Some days it just seems like the moon is full and nothing can go right.
Here's one incident as an example...
Had a customer today who called our office and read the staff the riot act...several times! They were complaining about the fact that we were not there in the morning yet we arrived on site just around noon after contending with a deck strip that had 3 layers of paint and a primer coat that we were unaware of. This created an extended amount of time on the site and me and my crewman were so busy trying to get the job done that we were not aware of the time that had elapsed in the process.
Needless to say, when I got the call from the office about what happened to them, I was not happy. The client was never told they had to be home for the process and it is even described in out literature for those who are not home when we give the estimate.
To make a long story short...I called the customer and let them know we were on our way but I needed to discuss their conduct with our office personnel. I let them know that regardless of the problem they had, there was no cause to verbally abuse anyone including shouting into the phone and that before our relationship could continue it was to be understood that this type of conduct was not acceptable to us as it surely would not be tolerated by them if the opposite was the case.
It turns out that the person had some personal issues to deal with and it boiled over into the conversations. Overall, by the time I arrived on site, the person had already called the office and .... apologized to those they spoken out of line with and informed me upon my arrival of this as well.
I thanked them kindly for that gesture and asked them if they had any further questions or concerns I could address with them before we started the work...they posed their questions and the conversations took place in a courteous manner and all went well after that...but what a thing to have to deal with.
We have a policy that we will not tolerate any verbal abuse of any kind from our customers. We expect to receive the same courtesy as they do from us in any communication. This is business and we believe there is no reason for either party to conduct themselves with any less respect than they expect to receive.
Anyone else ever had to put the customer in their place for being out of line and throwing a temper tantrum on the phone?
Some days it just seems like the moon is full and nothing can go right.
Here's one incident as an example...
Had a customer today who called our office and read the staff the riot act...several times! They were complaining about the fact that we were not there in the morning yet we arrived on site just around noon after contending with a deck strip that had 3 layers of paint and a primer coat that we were unaware of. This created an extended amount of time on the site and me and my crewman were so busy trying to get the job done that we were not aware of the time that had elapsed in the process.
Needless to say, when I got the call from the office about what happened to them, I was not happy. The client was never told they had to be home for the process and it is even described in out literature for those who are not home when we give the estimate.
To make a long story short...I called the customer and let them know we were on our way but I needed to discuss their conduct with our office personnel. I let them know that regardless of the problem they had, there was no cause to verbally abuse anyone including shouting into the phone and that before our relationship could continue it was to be understood that this type of conduct was not acceptable to us as it surely would not be tolerated by them if the opposite was the case.
It turns out that the person had some personal issues to deal with and it boiled over into the conversations. Overall, by the time I arrived on site, the person had already called the office and .... apologized to those they spoken out of line with and informed me upon my arrival of this as well.
I thanked them kindly for that gesture and asked them if they had any further questions or concerns I could address with them before we started the work...they posed their questions and the conversations took place in a courteous manner and all went well after that...but what a thing to have to deal with.
We have a policy that we will not tolerate any verbal abuse of any kind from our customers. We expect to receive the same courtesy as they do from us in any communication. This is business and we believe there is no reason for either party to conduct themselves with any less respect than they expect to receive.
Anyone else ever had to put the customer in their place for being out of line and throwing a temper tantrum on the phone?
Rod~
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