Interested In Advertising? | Contact Us Here
Warning!

 

Welcome to Clean It Up; the UK`s largest cleaning forum with over 34,000 members

 

Please login or register to post and reply to topics.      

 

Forgot your password? Click here

Lost a biggish one but don't mind
« on: August 03, 2009, 08:25:55 am »
Back in the winter I picked up a fair sized domestic job that was meant to be 6 weekly.  It was priced at £63/£48 alternate visits (atrium only to be cleaned every other time).  I did the first clean in January.  Since then, there have been various excuses to put off the next clean (some of them genuine I believe).  Yesterday (Sunday) I had some commercial work in the area so called in there to do the second clean (this was pre-arranged several weeks ago and they were happy about me doing it on a Sunday).  So I got there and there were old water run marks down the edges of the sill and initially they seemed to be saying that WFP caused it on my previous visit.  I pointed out that WFP wouldn't do anything like that that the rain wouldn't do anyway.  Basically, it turned out that they wanted the marks wiped off every clean.  This would require a scratch proof abrasive pad butr, even then, I'm not convinced that the paintwork wouldn't suffer a bit.  Also, this would mean turning a relatively OK WFP job into trad and ladders every time and make it a far more time consuming job (it is georgian style).
I suggested that theyt get someone who uses ladders and left.
I got the distinct feeling that I could do everything perfectly every time and they would still have found fault.
I know there are some on here who say that the customers are always right but if I gave every customer everything they've ever asked me for, I would be bankrupt.
A couple of days before I picked up 3 x £10 jobs all in a row.  Small places.  Fiddly access.  I do their tops with backpack and ground with trad.  I would far rather have 5 of those than the one I threw in.  Not all larger jobs are like that of course but sometimes big does not mean beautiful.

R W C

Re: Lost a biggish one but don't mind
« Reply #1 on: August 03, 2009, 10:45:15 am »
I would of dropped it ages ago, 6 weely 1st clean in January 7 months later and no 2bd clean.

Re: Lost a biggish one but don't mind
« Reply #2 on: August 03, 2009, 11:04:16 am »
I would of dropped it ages ago, 6 weely 1st clean in January 7 months later and no 2bd clean.

So would I normally but first of all he stated he wanted to be home to check possible leakage on a particular window that was troublesome in a storm.  After a while he decided to replace it.  By that time, he was having large scale renovation work done in the garden partly involving slab cutting so no point cleaning due to excess dust.  No problem with suspending service due to garden.  I saw that indeed there was a lot done.  The frame excuse sounded a bit flimsy though because I offered to clean that one trad (even though it was upstairs).
I ended up taking the view that these were people who might end up getting a microscope out after every clean.  It also seemed that they were sometimes looking for reasons not to have the cleaning done.
I cut them a lot of slack but the more I cut them, the more they seemed to want.
I just wish I hadn't been crusty towards them when I finally decided to give up on it.  I wasn't rude in my words but my manner was a bit off.

windowswashed

  • Posts: 2626
Re: Lost a biggish one but don't mind
« Reply #3 on: August 03, 2009, 05:32:06 pm »
Sounds like they just wanted a one off clean. Not worth the hassle. Forget it and move on.

STEVE-UK

  • Posts: 1609
Re: Lost a biggish one but don't mind
« Reply #4 on: August 03, 2009, 05:58:12 pm »
ive just lost 2 prezzo restaurants @ £45 a week  :-\

mark dew

  • Posts: 2901
Re: Lost a biggish one but don't mind
« Reply #5 on: August 03, 2009, 06:01:46 pm »
£10 jobs are the bread and butter work. I have a few nuggets that are bigger and pay more, but the majority of my dumped customers were the £25+ jobs.

RK Cleaning Services

  • Posts: 106
Re: Lost a biggish one but don't mind
« Reply #6 on: August 04, 2009, 10:08:59 pm »
Don't worry about it i've lost a £150 job in the past as they wanted blood.