I went from being mildly concerned to slightly annoyed to totally fired up!
We have lost 8 residential accounts in the last 16 days in August to a lowballer. I cant remember losing 8 accounts the last two years to a lowball. After losing the 3rd account I had to ask, who is this company? so I asked. The customer gave me the name. Just first name, last name, window cleaning. The 7th customer to call and cancel was downright ****ed at me. Wants to know why she has paid me nearly double for the past several years. I asked if “Jon Doe window cleaning” has done her glass yet. She said no but she is on his schedule. I advised that maybe she should wait to see what kind of job she gets before being angry at us. She agreed.
The kick in the stones was today when we did a job at a customer of ours. We were there to do window caulking, however we also clean their ext glass …118.00$ gutter cleanout 135.00$ This customer has used our services for the past 5 years. While we were working the homeowner came out and offered our people cold water or soda as she always does. While we were talking she said wait here I have some thing I want to show you. She returned with 3x4 red card that read " Jon Doe window cleaning" ext glass 50.00 gutter clean 65.00. 20 years experience. insured. At the botttom it reads " Are you paying almost twice as much to a not so Noble window cleaner" I PICKED MY JAW OFF THE DRIVEWAY AND READ IT 5 MORE TIMES.
I have never heard of this guy. 20 years? I DONT KNOW WHAT TO THINK. I think I want to rub gg4 in his eyes. Forgive me for ranting.
What would you all do?
Ohh man, that’s TOUGH !!!
You have every right to be ****ED !!!
Everything was normal until you mentioned the card.
That’s hilarious. Sounds like he’s specifically attacking your company and apparently knows who your customers are, or at least the areas you work in.
Any bad blood with old employees?
You could kill him…Just kidding. It’s seriously unprofessional though.
You could follow up with each and every customer you lost after he cleans and walk them through a checklist, comparing his work to yours. A free consultation… That’s how much you care. Any hoo, maybe these people just don’t care enough about quality to pay for it.
I might try diplomacy first. Offer to meet w/ the guy and discuss your feelings about his marketing campaign.
I would wait until you’ve calmed down and plan a strategic response.
Find out who these guys really are, and find out what their angle is. Figure out how they can charge half, and then ask yourself if the clients care about the shortcuts they are taking.
If you figure they would, then identify the weaknesses, and then drive some stakes through them in a well-done marketing piece.
If there are no weaknesses, and its just a hard-working guy who is willing to work for half of your price, then remember that he can only do so many houses in a year, and he’ll not be able to take over your market.
And if he tries to expand, he’ll crash, with low low prices.
Sorry this is happening.
Weird that he’s snatched so many of your clients.
As for the unprofessional part, I don’t know if I agree with that.
Are the Mac vs. PC ads unprofessional?
Coke vs. Pepsi?
Seems that he’s simply following who he believes has the market presence, and attempting to undermine it. In a way, he is exercising a pretty creative and powerful marketing strategy.
The mistake is that he’s pounding primarily on price.
Go on the offensive, though, as I said.
Don’t brood, just be smarter than him and outmaneuver him.
One more slight adjustment: I don’t agree that he should have attacked your [B]ethics[/B], which his tagline does.
I would suck it up and get new clients… or just work for the guy as an employee…
Just kidding…
Dont you have a person to person relationship with your customers, or do you just treat them as a number? I know all of my clients by 1st name and remember who they are, and i also send out postcards to then just to say hello, not to get business.
I would consider it a compliment - directly targeting your company and all. Lowballers never stay around long, their customer service sucks, they are in it for the short game. Although I wouldn’t at all be opposed to running into this guy in a dark alley…
There is something to be said about lowball takers (customers) too. They are always going to be clients who take the lowballers, but in my experience, these types of people are penny smart and pound foolish. These people drive across town to save 2 cents on gas.
I had a customer once (different business) ask hom much we charged to cut keys, and I told him $1.89 - he was in a fury telling me how he can go to a big box home store and they do it for half that price. Now I knew the nearest store he was talking about was 10-15 miles away. I told him to jump in his dodge pickup and drive there and then see how much it really costs. He had the most dumbfounded look on his face, and after pondering a bit, still didn’t get my point. He proceeded to leave, and I wished him a good day. I really don’t want customers like this anyways. Just my 2 cents.
Good luck anyways…
Be patient with your customers. This lowballer won’t be able to afford being around more than a year I bet. Then your lost customers will be looking for a new window guy. Find out how you can be the guy they are looking for.
I would see a lawyer since he attacks your character with the play on words.
