Have you ever walked away from a job because of the client?

One warning sign from the real hucksters is they ask you right off if you would go to property X very far away to do work. This is them assessing how far backwards they will be able to bend you. When you hear this, avoid them. Also if they argue with you rather than accept knowledge from you, red flag.
 
climbhightree said:
I have to say I kinda disagree. I've never done marketing, beyond yellowpage ad and sponsored a golf hole for a nonprofit. In fact, around 8 years ago we stopped the yellowpage ad...never went crazy big on the ad either. Almost all my work comes from word of mouth or organic results. I don't even have that many reviews online, but I've developed a business name of doing things properly and professionally. That gets around. Most of my customers I've been on their property multiple times through out the years. I personally think quality work is more important than marketing, but some of that depends on what you are in the business for. I never wanted to be a big company. I wanted to provide high quality work, professionalism, repeat customers, etc for a fair price. To meet the customer's needs, but also promote healthy trees.

Customer service is key also. The amount of work we get because of our customer service (both on jobsite and office) is staggering...because no one else gets back to them or offers solutions.

Ps - currently booked till October. Yes it took some time to build this up, but I never completely ran out of work in the early days. It also helped I had a good customer list to start, since I bought out my former boss's small tree business.
Click to expand...
At this point in my life, I would like to have 50-60 clients that I am on their property every year at least and am doing $2000-$3000 worth of work each time I am there.

Don't we already have enough stress in this occupation without having to put up with some asshole that thinks they know more than we do?
 
I've walked away multiple times, sometimes it's the client, if I don't like them feel like they're going to be super nit picky or give off that "we're going to sue you for anything vibe. " I have also walked away from jobs due to either the risk or if I just don't have the equipment to give them a reasonable price, I don't have a masticator, some jobs need to to be done at a reasonable price I'd rather refer them to someone who can do it quickly with the right equipment than have to charge 3+ times as much for hand labor dragging dead manzanita up a hill to the chipper.
 
climbhightree said:
I have to say I kinda disagree. I've never done marketing, beyond yellowpage ad and sponsored a golf hole for a nonprofit. In fact, around 8 years ago we stopped the yellowpage ad...never went crazy big on the ad either. Almost all my work comes from word of mouth or organic results. I don't even have that many reviews online, but I've developed a business name of doing things properly and professionally. That gets around. Most of my customers I've been on their property multiple times through out the years. I personally think quality work is more important than marketing, but some of that depends on what you are in the business for. I never wanted to be a big company. I wanted to provide high quality work, professionalism, repeat customers, etc for a fair price. To meet the customer's needs, but also promote healthy trees.

Customer service is key also. The amount of work we get because of our customer service (both on jobsite and office) is staggering...because no one else gets back to them or offers solutions.

Ps - currently booked till October. Yes it took some time to build this up, but I never completely ran out of work in the early days. It also helped I had a good customer list to start, since I bought out my former boss's small tree business.
Click to expand...

Definitely probably helped if you had a customer list to start and bought an already established tree service.

But for most people starting from the ground up where nobody knows who you are, I would say marketing is essential if you want full time work.

Also, booked out till October? You’re obviously doing something right if you got that much work.
 
Just a quick update from the quote/consultation I just walked on.
The job was a consultation and then they asked for a quote which I denied. This is the diceist part of being willing to quote on your own recommendations.
Now they are filing a complaint to the owners of my company, not realizing that the owner is me. They are demanding a refund, and accusing the employee of a cash discount offer that is illegal with the IRS. Funny thing is I never offered such a thing, and consultations are exempt from sales tax in the state. The tone of the email rings of extortion.
This is the side of business I hate.
 
Sucks.

I've been lucky, very few bad customer experiences. I've had a number of bad bids where I simply declined to even write a proposal because I got bad vibes from the customer (I don't give the 'don't want to do it price', I just say no) and never walked away after arriving on a job. I've had a few where people weren't happy afterwards, but for example, when someone has the time and energy to write multiple paragraph email complaining about the things they themselves agreed to in writing after the fact, well, I don't care what they have to say. In like 5 years in business, I can probably count my unsatisfied customers on two hands and when dealing with the general public, I think that is a solid record.
 
evo said:
The job was a consultation and then they asked for a quote which I denied. This is the diceist part of being willing to quote on your own recommendations.
Click to expand...
You refused to even quote the work you recommended? What's the full story?
 
Last year I went to my sales rep and said no more for one particular woman that used us for PHC. She was nasty, mean and racist. She’d always vent and be nasty to me on every visit. I deal with some difficult people almost daily, but she took the cake and I was not going to deal with her for a third year. It was simply not worth it from a personal and money standpoint. Although with her I didn’t care about the latter.
 
climbingmonkey24 said:
I had one a couple years ago, I had met with the wife during the estimate and she was pleasant, friendly, and I had good vibes.

