[mgba_78]

I love it when the post comes and you see envelopes with your handwriting on, knowing that there are cheques inside, ££££££££££££!!!

Anyway today I opened said envelopes and the last one also had a note in it, it went something like this,

Dear Andy

Blah blah, blah blah blah blah, i'm greater than youaw!!
I thought the window clean included the upvc frames to be cleaned as well, obviously this is an oversight on your part.
Blah blah blah blah.

Mrs moany beatch

Any way this woman has been a handful since the first clean saying, "lets see how you get on and i'll decide if you can carry on cleaning or not" well i have done her for the past 4 months so thought she was happy.
I always pay particular attention when i do hers as  i could see something like this happening.
I decided to go round and do the good customer service part and see what the actual problem was.
Well when i arrived i spoke to Mr as Mrs was at work, i asked what exactly was the issue and he said the frames hadnt been done, so i explained that they get done EVERY time and i can honestly say 100% that i did do them.
He couldnt show me a particular part which wasnt done so then decided to phone the Mrs.
I went to the van and got a cloth.
Whilst on the phone she was obviously saying that the sill on one of the front bottom windows was not done, I see that Mr was touching the sill so i wiped over with cloth and he said "it is clean its paint from where i painted the house"
then he started touching the top edge of the frame and said "it is clean", "what do you think we should do?"
By this time i thought it was a wind up ready to deck the so and so for wasting my time.
He got off the phone and made some sorry excuse that it just wasnt to their expectations, maybe they are being to picky!!!!
No poo sherlock!! i re-cleaned the entire frame and it looked like it did before, he made more excuses and said thanks and went inside.

I think i caught him off guard as i bet they didnt think i would turn up, just take the criticism  and bow down to their superiority!!

The thing is the Mrs judges the job by the time it takes t do it, 1st clean took well over an hour she was sort of ok with this, now i can knock it out in 30 ish minutes i think she thinks it isnt value anymore as the cost is stil the same, £15.

I would dump her (picked up £14 job today) but the street she lives in I do 8 others all at the same price or more and its easy money as they are close to each other and can knock them out in half a day with a good hourly and day rate.


Just pees me off when there was nothing wrong, fair enough if i had done a crud job but on this occasion as every occasion i do a top job every time!!!

Anyone else have this happen??

Andy

[Clear Vision]

Read your post with interest!

Something simmilar has happened to me but its too late at night to be going into detail.

If I was you and there not too friendly with the rest of your customers on the street I would drop her In a second! If the rest of your customers ask why you stopped tell them they were chancers and kept making excusses up all the time about he quality of your work.

They will be then worried about what you are saying to the rest of them and they will feel embarassed, If that makes any sense. Put them In a akward position!

Don't take any sh*t.

You still have 8 down that street!

Matthew
Clear Vision

[steveaqua]

When i was new to the game and didn't have much experience with wfp i had a complaint. guy ranting and raving over the phone that he was gonna go to office of fair trading, trading standards, watch dog the lot! he complained after first clean. I then went back next day to rectify the so called poor job. the only thing i could see wrong was one run where his rubber had perished from the frame and dirty water ran out the frame. i recleaned them, he then pointed to an upstairs window saying it was filthy, i looked up and said was this the problem? he said yes i said its not a window cleaner you need it someone to replace the seal on your double glazing it has blown. He wouldn't have it and we parted company.

The amount of customers that arn't in when i call never see us clean their windows, then when they have been in on occassion soon as they see how long it takes you to clean thier windows normally say "blimey that was quick, how much do you earn?" I normally say "you won't believe the overheads, system parts and filters, times have changed in window cleaning" 

[C Senor]

DROP THEM !!

These people sound like the 'super' petty people. I've experienced them as well in an old job, but not through window cleaning yet. (thank god)

These guys won't get any easier to deal with, they'll just get worse. Sometimes you come accross these people and it will only lead to stress on your part and nine times out of ten it will be (as it was) for no good reason.

Some people will complain at absolutely anything and as you said, i also think its some kind of superiority complex. You'll end up pulling your hair out with these guys, i guarantee it - in my experience its just not worth the stress they give you.

I would very politely, drop 'em like a dead donkey.

Carl   

[geefree]

i would not have done it politely

[supernova77]

Just don't show up again... Then if they call you or spot you when you're doing another house in the street just calmly tell them why you dropped them.

Andy

[mgba_78]

Some people will complain at absolutely anything and as you said, i also think its some kind of superiority complex. You'll end up pulling your hair out with these guys, i guarantee it - in my experience its just not worth the stress they give you.

 C Senior 

I have been thinking about this this morning and think that i'm an easy going guy and stuff like this doesnt stress me, just pees me off. One more piece of cr*p from them and i will shoot them
As im still new at this i need the money so at the moment i will put up with it.

If i have got another 20 customers before i go back to them next month i will shoot them, the challange has been set!!!!!!!

