First off for the guys that don’t know me I don’t do a lot of residential work, most of my work is commercial mostly restaurants, storefronts,multifamily, graffiti removal, flatwork and such.
That being said last year I got a awesome contract to wash rental houses when they come vacant…so I’ve been washing houses at crazy pace sometimes 20 or more a month on top of all my usual monthly commercial clients…since I’ve been washing all these rental houses I decided that I’d take on 1 or 2 residential houses a week just to fill in the gaps…everybody loves a little extra cash…
Then today I got my first complaint ever, I know its not my last but I feel its completely an unjustified complaint,
I’m super conscientious and always do the best job possible.
So here’s the meat, woman texted me to say she wasn’t happy with her back patio and said it was still dirty, when I asked her what was wrong with it she said I didn’t clean it well enough and it was still dirty in huge areas. when I told her that I took pictures of it before and after and asked her if she can tell me where it was still dirty she then changed her story and told me it was just a little stained around her stairs I asked her if I could come out and take a look at it tomorrow and she told me not to, I politely insisted and told her it was my job to make sure her house looked perfect when I left and I thought it had looked perfect when I left so I’d like to take a look at it and see if there was something I could fix for her…
I pretreated the patio, surface washed with my Big Guy…lol a little overkill… and then post treated it…
Not really looking for advise to solve the issue because ill be by there tomorrow to check it out and should have everything to get any kind of stain that she might have out but I’m just curious how often this happens to the residential guys…
Starting to think maybe residential isn’t for me LOL.
i’ve had a couple customers like this before. i always come back out asap and settle whatever concern they have, and they’ve always changed their tone and been very pleased with my work.
Lol happens all the time. The month I don’t get call backs i celebrate with a party lol. When you deal with the general public your dealing with hundreds of different opinions on a single matter, you will always get call backs. It’s rarely because of the job not being cleaned well but mostly because the customer expects things to be brand new, the concept of aging and weathering doesn’t hit home with some customers. Setting expectations is everything in a cleaning businesses. Those who say they don’t get call backs are talking out of there crevice.
You’ve got to spoon feed them, unfortunately… Had a client ask why his outdoor furniture & fire pit wasn’t cleaned, when we quoted balusters & patio surface.
It was a PITA to scale up to the third floor patio, ground to roof, then over ledges to reach his ROOF TOP PATIO…
I only do residential, and I always try to set expectations before jobs and do post-job walkthroughs with my clients before packing up. If they’re not home, I text or email them an update. Clients almost never know about stuff like concrete cream wear, lichen, or efflorescence. I find that directly pointing out and explaining those issues really helps build trust.
I also like to offer post-treatment on my post-job walkthroughs, rather than just doing it. I tell them it’s a standard part of the service and free if they choose, but they won’t be able to walk on the surface for a few days or until the next decent rainfall. Usually people appreciate being given the option, especially if they have kids or pets.
Little stuff like that really reduces callbacks for me. I think I’ve had one this year, which was completely my fault because I didn’t properly manage expectations on a seriously lichen infested patio.
Edit: thank you @Racer and @Innocentbystander for pointing out that it’s safe to walk on post-treated surfaces once they are dry. I’ve just been paranoid about someone complaining that their carpet is stained from tracking SH in. I know it degrades very quickly but I just assume some people are always looking for things to complain about. I’ll change the way I talk about post-treating accordingly.
I find that customers might have one thing they want to complain about but feel stupid calling so they try and find a few other ridiculous things to add to make them feel more justified in their call. Maybe you missed a pillar but they will say a wall is still dirty. You get there and it’s literally a piece of mulch in the wall. Or they exaggerate their complaint. 99% of the time any response makes them happy. They don’t expect contractors to actually care.
First of all you did the right thing by taking before and after pictures. They are absolutely necessary in Residential work. I do 80% residential and 20% new construction and I also had to deal with my first complaint recently and unfortunately the customer didn’t complain directly to me but via the nextdoor app and said she had already hired another company to “fix the job”.
I had just finished her walkways, pool deck and screen pool enclosure when the skys opened up with a torrential downpour and storms. I told her I was unable to do a proper spot check due to the weather and that her pool deck was not draining properly and I would need to come back to look at these issues and to call me when she was ready.
Next thing I know my wife alerted me that she had complained on the app less then 24 hours later. I was a little put out that she had not called me but I really should have set a firm follow up date before I left, I simply apologized online and offered a partial refund. I was happy to see several of my clients come to my defense as someone who always follows up and completes the job properly. Keep taking those pictures!!! I did not take the after pictures in this case due to the weather and it came back to bite me.
Welcome to The Forum @ShawnG … I mean I’ve always known that the day would come where somebody would be unhappy with something that I did just kind of hurts your feelings after as many years is I’ve been doing this I haven’t got a complaint and then to get one LOL…
Start a thread and introduce yourself to everybody so everybody knows where you’re working out of and how long you been doing this and everything and to say howdy to everybody. Friendly group of people here on the Forum… if you put in a bunch of read time you’ll gain lots of free knowledge and the guys won’t rib you too hard if you always use that search feature before you ask a question it’s already been discussed 400 times…
Enjoy and cheers!
