a good customer but
Some people mistake kindness for weakness

So they get the stick minus the carrot 🥕

I hate standing orders I have about 5 customers on this and always have to make sure they get done.

With the wet August we’ve had I’m just over a week behind

I do work in drizzle 🌧 but it’s been sloshing down 🙇🏻‍♂️

I’ve now signed up for go cardless waiting to assign to some late payers
There customers I’ve done for 5+ years
Always pay but now they use online payment fine!

But when you use to catch them in they’d pay cash or write a cheque

Now if in its “I’ll pay you online later”
And they don’t 🙇🏻‍♂️
So text reminders or an invoice next time 🤦‍♂️

And I do put a bill reminder through their door even if they’re in when cleaned.

[CleanClear]

. cheeky  get said when we're you going to inform us ..

Should of said... as soon as you told me you where not unlocking the gate 

[NBwcs]

I have a theory that theres a dickhead lurking within  everyone, even people we've been cleaning for years and get on with, it just takes  meeting them at the wrong time to trigger and release the dickhead within. I've recently dumped a customer I've been cleaning for 15 yrs and never had a problem with. I turned up on a day when the oh so reliable weather forecast said it might rain later which proved to be the trigger she needed. She actually stood there just 5 metres from me with the sun shining casting a shadow on the bone dry ground  telling me it was raining. I asked her tongue in cheek if it was raining where she was stood as it wasn't where I was, which didn't help, she then escalated things and claimed I always cleaned hers in the rain which was just a blatant lie. It ended up with her telling me not to  clean and me requesting she found another window cleaner, at which she lost the plot, ranting and raving like a looney at me whilst I cleaned one her neighbours.  I've given up trying to judge people s characters, there's a surprise round every corner, thankfully it works the opposite way too, some of the customers I've taken on over the years who I've had down as potentially problematic have turned out to be quite lovely.

[Richard iSparkle]

it's frustrating i know, but sometimes peoples circumstances change. sometimes people are going through tough times. you just don't know what it happening in peoples lives.

i remember right near the start we had an amazing customer. retired husband and wife. absolutely loved us and sang our praises. then we called one day to ask them to switch to DD, as they had agreed previously, and the wife went nuts, got really rude and cancelled us.

we canvassed the area a year later and they came out and asked our canvasser if we'd have the them back. of course we did. turns out on the day we called her husband had just had a terminal cancer diagnosis. she explained when we went to clean and apologised for how she was on the phone that time.

another guy we called up on the day of his wife's funeral. obviously we didn't know when we called. you just dont know whats happening in peoples lives.

try not to take it personally and think it has anything to do with you and your work.

i know it is hard sometimes because it feels personal, but it rarely is. especially when they've been a good customer for some time

[markymark]

For the last few years I've been seeing all customers as an amount of money on my books first, and a person second.
Depending on their mood, circumstances, nature, lack of manners, whether mercury is in retrograde or whatever even reliable customers can flip to being wastes of time and/or oxygen. First strike puts them on the trapdoor, second strike and they're gone without any warning. I think that spending time trying to mollycoddle and meet the often unmeetable expectations of awkward or cranky customers costs too much money, time and stress.
And as for the "it looks like rain, leave then this time" brigade....