Pick up the phone and call!!

[climbingmonkey24]

I call number and no answer. Leave voicemail.

Get a call back it’s for someone out of state. The person entered the totally wrong number!

Send email to the email address provided saying I tried calling and leaving a voicemail but the number was wrong, and ask them specifically to please call me at their convenience to discuss project.

Get an email back saying “Oh sorry, here’s the right number.....”

 

[Tuebor]

Just giving you more examples. I'm not in the tree business. I don't own a business. I'm sitting here thinking about my neighbors and how they would deal with you. The guy next to me is busy running his own store plus a lot of rental property and doesn't have time for bullshit. His approach would be: I need my tree trimmed. Just drive by and look and send me a quote. As soon as you bog him down with questions, he's going to say okay, later dude, I got someone else.1 He's backing out the driveway at 530 a.m and doesn't come home until 8 p.m.

Now, the lady on the other side is going to talk you to death. She's going to be worried about her whatever brand prized flowers and whether insurance will cover damage to them and will your insurance company need to see a certificate of authenticity and can you be sure not to increase the sunlight by more than 20% and on and on. She will want references and will call them to check. She will call you twenty times before she even decides to hire you. It will drive you bonkers. You will end up blowing her off.

You have to get over how customers treat you if you want to succeed in business.

 

[climbingmonkey24]

I'm not taking it personally how customers treat me I was just asking if anyone else had encoutered something similar, if it was a red flag, etc.

You're assuming something when you know nothing about how I run my business. No offense meant but you don’t even run a business yourself.

Before I started my company I worked in towing & recovery. I’ve experienced all different types of customers.
.
.
And if you want your tree trimmed with specific instructions on what you want done, you best make time to meet me there so we can go over exactly what you want and I can explain in person what I recommend etc. Do not expect me to give you a quote or even a ballpark figure off of a picture in a text because I’m going to tell you I need to assess the tree in person.

I will quote some jobs without someone there like a storm damage or removal, but trimming I usually always request people are present and set up a time that is convenient with their schedule. Way to easy for things to go wrong with pruning if you think the person wants one thing done and in reality it's the exact opposite. And many other companies are the same way that they require homeowners to be present during the appointment.

I'm sorry but if you are trying to hire a contractor I think you need to put in a little effort.

As it happens, I'll bend over backwards to accomodate my customers.

 

[Stumpsprouts]

I'm not taking it personally how customers treat me I was just asking if anyone else had encoutered something similar, if it was a red flag, etc.

Yes,
And,
Que sera sera
People are people
Win some lose some
It is what it is
Take it or leave it
Etc.

 

[climbingmonkey24]

LOL.

The thread ain’t literal dudes, just sharing an experience.

 

[Reach]

Yes,
And,
Que sera sera
People are people
Win some lose some
It is what it is
Take it or leave it
Etc.

For sure!

Slight derail: I also get very frustrated bidding against cheap companies especially when bidding on large projects for wealthy clients - case in point: bid a removal last week, full crew for four days, removal of 13 large dead Ash. $10k, more or less. Customer found someone else to do it for $5k. I can go on forever about using legitimate, insured, professional companies, but I won’t here. Instead what frustrates me is that this guy, with all his money (he is a personal friend and confidant/advisor to Elon Musk, if that gives you a clue what he’s got in the bank), won’t pay for the job to be done right, by a legitimate company, but instead hires “The Cut and Run Boyz” to do the job for cheap. If all you want is the cheapest possible price, why call us out to bid on the job?

 

[climbingmonkey24]

For sure!

Slight derail: I also get very frustrated bidding against cheap companies especially when bidding on large projects for wealthy clients - case in point: bid a removal last week, full crew for four days, removal of 13 large dead Ash. $10k, more or less. Customer found someone else to do it for $5k. I can go on forever about using legitimate, insured, professional companies, but I won’t here. Instead what frustrates me is that this guy, with all his money (he is a personal friend and confidant/advisor to Elon Musk, if that gives you a clue what he’s got in the bank), won’t pay for the job to be done right, by a legitimate company, but instead hires “The Cut and Run Boyz” to do the job for cheap. If all you want is the cheapest possible price, why call us out to bid on the job?

And then they may come back saying it was you who overcharged because you wouldn’t do it for the lower price.

 

[Reach]

And then they may come back saying it was you who overcharged because you wouldn’t do it for the lower price.

Never had that happen, they either ignore us and we never hear from them again, or they tell us we were too expensive, or they call us later to take the tree out of the living room (ok, it was only in the garage...and lawn shed...and on the neighbors front porch roof...) and apologize for not using us to begin with.

 

[climbingmonkey24]

or they tell us we were too expensive,

That’s essentially what I meant to say. But yea, either way it’s frustrating.

 

[evo]

I’m dealing with this right now. Dude called me two weeks ago, and left a message. Then he instantly left a request on my website. He wants 1 climber to crown raise some fir trees and will handle cleanup.
Called him back to get some more details and schedule a time to look. Issue is I partition a day for quotes and call everyone to schedule a route the day before. He didn’t pick up, so I moved on. Mid day I get a email from him telling me to not call and only communicate via email. Fair enough to some degree

BUT I can waste hours being a human ping pong driving 20 min north of base for a quote to 15 minutes south, the last thing I want to do is then turn around and go back up north when the rest of the day is scheduled south.. I’m also not going to wait around for one person to respond via email so I can schedule the entire day around their needs.

 

[Tuebor]

Over twenty years ago I had a coworker who read some time management book. One of the habits he took up was to never answer the phone - always let the answering machine take the call. The author advised setting aside one hour or half-hour a day to respond to the voice mails, that way you prioritize who you responded to and wouldn't interrupt your day playing phone tag.

Unfortunately the coworker missed out on a lot of spontaneous good times at happy hour.

 

[climbingmonkey24]

Can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard from people that they’ve been blown off or never got a call back, or didn’t answer etc.

I try to answer the phone whenever I can and even if I’m not gonna bid on the job because maybe it’s outside of what I do, I got no problem spending a couple minutes giving them recommendations and or referral.

So don’t get me wrong, I genuinely care about both customers who hire me and those that I’m not gonna even work for.

Because part of this business is customer service.

 

[climbingmonkey24]

I’m dealing with this right now. Dude called me two weeks ago, and left a message. Then he instantly left a request on my website. He wants 1 climber to crown raise some fir trees and will handle cleanup.
Called him back to get some more details and schedule a time to look. Issue is I partition a day for quotes and call everyone to schedule a route the day before. He didn’t pick up, so I moved on. Mid day I get a email from him telling me to not call and only communicate via email. Fair enough to some degree

BUT I can waste hours being a human ping pong driving 20 min north of base for a quote to 15 minutes south, the last thing I want to do is then turn around and go back up north when the rest of the day is scheduled south.. I’m also not going to wait around for one person to respond via email so I can schedule the entire day around their needs.

Unless you had already talked to them on the phone to get the feel of the situation, that’s kind of suspect that they only want to communicate via email. At least in my opinion. Maybe not. I don’t know the whole situation so...

See the problem is, and some of you might know what I’m talking about, where scammers send a text saying they need you to give them a quote to do this at this property, etc. and ask if you take credit cards and the reason they can’t speak with you or meet you is they are sick or just had surgery or some other serious “issue.” You ever get those?

I tend to schedule quotes as they come in, multiple times per week sometimes. As I expand, I may consider delegating specific days to quotes etc.