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Re: Whats the most annoying thing customers do?
Sorry but I’d put that down to bad business practice rather than annoying customers. I always tell them that I’ll need paid on completion and if machine is not draining it’s water I’ll tell customer on the phone that I’d expect to fix it on my first visit and it’ll cost between £40 and £60 or whatever your charges are.
Don’t be afraid to tell the customer your terms before they drag you out 💡 , suppose you’ve learned that now anyway.
HTH
Bryan
Re: Whats the most annoying thing customers do?
Correct – you got conned into a free estimate……
Chris.
Re: Whats the most annoying thing customers do?
Free estimates… bad news.
I’m sorry but my opinion is that anyone doing this in this business is off their chump. I know, it’s a contentious remark but it’s what I think of the practice.
It costs money to get there. You spend the time and your expertise diagnosing the problem only to be told that some other muppet quoted a few quid less. Not for me I’m afraid.
I might have mentioned (once or twice ;)) my cure for this awful disease that plagues this trade. Tell customers that it’s a free estimate if the repair bill is, oh let’s say, less that £100 and if it is less to repair than that and your estimate is refused that you charge a fee of some sort.
If nothing else it quickly gets rid of the chancers.
K.
Re: Whats the most annoying thing customers do?
thats all very well when you are busy.
i am not i have only had 1 job off repairs@ customer not in i suppose that is bad business practice as well even though i had called and arranged a time.
i am sure i am not the only one to have been conned by a customer.Re: Whats the most annoying thing customers do?
I wasn’t criticising what you did, merely the concept in general as I don’t hold with it and never have done or, for this business, will ever. I know that it’s a competition thing but mostly, in my experience, it was the ones that when given anything more challenging than a set of Hotpoint carbons to change would be baffled, would offer a free estimate.
That’s just my local experience of it and so I have never, ever done a free estimate in my puff regardless of the work levels. Don’t ever intend to do one either, running about for free is not my bag.
But that’s what’s right for my business, I’m not stopping anyone doing anything but I can still have an opinion. 😉
TBH in your case I’d have sent them a bill and then pursued it, but that’s the way I have operated for years as the fees are explained up front before the call is even logged.
K.
Re: Whats the most annoying thing customers do?
suedehead1 wrote: customer not in i suppose that is bad business practice as well even though i had called and arranged a time.
Ah yes , that’s definitely one of the most annoying things customers do and been mentioned many times on this thread.
Bryan
Re: Whats the most annoying thing customers do?
Since I stopped accepting cheques back in November last year. (I now only accept cash or cards as payment). Whilst 99.99{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} are very happy for their debit or credit card to be processed, it has brought out a few odd responses I must admit. 😕
This afternoon I replaced a pair of Creda FHP brushes (like you do – £85 quid, thanks very much cock….only kidding on that last bit by the way 8) ) And my customer hands me his Visa Debit Card. Whilst I’m firing up my GPRS thingymejig I inspect the card and it’s not been signed on the back? 😕 I ask if he has any other cards and he shows me his company credit card which is signed. I suggest that he sign his debit card using my pen, he backs off and says that he is currently in the process of changing his signature ‘cos he apparently is not happy with his old one? Oh yes, pull the other one mate! :rolls:
Anyway, as signatures aren’t the end of the world as far as processing cards are concerned I ask him if he knows his PIN number, and can key it in for me? Ah, now spookily enough he can’t, his excuse being this time that if he was in front of a Cashpoint machine then he could do it? But standing in his kitchen pressing 4 numbered keypads followed by the green enter button eluded him?…all very strange?
Finally, I suggested I process this debit card as a CNP transaction (Customer Not Present) and for that to succeed I would at least need his full Postcode address?…Another problem there it seems, he can’t recall his Postcode?….oh deary me? 😯
Well that’s it then my friend, it’s either cash or I take the brushes out, your choice, what’s it to be?
Wait a minute he says, dashes upstairs and comes back with the cash.My gast is flabbered, he’s got the dosh all the while! 😯
Whether it was his machine, his house even or his actual debit card, I will never know? All I do know is that my ‘no cheques’ ruling seems to be paying off. 8)
Customers eh?….A very odd bunch indeed ❗
Re: Whats the most annoying thing customers do?
WHEN YOU GO TO A MONTH OLD MACHINE, THE MOTORS BURNT OUT AND THEN THEY SAY..”SHOULD IT DO THAT?….. 💡 💡
Re: Whats the most annoying thing customers do?
When they help by getting the machine ready for you. Its in the middle of the kitchen drained with no way of connecting drainage or waste up.
Two today 👿Tony C
Re: Whats the most annoying thing customers do?
Re Martins post about cheques, I take cheques from anyone, and never bother with cheque guarantee cards. I have had two cheques bounce in the last ten years, In both cases, I got paid later. Am i lucky, or just terminally naive?
Re: Whats the most annoying thing customers do?
Just got back tonight after my regular Sunday thrash on the squash court, message on answerphone re washer repair.
Rang her back, time 7.00PM on a Sunday night, she said “do you do free estimates, and can you come now” 😈
As I had managed to draw my game of squash against a copper who is 17 years younger than me I was in a good mood so asked for the make of machine, then told her I didn’t repair them and put the phone down. Don’t know what make her machine was because I wasn’t really taking any notice. 😉
Jim.
Re: Whats the most annoying thing customers do?
Martin wrote:You’ve just arrived at the call, she asks if I would like a cup of tea? You say “No thanks, just had one!” (your in a hurry, your concern is fixing the fault on the machine then off to the next job!)
Just at the point where you are carefully listening to hear if the pump is working on her machine…. she turns on the kettle and the noise drowns out everything for 5 minutes or more until the kettle boils and switches off!
Then you have to move your toolbox so she can get the milk out of the fridge, you then block her access to the cupboard where the teabags are kept………..and so on………after which time you wished you had said “yes” to a cup of tea all along then just sat back for 15 minutes reading the paper or maybe go in her front room and watched the telly instead !!!!
MartinThat’s exactly what happened to me today – I’m so glad Im not the only one this happens too !
When they ring your work phone at 11:15 pm! :O
When they argue about something the ‘call centre’ told them. (It wasn’t the call centre, it was me. Just because I’m female doesn’t mean I’m the call centre.)
When they argue about your diagnosis (it’s the timer! I’m telling you, it’s the timer!) right up until the moment you’ve fitted the element (or pump, or whatever) and it works. Then they’re amazed. 😛
I could go on, and I’m still new to this game. 😉
Re: Whats the most annoying thing customers do?
When the whole family from grandchild to grandfather take turns to come into where you are working and ask what the problem is….you end up explaining that the TOC on their dryer has failed possibly due to this, that or the other only to repeat the whole lot again 30 sconds later. After the 5th time I start to loose my rag and feel like going a bit Basil Fawlty and demand a family gathering (“maybe those long emigrated relations in Australia might like to pop over for this too”) so I only have to explain this once for god sake!
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