How do you deal with bad customers ?

Goon one T. I bet when you first started cleaning you cleaned a few shadows 

You never would have fixed it with out the opportunity to come back. Great investigation work Terry. Funny stuff.

I still try and clean a few shadows every now and then

ODIN wrote:I still try and clean a few shadows every now and then

Just did that 2 nights ago. I was getting tired and became puzzled by a dark cirlce. After a few attempts to remove it, I realized it was a shadow being cast by brother standing by the flood lamps.   

We have found over the years that dealing with difficult customers is definitely a learned skill and where they come in all different forms, shapes and sizes, we have learned how to deal with most of these situations through trial and error and then come up with a process on how do deal with ‘that’ type of customer.

We have also always used the motto of 'under promise and over deliver', because once you put some doubt of removing a stain or deep soiled area into their thought process, unconsciously they will now be thinking it probably will not come out, and 8X out of 10, we can remove it and now instead of them ‘expecting’ it to come out, they are even more happy and thrilled we were able to remove it (psychology at it’s best!).

We also do a ‘pre’ and ‘post’ walk-through as part of our standard ‘7-Step’ protocol in every cleaning job we do. This way we have an opportunity to identify and confirm each area/room they stated they wanted to clean over the phone, as well as settle any ‘discrepancies’ that were NOT stated over the phones (such as pet stain/odor issues they failed to mention, or specialty stains that most General Cleanings will not remove). As we validate/confirm each room/area, if we see something like that possible coffee stain mentioned, we will let them know the possibility of it removing or not, or if it will cost additional $ being a Specialty Stain. We have a special coffee/water stain solution that easily removes those type of stains, but we do charge an additional $25-$100 to remove them and most folks have no problem paying it if they want the stain(s) removed….but
Again, this is all done up front, before we drag in our equipment and get started. This way we avoid any potential issues at the end of the cleanings when doing our ‘post’ walk-through. Now, if by chance they ‘decline’ the stain removal due to additional costs they do not want to pay, then we make them sign our ‘Decline of Specialty Stain removal’ form we have, this way they can not come back to us with any mis-communications or ‘he said, she said’ discrepancies of what they ‘thought’ they heard. Face it, most of our customers are pretty decent, but there are definitely a lot of ‘scamming’ customers out there that try to lie and deceive us…but we are all over that!

Someone else mentioned a ‘test’ clean of a small area, which is also a great idea and something we do here as well. It is usually a situation when they have a deep soiled room (such as a cut-through path of dining to kitchen area or in front of a couch, etc.).
We have a $50 charge for these tough areas because we use another attachment to the machine as well as some heavy degreasers not used in the GC process.
However when we go through the effort of this, we always will try to do somewhere in the middle of the room and work hard to make it look like a difference of night and day, because now that you have cleaned an ‘obvious’ area in the middle of the room, they now do not want to leave the room looking like that and usually they will agree to go ahead and agree to the additional $ to do the entire room (which is what we set out to accomplish!!).

Another technique I have taught all my technicians to utilize is what I call ‘Kill’m with kindness’. I keep reminding them that we have nothing ‘personal’ with these customers and we are simply there because they called us to go there and do a job and sometimes their days are going bad due to their own issues or prev fight with a spouse etc., but no matter how they are reacting, talking or responding to what you are saying, still be kind to them and eventually, at some point during the cleaning, they will turn around. Many of these situations I have heard that by the end of the cleanings, and see our results or little extras we have done for them, they have actually apologized to the technician for initially being rude or short with them…it really does work! The last thing you ever want to do is ‘feed their fuel’ …things will only go down hill from there most of the time.

I sure am leaving a lot of money on the table because I don't charge extra for spot treatment or traffic areas. I do for red stains, and pet stains and pet decontamination treatment.

Great post Dry Tech and welcome to the forum.

Thank you Mo, great to be a part of this! What you mentioned is pretty much the 'norm' for additional charges, but we do carry aprox 10-12 'specialty' stain removal solutions that are used and/or charged for only when the GC will not remove it...(ie. blood, rust, water, pet, throw-up, red-dye, furniture dye, ink, wax, paint, fingernail polish, etc., etc). We love it when a customer says "don't' worry about 'this' stain, been there for years and nobody has been able to remove it", 9X out of 10, we end up removing and becoming their heroes!

So I was blamed for letting the cat out because of the vacuum hose. I told them it would be open. Anyways, as I was getting out the spots, she came up as I was done with the ink and said I don't care about the stains now, I can't find my cat. So never saw the cat, but I sure git blamed for the mystery cat.

My question, what would you do at the end of this job? Your blamed for letting the cat out, and she's looking for the cat, time to go. She makes this statement, "we you got the stains out, but at the expense of my cat".

Where do you proceed from here?

Same thing happened to me a while back Ryan. I let her know the door would be opened she said not worry he doesn't get out and it ran away. I helped her look for the dog for a while and I felt bad for her but she didn't blame me.

Your customer is just angry at her self. Give her a couple of days to cool off and give her a call to see if the cat turned up. I did that and somebody and found her dog miles away.

I couldn't apologize enough and she never accepted. Really made me mad. So I told her when you find the cat please call and pay for the services we did for you today. It was a lose lose

Not much you can do about that one. Can you imagine how pissed she would have been if you didn't remove the ink spot? 

Yeah. As I walked out the house, I had to smile, cause deep inside I was like, yeah now I got some more awesome before and after pictures. Sucker! Can't wait to put it in The Cleaners Lounge, this should help some new guy out big time. I had a great day. This lady on the other hand most likely beat her husband when he got Home today. Lol

Well you told her already about the door, it's not your fault period !
I would still charge her for the work because the chance for her to actually call you and pay would be pretty slim, I've scratched my customer's bamboo floor a couple of years ago and she said that she will pay me the difference of the cost to repair the floor and the cleaning cost, guess what, she never called, I called her a couple of times, never called me back.
I wish everyone would put themselves in our shoes when we have issues like these.

Deep inside Dp I think the whole thing was planned with perfection. To me $125 is not worth the potential problems such as a ugly review or unhappy client. I know this could go both ways, but this was the high side of the road for me. I'll take Mos advice and call tomorrow to check on the so called cat. I fully expect her to say it never came back or to simply not answer. Some people live this way, it's just a fact of life.