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Simple answer...we have all established a set of principles that we live by and morals that we follow, at what dollar value do we allow ourselves to be treated with less respect than we treat others with? For me it's zero, treat me with respect and I will treat you with the same and also treat you fairly. If I have to dig ditches or flip hamburgers the rest of my life so be it, I would not have tolerated this clowns behavior for one second, he treated you unfairly and in his feeble mind probably blames you personally for his own idiotic mistake. At no dollar value would I sell out the the principles by which I live, I don't care how many people he told, how many customers I lost, or if I ever worked in the field again...

Originally posted by infwsdm
After he told you to get the F@#$ out of his house you should have said. "I'll take that coke now"

Yeah, but I'd rather drink it than wear it

After he told you to get the F@#$ out of his house you should have said. "I'll take that coke now"

Very well said, Penguin. Yes, that does appear to be the case, with a few exceptions like maybe some restaurant owners who want to pay you in wontons

I really get the feeling that there is a marked difference between commercial customers and residental customers and expectations from the customers of the contractor. I think most business owners and property managers have more realistic ideas about what it costs to run a business and the cost of doing business and are more reasonable about charges for silly things like stats being switched off or breakers turned off etc. Residental customers I think tend to not be able to understand that it costs $ to send a tech to his door and fix something that the home owner could have easily done him self if his head wasn't up his butt. They also do not take into consideration that the tech could have been charging another customer the $$ to fix some other call. lastly a "free call" costs the co twice what was NOT charged cause the tech could have been making money at another call instead.

I would have told him..........

I should have explained, you don't need to turn the breaker off to change the filter. Next time just shut it off with the thermostat. I'm glad to see you pay such close attention to your filter! No charge sir.

Good happy word of mouth and having this guy run sales for me is way more important that $40. But I live in a small town, I have to "Think like Andy Taylor"

Re: usaf hvac retired

Originally posted by baub
You were right 100%, that you deserved the service call. But was it worth the $40 to PO a new customer. My response would have been, " Quality customers like you, get one free-bee. Glad it was a small problem, but the next non-warranty call will be billed at my normal rate."

JMO... what do I know, I just keep the beer cold, and a 99c bag of ice can do the same job.

I think baub is right on the money with this one. We have a saying we used when people like this get under our skin. "Do you want be right or do you want to be rich" Some times it's better to be wrong.

Originally posted by Dowadudda
His biggest point to me was. "Don't compete at the bottom".

Very wise indeed!!! I've been sayin it for years, but it falls on deaf ears. Most contractors are still competing with the "I can do it for less" sales? technique. All this does is hurt the whole industry.

Had a ho call in the winter and say the furnace fan wouldn't shut off. I asked if the fan switch on the thermostat was in the on position, they said it was not. Got there and the fan was in the on position. I charged them.

It's amazing to me sometimes how inconsiderate ho's can be. Like calling several repair companies at once. The first one who arrives gets the job. The others aren't called to cancel.

Maybe they don't realize that the commodity we sell is our time. You use it, you pay for it. I don't mind losing customers who disagree with that concept. They do not own me. They rent me for x amount of time. One way or the other, we all work by the hour. We have x hours per day/week/year to make x number of dollars.

I don't mind giving my time away for free, as long as it's *my* decision to do so. Like donating a tuneup to the American Cancer Society auction, but not to some butthead who just happens to think he's entitled to it.

[Edited by midhvac on 06-21-2004 at 02:23 PM]

It was broke when you got there, it worked when you left. Where's the question? You fixed it, you get paid!

I have gone on several service calls to repair whatever and all I have had to do was plug in an appliance. I charged them a service call and minimun repair rate which usually came out to around $140 for 10 minutes work including the paperwork.

Originally posted by usaf hvac retired
About 3 months ago, I helped the install crew put in a Trane heat pump, and matching A/H. All went well, the finished job looked good, the customer was happy, paid his bill and Life is great. This afternoon just before quitting time the dispatcher calls me and wants to know if Ill run an after hours warranty call to the same customer. She says he has no cooling and was rude on the phone. So I get there, the guy is super nice, offers me a coke, and says the A/C has worked great until it just quit working about 3 hours ago. I graciously declined the coke and told him I would rather get right to work... OK, T-Stat has no power, I go to A/H and check Power...Nothing... I look over at the subpanel and see the circ. breakers for the cond unit, a/h and hot water heater all in the OFF position. What the hell???...I turn on the breakers and everything fires right up. Well the customer is standing behind me and says "Oh I guess I forgot to turn them on after I changed the filter THIS MORNING". "Sorry about having to call you out for that"... I tell him Im glad thats all that was wrong but I would still have to charge him a $39.95 trip charge... Of course he asks about warranty, and I told him if it was broke we would fix it , but it wasnt broke...only off... So he says "OK Ill pay you". When we get to the top of the stairs I hear him say "you need to take your A$$ outside" I thought he was talking to his dog , but I dont see a dog, so I say "excuse me " and then he says "Get the f&#% out of my house ,Ill bring a f&#%ing check out to you.. I go out, write a quick invoice, he hands me a check, refuses to sign the invoice or take a copy and slams the door.
What do you all think ? Should I have given him a "freebie"? After all he did buy an entire system from us 3 months ago...Ive been doing this job for over 20 years, but I cant ever remember a customer turning on me like that...And it is bothering me or else I wouldnt have wrote this long post.
Thanks for "listening" guys, I feel better now

You are right. He is wrong. If it would have been me, I would have invited him into the street to discuss his language. Life is too short for a-holes like this.

