[steve doyle]

I think this is another p taking punter.

Firstly if she read the terms, all complaints 24hrs etc then thats the end of it 1 month's too late!

If you are going to offer any goodwill do it on the next job, ie 30% discount. The reason for this is you cant afford to loose money on the job by refunds if she wont use you again. this gives you an opportunity to show what a good job your company  can do on the next visit and "put thing right".

One off job or not, thats their problem.

Make it the point that your staff cannot leave without getting the job signed off or start without survey completing. they can blame it on you if they have too (the boss wont let us leave without getting this signed off, If their is a problem you must phone the office). This shouldent be difficult at all and then you can take control of the situation.

Your staff should be armed with the "its company policy" line to use at will, it will help in a multitude of situations, they should stand their ground and so should you.

Your not their to provide a service, your their to earn money, you do this by offering xy and z to people who will pay for it. If they want hj and v then they should look elsewhere. any work is done on your terms, not the customers.

Dont let the bas***ds grind you down.

[Bertie Boo]

With regards to the last post i kind of get the impression that our jobs would be so much easier if only we didnt have customers to deal with.... i mean who'd have 'em, eh?

Point is, no matter how long this customer took to complain, the work was carried out by one of the business partners who agreed to leave without the job being 'signed off' and then when a complaint DID arise the other partner (Lisa) -by her own admission- did not deal with it.

You can see why she wants to offer a refund and let this one go...well, i can.

Stephen

[steve doyle]

Quite true but then we wouldent make any money,

I am simply trying to remind people why we work. I dont do pressure washing because i enjoy it or to provide a service. I do it because I can earn money from people who have things which need cleaning.

The woman at the chippy down the road from me doesnt want to provide a service but people wont push money through her letterbox so she has worked out by peeling some potatos and frying some fish people will give her some money.

The objective of a business is to make money, not to provide a service and people sometimes lose focus of this.

I am not saying you shouldent be polite, conscientious, and all the other thing which make customers want to use your business again, Just to remember the objective of earning money.

It takes effort to get money from people in the first place which is why Personally i would very rarely return money and never more money than i have had to pay out to do the job (unless for damage etc), especially if i would not get any more custom from that person.

I think the circumstances of this complaint are somewhat suspect especially as the customer was present at the end of the clean and therfore I wouldent return the money.

My personal choice would be to offer a goodwill gesture 30% off a future clean, this would give me opportunity to resolve any issues the customer has whilst improving relations increasing the likelyhood of retaining the customer.

Incidently my repeat custom is at a very high rate so i know i offer a quality product, But i would give little credance to a complaint after 1 month!

But its a personal business decision, nothing more or less.

you know what i would do, but thats me........

[Bertie Boo]

Well, we both obviously are of different opinions on this, and both of us neither 'right' nor 'wrong'. Too right we dont work for the love of it, but some people (and i of course include myself in this) am of the opinion that the customer comes first above and beyond all else, but thats just how i see it. I am from the brigade that has the uncrushable belief that -no matter how much we have to run our businesses OUR way- there would be no business at all were it not for customers. No matter how grateful my clients are (and i know for a fact that some would not manage without help, be it from me or someone else), they will never ever be as grateful to me as i am to them for choosing to use MY service over all of the others (and there are many) in the area. Maybe its the fact that our businesses are small that makes us think like this.

Prior to running our own businesses, Lisa and i have very similar backgrounds in customer care, I think its this that makes us the way we are. In this particular case that Lisa has written about it seems very unlikely that the client will ask for more cleaning in the future (and i guess even less likely that Lisa will agree to do it!) so a discount of future work won't help.

There is a part of me that belives 100% refund wont be the be-all and end-all either -but to get shot of this customer once-and-for-all what else can she do? If it we me i'd want to refund it and walk away. End of. But as i said different opinions and no one can ever be right or wrong. 

Stephen

[dhnjj]

I think most would agree that it has to be a balance of both

Yes we are in it for the money but we need to ensure the money keeps coming in.

For me on one off jobs, I get more returning custom than i do new work. This is because they are happy with "the service" they get and they come back. I find that people dont like change so once you provide them with your service, you have the edge and they are more likely to come back to you but only if you made them happy . Even wacking the price up abit next time round will be less important to them.
Customers will push and push to see how much they can get out of you until you make it clear exactly what you are and are not offering. Sometimes these come in the form of complaints but most of the time these are taken as a personal attack when in most cases its just the customer trying to squeeze abit more out, a haggle if you want. I say haggle back, If they want extras then charge them extra until you reach a compromise = happy me, happy customer= possible returning work. ok some people just cant be pleased but they are a minority.

This particular case is difficult because there was no specification established from the start. so the client didnt have anything to go on and can only presume. She has nothing to measure it against. If the staff did do a thorough job and Lisa was to offer a reclean (discounted or not) then surely there wouldnt be as much to do?
The woman was billed and paid but clearly doesnt know what she paid for on the other hand does Lisa know exactly what she was charging for?

Regards

[Mrs Nicholls]

seems i started a debate, very good read actually.

well, i have sent a letter stating what was agreed and what wasnt produced and put no blame on her or us and said basically lack of communication lead to a disappointment in service, as she wouldnt say what was to be done, but surveyed and certain jobs were agreed but obviously not all jobs that she had wanted were communicated, and sent a partial refund and a discount voucher for another visit should she want one.

Sometimes i hate my customer service back ground, customer is always right and all that, its got so ground into me that i do everything i can to assist a customer, potential customer or anyone who has a slight bit of interest to be a customer, and out comes the usual value for money, excellent service and rapid response should their be a complaint or query. Obviously got too bogged down and busy with other potentials that i forgot the last one though !  oops.

Sometimes the background in c/s is good though, rattle off loads of sales stuff and people believe you lol i must be ok.

I've given the lecture to cleaners and biz partner about policy, and surveys before work to commence, all signed off etc, so hopefully everyone is clear before we start, save anymore disappointments.

Thanks for all the input from everyone in the thread.

Lisa x