There is no easy way to deal with this type of situation. Have you ever had a customer that is just never happy? Have you ever walked into a customer’s home to do an initial bid and thought to yourself “anything would be an improvement here”. Well, I’d like to share a situation that has recently happened to us and how we are handling it. About 6 months ago we received a call to do a bid for a customer that wanted to remove all of her carpeting and linoleum and replace it with concrete stain -upon arriving at the customer’s home we noticed there was an obvious lack of housekeeping skills and the lingering aroma of many pets. We gave the customer a quote she was happy with and proceeded a few weeks later to perform what was to be one of our most challenging jobs yet. Not only was the demolition part difficult because of the filth but throughout so was the customer – one of those that finds fault in everything you do, you know the type. At the start of this project we realized we were in for a fun ride. We worked diligently on this spec house - 4 full days of scrubbing off all the signs of a quickly built house on an unevenly poured and severely cracked slab. “Oh no… what have we gotten ourselves into” kept running through our heads. But, what is a contractor to do in this situation? As a good business rule, you continue on to give your customer a smile and an honest effort to maintain your reputation and quality. So, we kept on. We pressed through the smell, the attitude, and the 40 plus hours of scrubbing and had one of the cleanest floors in south Texas. We were proud and had a grand sense of accomplishment… completion… victory… when her floor was clean. We proceeded to stain her floor with a diluted Aged Leather solution; which made even this one bitter customer happy, and proceeded to seal it with three coats of HardBright clear sealer. Upon completion we left her with detailed instructions, as always, as to how to take care of the floors. She had wrought iron dinning chairs so we made sure to specifically point out the paragraph referencing gouging and how to avoid them with furnishings by placing felt pads on the furniture. We also made sure she knew how to clean the floors (that wasn’t one of her best attributes). She was ecstatic! Completely thrilled with the turnout- and we wore biggest smile of all as we drove away with a check in hand. The holidays came and went and Happy New Year… she’s back. She called us one glorious morning to inform us that her stain was “coming up”. We immediately knew she had not followed the customer care sheet but agreed to met with her to show complete customer service. Upon arrival we discovered what we had expected… she had not put felt pads on her chairs and had large gouges in her floor. She also had cleaned her floor with an over the counter cleanser that was made of stripping agents- She had stripped her floor when she attempted to mop. Additionally, she had set an ice chest full of what once was ice on her floor and left it there for over a month- she wondered why there were so many problems with this floor, which was to be “indestructible”. We explained what had happened with the chairs, stripping agents, the ice chest and reminded her of the customer care sheet she was given and signed. We agreed to fix the problem she had created for a price. This answer, of course, not the one she wanted to hear so she sought out answers that would suite her ear. She called on other concrete contractors in the area and got their opinions. After the calls we were told that according to other contractors we did not prepare the floor properly, we did not put enough sealer on the floor, we didn’t use quality products, etc… all the answers that would get them a job and make us look bad. If you have been in the industry for any amount of time I am sure you have had similar situations happen to you. It makes you wonder, how do the contractors know what kind of condition the floor was in prior to the stain? How do the contractors know the amount of sealer placed on the surface? How can they possibly know what brand of products we used? And most of all, how do they know the type of customer we had to deal with? This brings me to my point. Fixing other contractors work is never the line of business to be in whether you truly need the job or not. As skilled and trained contractors verbally judging one another’s work will only give the industry a bad rap. With such a rapidly growing industry it is in our best interest to stick together so that the industry’s quality professionals continue to grow. How much time do you want to spend with problem customers? Wouldn’t you rather spend your time making money and not making judgments and creating bad industry vibes? If you are trained and skilled you know when you walk onto a customer’s house whether the job is good or not. I have to admit there are those jobs that an untrained contractor will do and will make your stomach turn to look at. However, most are not unsightly. And in these situations, the few times when we have been called in on this type of circumstance, we have made it a point to never publicly discuss our opinions of the contractor work because we don’t know all the variables involved. We also put ourselves in the other contractor’s shoes and think of the amount of work they had put into the job and what they must have been up against- always backing the contractor-. We try to find out who the original contractor was and then we call them. By talking with the contractor it allows us to share ideas and information that may help the original contractor deal with the situation. If at that point the contractor doesn’t want to do any further work for the customer it gives us a complete history in order to make an educated decision. Typically, if a customer is complaining and is looking to fix a floor that looks good already- then guess what. You will more than likely find that the fix it job you just spent a week working on to make yourself the hero just emptied your pocket book. Knowing your competition and developing those relationships will only help grow the industry and your business. In this situation, we received no call from the re-bidding contractor. So, we found out who they were and we called them. We professionally informed them as to the steps we took in performing the job. We let them know that we sent the customer a certified letter accepting no fault but we were willing to redo her floors for a price. She declined our offer but we had made a documented effort. In conclusion, set your goals for the future to build not only a good strong business for yourself but for the industry as a whole. Get to know the contractors in the area and don’t waste your time beating a dead horse on jobs that only end up robbing you. PS: If you would like to discuss other industry issues, please feel free to send me an e-mail. We are always looking to network with other contractors to learn more from each other and make our industry better. Melissa Cuthbert Details Decorative Concrete detailsdecorativeconcrete@yahoo.com | Home | Products Page | Decorative Concrete Gallery | Training | Technical Data | About us