[Edited by rob10 on 06-20-2004 at 08:51 PM]

usaf hvac retired

You were right 100%, that you deserved the service call. But was it worth the $40 to PO a new customer. My response would have been, " Quality customers like you, get one free-bee. Glad it was a small problem, but the next non-warranty call will be billed at my normal rate."

JMO... what do I know, I just keep the beer cold, and a 99c bag of ice can do the same job.

There was a time when I probably would have agreed with you guys about not charging him, but those days are gone for me. One day I sat down and began to realize how many people I was taking it easy on with warranties, callbacks that were something entirely different, people who whined about the cost, friends, relatives, favors, etc. I wasn't charging enough money to begin with and all of those freebies and discounted bills were just making things worse. Then I began to think of things with a little more perspective, like how much business have these people I'm doing all of this stuff for sent me? The small amount of things I do for less or free now are reserved for those who do things for me.

The guy's such an butthead that he probably has no friends, and his relatives and neighbors probably don't listen to a word he says. You'll probably open the paper and read about him running amock in the neighborhood with an AK47 some day

I grew up in a small town. Make a few customers angry and suddenly you had no customers. Large cities you can make customers mad and get away with it because their are other customers.

However this is a lose/lose/lose situation. The home owner lost and is angry. The tech lost because he questions what he did. The company lost a future customer and gained lots of ill will and bad advertising. All of this over stupidity and $39.

What if your car was driving poorly and you took it to be fixed and the reason was the emergency brake was on but the light was out. They charge you $40. You would be outraged too. A little different situation here but same principle.

Like you said, room for everyone. In this case I still think Jim had the best solution.

Alex

It turned it off and forgot to turin it on. It's his damn fault, screw it, you're in the right.

I stand by every word I said and is basically in opposition of what your saying. Thats okay. Were both proffesionals. If I ran my self the way you just described, I would go bonkers. Thats just me. The fact that you find a different veiw and your own way of handling it is what this trade is all about. Diversity. But I am a competitive type of person. And I go to win. My philosphy is that I am willing to lose a few short fast races to win the long race. Your basically saying win the short races. Both ways work for the individual calling his own shots, but my long term thinking of this, the impact you say it would have is not what I have seen happen in my experiences.

I was at a really neat party last night and was speaking to a very important and succesful service contractor. This dude is one of the best. Over a couple beers, we were sitting and talking shop and I was truly enjoying the wisdom of this fellow. His biggest point to me was. "Don't compete at the bottom".

Go back and reread aznrgmgr's post. He is dead on target.

- One annoyed customer tells about 40 people who tell others. It will cost your business money.

- Unfortunately mistakes were made. The guy made one. You and the dispatcher are not 100% squeakly clean however. You helped install the unit. You knew it was a good install. You put in a good solid system and you did it right. So did you call and ask the customer for any details? Or did you just roll?

This reminds me of the story about a person calling the computer help desk. After a few questions the help tech asks the caller to lean over and check to see if the cable is connected to the computer and the callers says he'll try but its hard to see. Tech ask if its because of the computer's postion and the caller say no, cause its dark. Turns out the power was out due to a storm. The Tech then tells the customer he needs to box up computer and send it back. The caller says okay but what do I tell folks about why I sent the computer back? The tech says "Tell them you are too stupid to have a computer."

The tech was right but it gained no friends and pissed off a customer. Were you wrong? No. But, there was some oops everywhere.

I agree with aznrgmgr - and as a small business owner I think I would have eaten this one with a stern warning. $39 vs cost of new system plus one pissed off customer who could have been a customer for life (and might still be one if aznrgmgr's approach is used) is small price. An advertising spot costs more than $39 and may not get any responses.

As for the guy who says he would have charged 3x as much - its folks like him that give repairfolks a bad name.

So, were you wrong? No. Was it the best solution? No - and you know it our you wouldn't have made your post and be worrying about it. I'd be happy to have you work for me because you ARE concerned that maybe you didn't make the best decision.

Lastly, customer was wrong to speak to you in other than professional tone - even if he was pissed.

That's my 2 cents (and too many words!!)

Alex

He's lucky he got you and not me after a tough day

Dow beat me to it, but point number two is: Anyone around this guy for more than 5 minutes will figure out what you did, and his testamony on your co won't mean as much to them.

Originally posted by Frank_G
If you didn't charge him, it would happen again! As long as he thinks you'll respond for whatever stupid thing he does to sabatoge the system, he won't think twice about calling for service.

Don't fret about it any longer.

Frank

Frank is right....the guy is mad at himself for being stupid. The same thing happened to me, the guy was mad at himself and said he didn't care about the charge, but said he would hear about this from his wife for ever. You did it right.