About a week ago a lady called us for an estimate. We gave her an estimate over the phone based on the information she gave us (# of double hungs, # of storm windows, = Approximate cost) She was given a $175 ballpark.
When the crew showed up to clean the lady told them that she had left some windows off when speaking with me on the phone. As we do on any job we count al the windows and confirm the price before we begin work. It ended up being $350 total. Our crew leader explained that the window count was off and the cost was going to be higher. They were given permission to clean at the $350 dollar price.
When it came time to pay she said you’re going to have to collect from my husband.
Her husband threw a fit, threatened to leave negative reviews, call all his friends in town and destroy our name. He also tried very hard to get a rise out of our crew leader by forcefully poking him in the chest while insulting him. Luckily we hired the right guy for crew leader and he just stood there and listened. It’s hard to say what others may have done.
So today we refunded a customer 100% of their money and told them to loose our number. We have never experienced anything quite like this before.
Wondering why you refunded all of the cost? Even if the customer was upset like that and threatening to give me a bad review and tell there “friends”, I certainly would not refund all of there money. Maybe at the most bring the cost back down to the original quote. You showed up, did the work, acted professional and need to be compensated accordingly. That customer no matter what is going to bad mouth you as a company. Even if he got a free window cleaning out of you, they are just career criminals.
Hope you never have to deal with that again, although unfortunately there will be more. Keep your head up and keep on moving forward!
To answer your question I thought $350 was a reasonable price to pay so that we never have to answer a call from them again. Sometimes you have to pay people to leave you alone. It will be easier to ignore any future phone calls from here on out. I almost guarantee they will try to call us back someday.
I would love to be able to do in person quotes every time but it can be difficult when you get loads of calls everyday and have a large service area. Not to mention the cost $$$$. We almost neve have a problem with our over the phone estimate system.
Man that’s a tuff call , I probably wouldn’t give in to giving a freebie . Wife approved of price , go complain to her . Sometimes even if you give them a free ride they still will complain or give you a bad review. If that’s the case I rather get paid . I had one client weasel her self out of a $240 bill for complaining about the quality . I know the feeling
We told him that his wife ok’d $350. Told him she admitted to leaving windows off the count during the over the phone estimate. His response was that we were asking advantage of his wife.
