We're always having rude / overbearing / difficult client but the one today has really got on my goat!
Contract difficult from the beginning (which was only 10 days ago) complained about being called Mrs instead of Miss (sort of understandable but to rant about it for a minute or two is a bit much), told my mum (who has been in this country for 30 years) that she didnt understand a word she was saying, was rude to another colleague of mine. has a very upper class, not wanting to work attitude if you know what i mean. All annoying, but fair enough, we still allocated her to a cleaner and although we got the feeling she might be difficult we gave her a go.
We work as an agency - the client's pay their cleaners. FYI
After first clean - client calls pretty much in tears and near-hysterical that the cleaner has only done 2 rooms in the house in three hours. At first we thought hmm... that isnt great. Client had the cleaner there next to her - insulting her to us while she was right there being extremly rude and downright crazy!
As soon as the cleaner left she called us - she is a quiet cleaner, quite shy and her feedback with other clients has always been 5 star. She said the house had a thick layer of dust like things hadn't been cleaned for years (not months - she said it looked like the dust had been building up for 10 years!) and the place was really cluttered - client gave her no guidelines so she had decided to spring clean a couple of rooms each week to get things up to scratch.
Then the cleaner told us that the client hadnt paid her. for 3 hours work she turned her away after insulting her
Client called us today, again nearly hysterical wanting someone else. After a bit of thought we refused to send her someone (we cant send in workers if we have any suspicion that they will not be paid) but very politely - we explained that the cleaner had worked hard and that she had done a thorough job and she needed paying for the time and the client took it that we were telling her her house is dirty (which it was but we didn't say this - she read between the lines rather well!)
Client is CRAZY. has sent us a long email which she has forwarded to apparently all her friends and family to say how awful we are etc etc.
It has really wound me up - we've done lots of work and put up with her awful attitude. I'm more wound up for the cleaner as well though - not to be paid and to be insulted. I believe that the cleaner did a really good job and although it wasnt what the client was expecting, if no guidelines are given then she cant complain at the cleaner using her own initiative. We are a really flexi agency - we don't enforce hours or quote per room or per house, we leave it up to the client what they want doing. We have probably about 98% of our clients who are happy with this but sometimes i wonder if this is the right way.
I understand that the client didnt get what she wanted. I get that. This is partly her fault for not giving any guidelines, however it was not what she wanted so OK. However I have found her way of dealing with all this utterly dispicable. Her treatment of us from the start, her refusing to pay for work done and then her hysterical borederline manic behaviour is just unacceptable. Poor cleaner - we have been wound up by being in a seperate office and having her down the phone but she must be awful in person.
Anyway. This email doesn't say enough about how rude she is but I wont go back and add the actual comments from the client as a) it would take all day and b) I feel better already just from having written it.
Also - I wrote her a long email saying we dont want any money from her and her cancellation was mutually beneficial. That made me feel better.
GRRRRRRR.