From what little you’ve said, it sounds like he has a list of your customers - past employee probably, maybe even a relative of a past employee.
Do you have non-compete agreements? I’ve used one in the past, with another company, that stipulated up to 2 years after termination, including up to 50 mile radius of our service area(s).
Also, regarding the quality of the guy’s work -
I get low-ballers competing with my janitorial company all the time. It NEVER fails - their service sucks. I’ve had quite a few customers call us back within a year to a year and a half.
However, these companies always start out doing a good job. Somewhere between 2 to 6 months per account is where they hit the wall. I mention that so that you could be prepared for this guy to low-ball and do a good job, initially. It may take a couple cleanings for him to start dropping the ball, so stay on the ball with those customers you lose. They may think they’ve found gold until they’ve had the guy over a few times.
Of course, you could always ask your customers, when they cancel for this guy, “Would you trust someone in your home whose only experience is cleaning windows in prison for the last 20 years?” You wouldn’t be talking about him… just asking a hypothetical question. Put it on a big flyer.
JK, of course 
Personally, I would break this guys thumbs:rolleyes: But I feel more calm now. Kevin has a great way of putting things in prospective.
Hey bro, I understand what you are going through. A buddy of mine has a tree trimming business and he was caught up in something like this. He would get calls for jobs go and bid them out, the customer would give the “OK” but here comes “john doe” to the same exact customer and give a cheaper price. My buddy lost alot of customers to this guy who didn’t even have an actual business just out trying to make a little beer money. My buddy suspected that someone was listening to his calls for checking his messages from his answering machine at home. What he ended up doing was going to all his customers and letting them know what was going on with this other guy and he ended getting them all back.
That happened too me not long ago. This guy took two of my customers and talked crazy about us. I have never met the guy a day in my life in till I saw him at burger king and broke his jaw while he was in line. I went to jail but he never took my customers again. That’s cool if another company can do it for cheaper but I don’t like my name ran in the ground.
Tell me you’re kidding.:eek:
Man, I hate to hear of crap like this. It makes me just as mad. I had a similar issue with a certain National chain brand window cleaner, not going to mention names here. It just plain sucks. I do have some thoughts though.
I agree with Kevin on the calm down and wait part. This guy can’t pay his bills with that kind of money. If you’ve been cleaning windows for over 5 years, he wouldn’t be able to secure much of your clientele as his new customers with all of that work. He may get a few (8 or more) but he won’t get them all.
Many posts were great thoughts, but when it comes down to the nutt-cutting, he’ll dry up and blow away because of bad business practices.
However, since he used your business name, and specifically capitalized the first letter of Noble, then you may have some room for litigation. If nothing else, you could scare him a bit with some well worded and significantly timed letters, addressed from a lawyer, directly to him regarding a Cease and Desist Advisory. I did one of these last year about this time and it worked against FISH.
I feel for you man. Just keep your head up, keep answering those phone calls and getting your estimates out quick, be sharp on your game, and don’t bad mouth him publicly. You’ll end up winning that game.
I wish I could. I walk up to him and ask him nicely not to down my name to people anymore. He told me to “F’ off so I kicked him. He went to sleep and I went to jail. I know that’s not professional and yes it was a mistake. Next time I will hirer someone to do it. J/K
Dude he started a war!
Jack says it best at the end of this commercial
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEVMkdScUZc]YouTube - Jack in the Box Jack at Burger King[/ame]
Seriously, Kevin has some really good strategy that would kill em in the long run. Call your customers he stole after he finishes with them and find out what he sucks at. Then make some flyers that are just as creative!! It sucks that this guy is so lame that he has to go after you like that. But since he wants to kick it off- take the gloves off and spend some well placed money that he wont have and [SIZE=“7”]BURY THIS CLOWN!!!:mad:
Take your customers back with an offer they can’t refuse. Offer them a 50% discount for a 2 year agreement. First clean they pay for 50% of the 2nd clean. 2nd year send over your lowest paid, best employee so at the very least you pull in something from the 2nd job. It won’t matter if it’s as little as $50 from the 2nd job. As long as you make money you can offer the same service agreement for the 3rd and 4th year. You’ll lock down the next two years of your clients that he will never be able to touch. He can rant and rave about price or whatever, but in the end he will lose his steam or ad money. He’ll think twice about comming after you. And if he can hang in with the price war you might want to just forget it and move on. There is a couple of guys here who charge 1/2 of what just about every good company charges here. But I have gotten a few of there accounts over the last 3 years cause they can’t provide the level of detail customers are expecting. They are maxxed out on the low end.