The morning of we arrived at the job at 7 as discussed, had all our equipment setup in driveway which was previously discussed with customer (they didn’t want us on grass).

And from the minute we started doing our pre-work walk around the gentlemen who was home because the wife was going to be gone at work came out and started questioning everything. Also said he had started some of the work hoping maybe it would knock some off the price.

Then it was he was worried about chips blowing into the grass even after I assured it wouldn’t be an issue. Ended up moving our equipment across the street, tried to start working again, but then he came out because he was worried chips might blow into the neighbors yard so he didn’t want us there. We then had to wait for him to move their cars, and turn all our equipment around and park right next to the edge of his lawn in the street which was even worse then being in the driveway in respect to chips blowing.

I explained how I quoted under the presumption we would be able to park in driveway (it was a long haul from the backyard man handling all the brush because they didn’t want equipment on the lawn) and he said how it shouldn’t make a difference dragging it the extra distance.

Maybe for 1-2 trips, but this was gonna be a job with many back and forth trips from way far back in the backyard.

We wasted nearly an hour on a job that was 45-60 min away from home on a day that was going to be in the mid 90s. We never even got to start the job.

I have a lot of patience and will bend over backwards to accommodate my clients, but this time I decided to call it off and reschedule because we had wasted so much time and I was really upset at that point, it wasn’t like the job was within town it was a lot of travel time.

Where do you draw the line between being accommodating but also not being taken advantage of or disrespected?

Ultimately a couple days later I decided it would be best if they found someone else because I thought it might become more headache than it’s worth.

I’ve never encountered that previously.

Had we started the job I wouldn’t have done that, but we never even got the chance to begin working.

Thoughts? Was it the right call?
Click to expand...
I’m pretty sure we worked for that couple! Haha, ok maybe not, but same situation. The wife approved the work, but she was a brain surgeon and gone during the day. Husband was home with nothing better to do. It was a 3 day job.

Day 1: Removed several trees along driveway. At the end of the drive was a fountain in front of their mansion. At lunch time wife stopped by, was pleased with how work was progressing. At the end of the day husband came out in a rant cursing at us for getting “dust in their fountain.” We were chipping in proximity to the fountain but certainly weren’t getting any wood chips in it, but apparently dust is bad for fountains? Guy literally stared me down and said, “Haven’t you ever worked around a fountain before?!?” To which I replied, “No sir. I haven’t.”

Day 2: In an effort to help ease tension and appease the husband I brought out a pump, pumped all the water out of the fountain and scrubbed the entire thing while my crew continued to work on another part of the property. Took me about 3 hours. At the end of day 2, husband came out and found the greenest kid on my crew who was only 20 years old and chewed him out because the fountain wasn’t cleaned good enough…At that point I called the wife and explained the situation and that her husband was being verbally abusive towards my crew. We still had 1 more day of work to do. I told her we would only come back if her husband was either off the premise or stayed inside the whole time.

Day 3: She agreed to keep her dog on a leash. We finished the work and as we were putting the last of our matts away he literally came out on his mower and “chased” us off the property.

Worst client experience I’ve ever had.
 
@HigherGroundArborist Wow that’s a tough one. Sounds like you handled it professionally and as best as you could though.

It’s an awkward situation when you’re dealing with a husband and wife separately like that.

Never had to deal with a fountain but thanks for mentioning it because I’ll keep that in mind if I ever have a job with one. Maybe next time see if they can turn the fountain off and cover it with a tarp?

I once had a job for a very nice person and the neighbors were nice as well removing some lower pine limbs right over the neighbors garden. Went over and talked to the neighbor in person and we ended up covering the garden with a tarp and thankfully we did because otherwise saw dust would’ve covered the ground.
 
climbingmonkey24 said:
@HigherGroundArborist Wow that’s a tough one. Sounds like you handled it professionally and as best as you could though.

It’s an awkward situation when you’re dealing with a husband and wife separately like that.

Never had to deal with a fountain but thanks for mentioning it because I’ll keep that in mind if I ever have a job with one. Maybe next time see if they can turn the fountain off and cover it with a tarp?

I once had a job for a very nice person and the neighbors were nice as well removing some lower pine limbs right over the neighbors garden. Went over and talked to the neighbor in person and we ended up covering the garden with a tarp and thankfully we did because otherwise saw dust would’ve covered the ground.
Click to expand...
Yes, TARP THE FOUNTAIN! :LOL:We’ve worked around some fountains and coy ponds since then and we ALWAYS tarp them
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

New threads New posts

Back
Top Bottom