Now my motto with all my customers is 3 strikes and your out! or Binned what ever you Prefer.
I have never in all my 10 years as a W/C given a potential new customer her first strike at our first meeting, but this woman has taken the biscuit.
She phoned me last week asking me to price her home and the holiday let on her grounds.
I go around to meet her, and I walk around the house (Nice big one) we get around the back and she begins to tell me where to walk on the conservatory roof to gain access to the windows above,
WO! WO! LadyI said, I don't walk on roofs anymore, I use a system called wfp, Well she said my last w/c used to do it all the time?? Where is he now I say, in hospital or the cemetery?
or is it he just stopped calling because of the danger involved?
Anyway, I continue to price the property and gave her the price, (I thought she was going to have a stroke
)
But my old w/c only charged 70p per window? This is one of the reasons I suspect he's not returned, I said, That's my price and I'm sticking to it.
She then hit me with you have priced for all the windows and I only want upstairs and the conervatory doing :
ok I thought I don't normally do upstairs only, but this being a big place I thought twice about it,
I repriced and told her £40 take it or leave it, because by this time I was getting a little
fed up with her(very polite term)
She told me she has another 2 W/C turning up the same day to price for the Job, YES! I thought I won't get this one
You guessed it, I got the bl**dy thing :
Now I drove away and thought to myself first strike lady? she was just an arrogant type of person and not one I would normally take on, but it is so close to a lot more I do, its a good price and there are some very big houses down this country lane that I want.
Turned up today to do my first clean and out comes mrs arrogant the first words out of her mouth was, 'Its going to rain' can you leave them? I could have stabbed her in the eye's with my key's, I just replied good morning to you too! if it rains I will give you my 24hr guarantee, I did make an appointment with you and explaned over the phone about the rain and how wfp works.
'O' ok then, but I will be checking them and the sills
Like I have said on a previous post, I always do a risk assessment every time I go to a Job, I did this when I priced it up and again today when I turned up, and by one of the photographs you will see why I do it, Straight away I refused to do the windows above the conservatory and you can see why, but for the life of me, this woman couldn't see why I wouldn't do them :
it wasn't there on my first visit, this went up over the weekend.
I was on the last window and out she came, :
how much more have you got left to do?? 'Last window' I replied, 'What' it took my last w/c 2 hours to do it all and you haven't even polished them
instead of getting into a conflict and beating her around the head with my pole, I walked to my car and got an explanation letter out, go and spend 5 minutes reading this I said, it will tell you everything about wfp, Just like I explained to you over the phone.
Now I'm normally a placid and easy going guy, I am always very polite to my customers,I take the micky out of some of the customers I know who will give it back, but for some unknown reason, I find myself unable to be polite to her and seem to be giving back what I am receiving from her.
I get on with 99.9% of my customers but this woman, has the lid off the bin and she has now put her first leg into it, one more leg to go and on goes the lid.
Any bets on how long I'll keep her?
?
Just look at the conservatory roof where here previous w/c used to walk and take another look at the electrical extension lead hanging by the guttering.