Anxiety About This Experience with a Customer

[VenasNursery]

First thing I think is that they are good business people
Must do good work or they wouldn’t be around with nice equipment
And when I see equipment older than their employees
I think alcoholics drug addiction
boats and four wheelers are more important

The best is when their chip and wood trucks are 20-25 years old and they have a brand new super duty with a receiver with paint stool on the inside

Sounds like a big gulp of hater-ade to me

nothing wrong with older equipment if kept up and clean
But I choose to constantly invest into my company with my earnings
Just my two cents

I would like to thank all the guys with equipment not taken care of (junk)
Show up late
Not calling customers back
No insurance
Stink (smell bad)
No PPE(can’t spell PPE)

they only make professionals look better

customers see old beat up equipment or non professional people
They expect lower prices

Nice equipment
professional personnel
Professional prices

we can compete with pricing with unprofessional companies because we have the equipment to get in and out of jobs with half the time of unequipped company

Walks and quacks like a duck
Usually a duck

 

[96coal449]

We didn’t actually get the chance to start any work. We didn’t do anything except move our damn equipment back and forth.

They told me they still wanted me to do the job but if I wasn’t interested they’d just find someone else. I told them I was interested and would be in touch and since then I’ve been thinking about it and I just don’t feel good or comfortable about this job anymore because of what happened. I’m concerned if I commit to it and get started it might turn into another headache.

But the time has come I have to make a decision and get in touch with them one way or the other before too much more time goes by.

I did read all this in one of your previous posts.

Sounds to me like you still don't want to completely walk away.
I feel you should talk to him again in person. The wife included. Get them both outside and go through your whole plan with them. You need to get everyone on the same page. If that goes well then you have a new client.

If not, then you know you are doing the right thing by walking away.

Good luck and keep us updated.

 

[VenasNursery]

I did read all this in one of your previous posts.

Sounds to me like you still don't want to completely walk away.
I feel you should talk to him again in person. The wife included. Get them both outside and go through your whole plan with them. You need to get everyone on the same page. If that goes well then you have a new client.

If not, then you know you are doing the right thing by walking away.

Good luck and keep us updated.

I would definitely ask the customer if they are still interested in hiring you since they have changed their stance on the rest the job

If you didn’t change the scope of work and they did you may want to emphasize that
And tell them your company makes customers happy every day
And if they aren’t going to be happy than you and them need to move on

 

[Jehinten]

And how do you let go of a customer, fire a customer, walk away from a job after already showing up because customer is giving you a hard time, without worrying about them going online and giving you a bad review? Reputation is everything right? We work hard to build those positive reviews and positive reputation. One person who is unreasonable can go and bash you and make it out like you did something wrong and that people shouldn’t hire you. It’s been shown that even one negative review can cost you future business.

I'll weigh in on this, with a job that happened to me. I usually only work one job a day (I'm lazy )
I was finishing a job around noon and an older lady drove up saying she lived down the block and wanted a quote. The job specs was to remove lower deadwood from a pin oak (polesaw) and either trim or remove a couple of Holly bushes. She couldn't make up her mind on the Holly's.

I gave her a price for each option and she choose to trim them, I took a little off of it and told her that it could be taken a little more aggressively if she wanted it smaller than my initial trim. The more aggressive option may show a few holes in the bushes. She came out and essentially wanted the bush "trimmed" to a 3' high trunk with no brush and she would have a family member cut the trunk down.

Long story short, she wanted me to do 98% of a removal on 3 Holly bushes for the trimming price instead of the removal price. No agreement could be met on the Holly's so I cleaned up the debris from the one Holly that I had trimmed and the pin oak that was finished, leaving 2 Holly bushes untouched (didn't start them until we reached an agreement on the size of the first one) and refused any payment.

She still received a quality cleanup on the work completed and I got out of the job with a clean conscience, giving her nothing to give a bad review about. Well worth the loss of income from the little bit of work that I had completed.




Side note, had the backyard had access for my mini skid I'd likely completed the removals at the same cost as the trimming as it could be carried out in one piece and shoved in the chipper. But everything here was hand dragged and hand fed in the chipper, meaning many more trips.

 

[climbingmonkey24]

That was part of the thing I explained to the person was I had quoted the job to be parked in the driveway for the chipper not the street. Everything had to be hand dragged from a huge backyard all the way near woods because they wanted no equipment in the lawn. It’s a ton of hand labor with a ton of trips back and forth. Wood and brush.

