I would just like some input on how some of you would deal with this situation. This is the first complaint we’ve had like this in our year plus in business. A customer from December 15 texted me a picture of a window track, saying they were all dirty in the corners and how disappointed she was. The thing is I remember her opening at least two windows and saying it looked great before we left. Anthony keeps telling me not to worry, but I really don’t like the thought of an unhappy customer. So far she hasn’t responded to a text asking when would be a good time to talk to her about this.
I had someone wait over 3 months to pay his bill, exterior only window cleaning, great expensive neighborhood… I had to send several invoices, by mail and by email followed up with phone calls and finally one last phone call and voice mail that ended with if “i don’t receive payment for the completed job within 7 days I will be forced to take other actions”
He sent in the original invoice I had left with the house cleaner along with a note stating how unhappy he was with the exterior window cleaning and that it was terrible.
I framed the invoice with the note, never called the customer back, if they were that unhappy with the service they should have told me 3 months ago to let me come fix it.
All I did was add this one to the don’t service list and move on, I have yet to lose any of my other customers in this neighborhood so I’m going to guess this was just someone that doesn’t like to pay his bills on time? Oh well
I would go back and fix something even within 30 days if a customer was unhappy with the service.
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Just call the customer back and let them know you have to schedule in fixing the issue so it is important for her to get back to you if she would like the problem resolved.
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The kicker to me is that she threatens us with leaving a negative review rather than give us a chance to resolve the issue if she feels we came up short. I reached out to her, though it is Sunday so maybe I’ll follow up with a phone call tomorrow.
She has a house near a lake, it’s Florida and most of the month has seen temperatures above 75 degrees. But she’s upset about her tracks being dirty 37 days after the fact?
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Or they cleaned the inside and thought that all of their errors were your fault. I’ve had exterior onlys do that a few times. Tell me they werent happy and I go back and clean one of the windows on the inside for them and walk away like a boss
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@Erica and a @apkwindows, one thing I would say is if there is a problem you should skip the text and go right to phone call. I text my customers all of the time but there are some times where they need more.
All you can really do is reach out to them. If thats not working theres little that you can do, dont stress it too much. How are your other online reviews? Just make sure that you are dilligent about asking your customers for reviews so you can drown that one out. Its actually not that bad of a thing to have a bad review. Makes you look human. It can be suspicious if you have all perfect reviews
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This is encouraging because one concern I have is that she’ll tell everyone on the neighborhood Facebook group that we do a bad job. Thanks for the reply. We’ll do our best to resolve it and then move on.
I agree about the phone call. I guess just the fact we didn’t get the message until this morning made us not want to call on a Sunday morning. The number she texted was my old cell number, which I guess she had because of a “we’re on our way” text. So I didn’t see the text when she sent it during the week.
I like your point about one bad review not being a bad thing. Overall we have 5 star reviews and enough of them that one bad one won’t kill us.
Call her on a Sunday. Wait til church is out in case shes a church goer or a late sleeper on the weekend. Say “I’m sorry to call you on a Sunday but I really dont want you to be unhappy so I called as soon as I could”
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Will do! Thanks for the advice.
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Do you guys follow up with your customers after the jobs done?
I never make any business calls from Friday at 5pm until Monday morning at 9am
No matter what the issue is or request. I take notes if it and save it for Monday morning.
Once you start taking on problems on the weekend or time off then you start to lose control, at least thats what happened to me. I would take a call at 3pm Friday and finish up my day and rush to get to the property to do the estimate and meet the customer. Unless that job is close by my last job I will not go out and do anything Friday afternoon anymore. I’ve taken calls Saturday mornings while relaxing with my daughter, I realaized all of this work can wait until “business hours”
Don’t worry about negative reviews, that is bound to happen someday. What you can do is speak on the phone not via text message and schedule a time to resolve the issues at hand.
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Beyond emailing an invoice, where we invite to leave a review on Facebook or nextdoor, we don’t do any other sort of follow up.
What type of follow-up do you suggest? We’re always looking for ways we can learn.
Send out a “How did everything go email” the day after cleaning and get their input. I know that I should ask everyone for a review but I only ask the customers that reply the how did it go email. At that point I know that the customer is satisfied and willing to go out of their way to reply, so theres a good chance to get a positive review.
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"Thanks for choosing Wagner Window Service… I hope everything met your standards and if you were unhappy in anyway please let us know so we can fix it… We are always looking for ways to better our services do you have any suggestions… I will follow up with you in 6 months to schedule your next cleaning…
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just some ideas
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If someone leaves a less than favorable review you should have an opportunity for rebuttal. Just be sure that it is as a matter of fact professional and truthful. (In other words - simplest explanation of correcting the issue IF it was something you did). No negative argument, just offer to correct if it was something you should have done, or explain that a deep clean was not what was agreed upon if that is the case.
I had one negative review on Angie’s List from a customer who ordered in/out clean but on the day I showed up she changed it to outside only with screens. She claimed in her review that I did some sort of “dry cleaning” to her windows and screens; what ever that could be, but I actually spent more time on her difficult to clean windows than the charge was worth. (Small house, filthy windows, difficult landscaping). I explained my side under her review simply and matter of fact and moved on. Go on to bigger and better things. 
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If I were so good that I could guarantee that anything I touched would never get dirty again I would have to start a franchise and buy an island!
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It’s one thing if she called immediately and wanted it fixed. To sit on it for thirty days is stupid.
If she leaves a bad review, respond professionally and say if she had called immediately you would have rushed out there to fix the problem.
Tell each customer that if there’s anything wrong to give you a call within seven days and you’ll come out and fix it.
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