Walking away.

Let's face it, customers ain't always right, what's your limit ? When do you decide to walk away from a customer ? And why ?
The first and main thing for me is if they say "I want you to guarantee your work 100 % or I won't pay you".

I would definatley walk away from " guarantee it I won't pay you", I just did a job this morning with a house that is going to be sold.  I told him I would do my best but those stains will probably not come out or they will wick when its finished.  I would just rip it out and replace it.  He said please give it your best shot, it cant turn out worse then what it is. When I was finished he said "it looks great, wonderful job".

It doesn't happen often, matter of fact I can't remember the last time I went to a job and then left because of a unreasonable customer.

I usually screen them the best I can on the phone, and if they sound like a real PITA then I won't waste my time even making an appointment with them..

If they levitate over the kitchen table and can spin their head around 360 degrees....I will normally walk away.

I will admit that I don't remember the last time I walked off the job. I can think of a few times where I should have, but even under the worst situations, I still finished the job and drove away angry.

I guess the closest for me would be severe urine jobs where the customer doesn't want to pull up the carpet. We all know that it will fail, the tank will stink for days, the vacuum cleaner will be destroyed, and they will never say anything good about you to others.

That would be my line, cross that and I walk away.

I had a guy with a retail store ask me about cleaning the carpet. His first question was if the carpet squares peel or come up from the cleaning what is his recourse. I told him that if they were installed correctly that there shouldn't be any issues. He told me he installed them himself and did a better job than a professional. He again asked about recourse. I told him to have a nice day. I think he was looking for a patsy to buy him new carpet.

It's funny because I usually can sense it if things are going to go south but sometimes there's absolutely nothing you can do due to risk of customers going to Yelp or AL telling everyone how horrible of their experience dealing with you, like this one Asian lady that I explained before we did the work a couple of years ago, she admitted it that she cleaned the carpets herself many times with rug doctor and that it never turn out really good, I told her that I'm not sure how much cleaner I can get it to look due to the fibers scarring, etc, she insisted to have me clean it anyway, I was very hesitant but did it for her anyway, sure enough, first complain, what is that smell ? That smell is the smell of the chemicals, due to the condition of the carpets we have to use strong chemicals to break sticky residues from rug doctor's detergents and soaps that was left on the carpets, second complain, you guys are done ? Mind you she got 3 rooms less than 1000 sq ft, we spent about an hour may be a little longer, yes ma'am we're done, what about those high traffic areas ? I told her you saw the difference as we were cleaning ( before and after ) and you said it looks good and I had told you in the beginning multiple times it's not going to look very good after the cleaning, those are wear and tear, not much we can do about those areas. She paid and the next day I saw a 2 stars reviews from her on Yelp, I contacted her, asked her what can I do for you to reverse that review ? She said none, I said okay, have a nice day !

Wouldn't it be nice if you could post the before / after photos when you get a negative review? People tend to believe the customer in text, but a picture would tell the real story.

Just look at that "I never spill anything" carpet, imagine it being posted for the world to see how dishonest that person was. Now that would shut people up real quick.

Weve only walked from extreme urine..   of course they say "just do the best you can"  swollen baseboards,  swollen walls etc,    "no ma'am adding moisture to this is counter productive"     walked  

one time this guy had pests or bed bugs etc,   we walked after doing 2 rooms,   he was super pissed...   but a bed bug jumped on my employee and I told him were getting the f out of here


another one was for a realtor that had pictures being taken on Monday,   she scheduled the "carpet cleaning" for Saturday at 4pm,    we showed up and the guy was expecting us to move all his furniture down to the garage..    basically this guy was told the carpet cleaning includes moving company services,   he wanted the whole house moved to garage,   then carpets cleaned starting at 4pm    


Only other one I can remember was a lady trying to bait and switch us,   she was East Indian and tried to get a 4k sqft house cleaned for $200,    saying it was 3 rooms...  also wanted all furniture moved and everything speed dried with fans


I dont let the possible negative reviews intimidate me, one reason why I like AL more than Yelp.. I can bash the sh!t out of a customer on AL LOL

I will walk and not even think twice when my honest and integrity is being questions.

I haven't walked away from too many jobs but I probably should have walked on a couple

Bed bugs would be a immediate cause to depart...I agree fully.

milspec6 wrote:Wouldn't it be nice if you could post the before / after photos when you get a negative review?  People tend to believe the customer in text, but a picture would tell the real story.
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That's one of the reasons I take pics of EVERTHING@!!!

Proof!!

I only walked once. had a dentist office that I cleaned twice a year for 3 years. I got the account because I charged them a bit less then they were paying before, and I fixed all the problems with wicking and removed spots that never got removed before.

So they call me and ask me to come In
on on a Saturday to clean the upholstery . Just as I get set up , here comes chem dry.

THen the wife of the dentist walks over and says, chem dry is doing the carpet this time because she got a coupon and it turned out to be $10 less then what my price was,,,,, but she will have me do it next time,, unless she gets another coupon form them.

I packed up and left without saying a word.

about a month later, the dentist calls and says he is sorry about what happened and that chem dry did a horrible job. Asked me to come and reclean the carpet. I told him sure, but I'm bringing you up to my current rate. about 30% more .

I have continued to work for them at this higher rate for the last 3 years.

Ha ha good one Andy. Now it kind of feels you were charging 30% less than you should have been for those 3 years

I would have been pissed too, Its one thing dropping you for 10.00 less buy then throwing it in your face too?

I had a friend who showed up to give a bid on a carpet job. As he was measuring a guy up with low rider jeans and looking like who knows what driving a car and bids a 4 bedroom and hall for 79.00. He just walked out. Even as a customer I wouldnt have two bids at the same time out of consideration.

You can't compete against the home boys. Orale Way!

I would have just gave here the quote since I  already spent the time and fuel to get there.

I would have told the Homie to stand back, wait in line, and "watch this Homes"!!!

I saw "Wrastle for it".