When I explained that his response was basically...

“c’mon, how much difference does 20ft of dragging make, we’ve dragged trees before”

 

[Jehinten]

That was part of the thing I explained to the person was I had quoted the job to be parked in the driveway for the chipper not the street. Everything had to be hand dragged from a huge backyard all the way near woods because they wanted no equipment in the lawn. It’s a ton of hand labor with a ton of trips back and forth. Wood and brush.

When I explained that his response was basically...”c’mon, how much difference does 20ft of dragging make.”

20' times X amount of trips = Y upcharge to park in the street. If they agree then no problems, although might be hard to make that case since you've already agreed to move your equipment to the street.


Side note, I love my mini (I know it can't be used there) but if your going with minimal ground impact as a selling point, look into an arbor trolley. It sure beats dragging by hand and you'll have less raking to do along your drag path.

 

[climbingmonkey24]

20' times X amount of trips = Y upcharge to park in the street. If they agree then no problems, although might be hard to make that case since you've already agreed to move your equipment to the street.


Side note, I love my mini (I know it can't be used there) but if your going with minimal ground impact as a selling point, look into an arbor trolley. It sure beats dragging by hand and you'll have less raking to do along your drag path.

Well after all the hassle they said the driveway is fine, and we told them we would lay tarps down to prevent any potential debris from going into the lawn.

 

[MA Arborist]

We didn’t actually get the chance to start any work. We didn’t do anything except move our damn equipment back and forth.

They told me they still wanted me to do the job but if I wasn’t interested they’d just find someone else. I told them I was interested and would be in touch and since then I’ve been thinking about it and I just don’t feel good or comfortable about this job anymore because of what happened. I’m concerned if I commit to it and get started it might turn into another headache.

But the time has come I have to make a decision and get in touch with them one way or the other before too much more time goes by.

It sounds like they are jerking you around. I’m willing to bet that they do that to everyone who has had a “chance” to work in their property.

If you have plenty of work already then why bother with these people. They’ll cause nothing but stress and that leads to more Grey hairs on your head.

And don’t forget. They might like your work and try to hire you again sometime down the road...and then the cycle starts over again...
Stress, frustration, uncertainty....

 

[ATH]

A job is like a balanced well running machine
Every gear turns each other
When one fails the machine doesn’t perform as well

Great machinery
Great employees
Great owner
Great customer

GREAT OUTCOME

Good point...how many that think shiny equipment is essential also think a clean personal presentation is equally (or more, I'd argue) important?

 

[Jehinten]

Well after all the hassle they said the driveway is fine, and we told them we would lay tarps down to prevent any potential debris from going into the lawn.

That sounds like an opportunity to burn their grass with tarps and hot sun. Best of luck to you, if you do the job.

 

[96coal449]

That sounds like an opportunity to burn their grass with tarps and hot sun

Ding, ding, ding.
Loud and clear.

@Jehinten you beat me to this comment.

 

[96coal449]

@climbingmonkey24 If you do the tarp option you may want to pile everything to be chipped in the driveway then lay out the tarps just for the duration of the chipping.

 

[Merle Nelson]

The way I fire a client or decline a potential client is to tell them why they would get more of what they want having someone else do the job.

My goal isn't to offend it's just to get past this time and soul suckling experience and get on to the next person who values my work.

 

[climbingmonkey24]

I ended up making the decision to not do the job and politely walk away. Too many uncomfortable feelings and I usually trust my instinct. I look at it as being a good learning experience though.

 

[Fivepoints]

One good learning experience is to have the husband and wife there for the bid so everyone is on the same page.

 

[colb]

I ended up making the decision to not do the job and politely walk away. Too many uncomfortable feelings and I usually trust my instinct. I look at it as being a good learning experience though.

I think that was an excellent decision. There's plenty else to do without having to take poor treatment from a client. They are better off also, because you would not have been enabled by their behavior to do your best work.

 

[VenasNursery]

One good learning experience is to have the husband and wife there for the bid so everyone is on the same page.

Try but hard to do every time

 

[climbingmonkey24]

Try but hard to do every time

Well the other thing to consider is even if you do that sometimes people can present one demeanor during the bid and then change when you’re there to actually work.

 

[Benjo75]

Good call.

 

[VenasNursery]

Well the other thing to consider is even if you do that sometimes people can present one demeanor during the bid and then change when you’re there to actually work.

It definitely happens
We as contractors need to stand up for ourselves
my crew gets mad how homeowners take advantage of our good nature