Andy 

[Sarah Sarill]

Andy,

Before we went wfp we had the welsh equivelent to Mrs Bucket.   Ironically she lived in a very very nice NEW housing estate in house number 10 !!!

For over a year my DH was watched whilst cleaning every window and forced to put mats under his ladders to protect the grass.  She would inspect every window,cill and ladder point for damage, anyway..............

One day we had a similar letter saying that my DH had not put one of her plant containers back in the ciorrect spot (it was, and she measured it, 2" off point).

She had enclosed her cheque.  I wrote a very NICE letter back, returning her cheque saying that we have high standards and that we would not  accept payment for work any of our customers were not satisfied with and that because we could not live up to her exceptionally high standards we would not be cleaning her property in the future.

Upon receipt, she rang me ranting that we would not clean her windows.  I nicely explained that we would not change our minds.  She threatened to tell all her neighbours and slammed down the phone.  The next clean day the whole street told my DH that she had tried to get themall to cancel and that they would not as they could not bear her Mrs Bucket manner either - LOL

Morel - dont keep cr*p customers - there are plenty more out there and who needs the hassle anyway.

Drop  her in a professional manner though Andy - dont lower your standards and do it up front and not underhandedly.

Kind Regards,

Sarah

[Ian_Giles]

I totally agree with Sarah,....mostly!
I simply would not go back, and then when they do ask why you haven't been back to clean their windows you can politely tell them that as you cannot meet their exacting standards you will not be cleaning their windows again.

DON'T TRY AND DEFEND YOURSELF!!

Absolute waste of time, smile sweetly and move on, never give them ammo to argue and get on their high horse.
If they moan at you say absolutely nothing, don't nod, don't make a sound, leave a pause of a few seconds after they stop talking, thank them for their past custom, wish them luck with finding a new window cleaner and either hang up the phone or turn and walk away.
you may want to argue and defend your integrity, but you will be wasting your breath.
their is nothing more annoying or frustrating than looking for an argument and not having the other person argue with you.

And it takes skill to do too.
Passive-agressive...ask ghandie 

Be professional, being argumentative or verbally agressive will lose you more work, there is a guy in our area, he's an ok guy and a good window cleaner, but he has a bad rep cos he agues with his customers, and he has lost work as a result...and the stupid thing is, he doesn't even realise it...

doesn't matter how lucrative the account is, it's only 15 quid, every week that goes by you will pick up more than that.

and there is a certain satisfaction when they ask you to go back and you smile at them and say sorry, no thanks.
Make sure you warn any other window cleaners you talk to about them too

Halloeen is fast aproaching, and I really would not recommend paying some lad a couple of quid to go out and 'egg' their windows
I just have to say that cos it would be sooo unprofessional...wouldn't it

Ian

[mgba_78]

Halloween is fast aproaching, and I really would not recommend paying some lad a couple of quid to go out and 'egg' their windows
I just have to say that cos it would be sooo unprofessional...wouldn't it

Ian

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!!!

[MNWC]

Similar thing happened to me.

I clean the local fitness centre £25.00

one particular clean the so called business manager was there.
Any way to cut a long story short she rang me up later that evening saying she wasnt that happy with my work.

She said that it only took 6mins 30 secs to do the whole clean i was recordrd on cctv.

To which i replied thanks very much  whats the problem.
she obviosly didnt like the fact that i was earning about 4 times as much as her.

she was really snotty on the phone and said she was going to get some more quotes in

This made me think........
The next day i went back and told her that i wasnt going to clean them anymore

Stuck up cow.

[Paul Coleman]

Similar thing happened to me.

I clean the local fitness centre £25.00

one particular clean the so called business manager was there.
Any way to cut a long story short she rang me up later that evening saying she wasnt that happy with my work.

She said that it only took 6mins 30 secs to do the whole clean i was recordrd on cctv.

To which i replied thanks very much  whats the problem.
she obviosly didnt like the fact that i was earning about 4 times as much as her.

she was really snotty on the phone and said she was going to get some more quotes in

This made me think........
The next day i went back and told her that i wasnt going to clean them anymore

Stuck up cow.

Ihad a job once out in the sticks.  It was a village hall/bar that was also used as a cricket pavilion.  This meant that durinmg the cricket season, there was netting left in place to protect the windows.  The netting was awkward to work around and the job took longer as a result.  The deal I struck from the beginning was £6.50 if no netting and £8.50 if there was netting.  Anyway, some snotty nosed, jumped up secretary phoned me one morning to have a go at me about what she thought was a sudden price increase.  She had even calculated the exact percentage increase.  She had clearly made her mind up before the call that I was some ripoff merchant who was trying to cheat.  I did try to explain the deal to her but she was too embarassed by then to admit she was wrong.  It ended by me saying that I would expect the invoice to be paid in full and that I wished to conclude the arrangement.  I got the money and ended the job.
I guess we both learned a lesson from that.