[frames to panes]

With this job friendships are struck with a lot of customers i find. Do you think the saying "no such thing as friends in business" is true? Can you seperate the two easily?

[Jeff Brimble]

I grew old with established 30 years service to  well to do customers that celebrated their golden wedding, then I got dropped. Difficult to explain the feeling.

[SPEEDLINER]

Friends and business does not work in my opinion. 

[nat]

Friends and business does not work in my opinion. 

I'll second that!! its hard to have a professional relationship with someone you know on a personal level

[L.J.Thorpe]

i used to do the windows for a couple who i have known for over 10yrs,our daughters were at playschool/school together,my wife and her have been on hen nights together,me and him used to train at same gym,many mutual friends,including my bro who was mates with him from school.At xmas i turn up and get a "not today mate" thru the bleeding gate intercom!!!!!!! this was the third time she had done it (first time thru an intercom at least it was face to face before they got huge gates :)anyway i aint been back and i am more than ready with a reply if they ring to ask whats going on
IF they were just regular custs i would have warned on first "no thanks" and dropped on second
cos they were "friends" i let it go........no more

[Bazzy1999]

My answer is.. yes there is and no there isn’t..
I have a mate called Marcus and he will do anything to help me, work wise and he don’t want any money for it coz he is a mate and I do the same for him.
Then I have a brother-in-law who is all buddy with me when he wants help with something, work wise or not.
To cut a long story short (ish)… my brother-in-laws father died not so long ago and I helped him clear his dads house out and helped him out on some of his jobs to keep him on top of it all…
To cut a long story short (er)… I used to work at Harrods in London Painting and Decorating many moons ago and done loads of other jobs since and now landed on my feet W/C for the last 4 years but still kept up with the Paint/Decorating on wet days.
For the last 4 years ive been doing favours for this old girl a few doors away from the brother-in-law, painting wise and fixing her hoover.. You know the odds bits of work and not charging much and she asked me the other day can I paint the whole place again to freshen it up and she said its no rush and I can do it when ever its wet and throughout the year as she is in no rush… Then my wife gets a call from her to say don’t bother as she has someone else to do it and is recommended by my brother-in-law!!!!! Who does her lawns..
What peed me off is the brother-in-law has not used him yet so how can he recommend him? And all this came after the brother-in-law got around £85,000 inheritance and not spoken to me since…
 

Bazz…

[Paul Coleman]

With this job friendships are struck with a lot of customers i find. Do you think the saying "no such thing as friends in business" is true? Can you seperate the two easily?

I found that if I got too friendly with some customers, they started taking advantage - particularly with the "not today" syndrome.  So I don't do it now.  Best to keep them separate I find.  Used to have a similar problem when I cleaned neighbours' windows many moons ago.  Don't do them now either.

[Londoner]

No, but you must be friendly towards your customers which is a bit hypocritical really.
Laugh at their jokes, admire their new car, take an interest in hearing about their holiday etc.

[Paul Coleman]

No, but you must be friendly towards your customers which is a bit hypocritical really.
Laugh at their jokes, admire their new car, take an interest in hearing about their holiday etc.

Maybe, but there is a boundary line that I no longer wish to cross.  As for their new car, unless there's something unusual about it, I wouldn't even notice (now you know why I'm single       ) .  Apart from a very few customers, I do try to keep the conversation fairly minimal.  I tend not to ask about their holidays either.
I once had a customer that wanted to dump all her problems onto me.  Eventually, I got a business card from a counselling service and gave it to her.  That could have been taken several ways but I had plenty of stress of my own at the time and wasn't able to be burdened by someone else's.

[frames to panes]

It's something i find difficult at times, i have several genuinely lovely people for customers who want to chat and tell me that they really appreciate my work. Several old people too who unload their worries on to me it's all part of the job and it's a part i really enjoy. The problem is of course that through the day they are going to lose me the best part of £20 when i'm busy. Maybe that's the wrong way to look at it, maybe i should ignore the money side a bit and enjoy the day?

[nat]

It's something i find difficult at times, i have several genuinely lovely people for customers who want to chat and tell me that they really appreciate my work. Several old people too who unload their worries on to me it's all part of the job and it's a part i really enjoy. The problem is of course that through the day they are going to lose me the best part of £20 when i'm busy. Maybe that's the wrong way to look at it, maybe i should ignore the money side a bit and enjoy the day?

i hate customers that hold me up and want to know my life story. I prefer the ones we never see. We clean, We charge, We get paid!!

the ones you get more friendly with are the ones that tend to shock you by dropping you for no apparent reason... there are no friends in business just clients and aquantences

[nat]

It's something i find difficult at times, i have several genuinely lovely people for customers who want to chat and tell me that they really appreciate my work. Several old people too who unload their worries on to me it's all part of the job and it's a part i really enjoy. The problem is of course that through the day they are going to lose me the best part of £20 when i'm busy. Maybe that's the wrong way to look at it, maybe i should ignore the money side a bit and enjoy the day?

i hate customers that hold me up and want to know my life story. I prefer the ones we never see. We clean, We charge, We get paid!!

the ones you get more friendly with are the ones that tend to shock you by dropping you for no apparent reason... there are no friends in business just clients and aquantences.

Commercial on the other hand is a little different

[geefree]

My customers are my very special , best friends and without them i would have nothing.


Gary.

[dai]

I think some of my customers regard me as their social worker, but I'm just as bad when it comes to chatting. What the hell, life's too short, I know time is money, but money isn't everything. some of my housebound customers hardly see a soul all day, they actually need someone to talk to. Dai

[simon knight]

I'm perfectly happy with the chit-chat as long as a brew comes with it.

Mind you if I'm running late I try and keep it sub 10 minutes...some of my older custys can keep up the natter for hours on end if I let them....bless

[m b shaw]

i ve always found it better to form a sort of friendship with clients,it s surprising what hassle it saves you.when i first started i took customer service very seriously and now i think i m getting the rewards. for e.g while i m working or getting paid i will ask things like hows th e world treating you,booked a hol yet,hows your mum these days and this is not only house customers but hotel managers,school headmasters the lot. now the thing is i really don t give a chuff how things are but people like things like this and they start to trust you,so it allows me to do my job without being checked up on.it s got to be the way to do ,just look at the millions tesco etc spend on training staff about customer care.also w/cs who just barely grunt at people give us all a bad impression.   cheers mick