How to React to Customer Complaints
Has this ever happened to you?
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You work on the job site or you get that phone call that says “We have a problem”?
All I can think about is, “There goes the profit”, and “what did we do?”
I will tell you the story in a second.
I am Ron Ramsden and I am a DYB Coach, also painting contractor up here in
New England.
I worked on the job site yesterday, and they told me, we have a problem, the customer says the electrical outlets aren’t working in the Master bathroom and in the Master bedroom, and we are to blame.
A little side note: The customer is a retired attorney, and this job has been on the books for about 3 months in the schedule and it kept getting pushed off.
She’s also asked for extras which we did, without a signed additional work order.
So now I am like…“did we just give everything away for free?”
I also thought instantly, “What did we do?” “Who is to blame?”
This could have just blown this job from a ‘profit making’ project to a now, ‘not making any money’ project, and then I am going to actually have to write a check.
Keep Calm, Don’t React Immediately.
Instead of blowing up like I used to, and getting aggravated, I kept calm and said, “We’ll talk about this tomorrow, what can we do now?”
We decided that one of the guys was going to run back to the shop, get a tester and test out some of these plugs.
He’s kind of handy and we could see if the GFI was working and on so on.
Email or Call the Customer to Acknowledge the Problem
We didn’t do anything for the rest of the day, but the guys continued painting this condo.
I emailed the homeowner the next morning, and sad I understood her concern.
The subject line was “Painting update and electrical issues.”
And I explained to her that…“ we are going to be finishing up the project tomorrow, I have attached the invoice for final payment, and I understand we have an electrical issue, and this is what we can do for it”
Diagnose the Problem
We will have an electrician, either my electrician or her electrician come up and diagnose what the problem is.
If The Problem Resulted From Your Activity, Offer A Remedy.
If it is something that was related to taking on and off the receptacle covers and switch plate covers, we would be more than happy to take care of it.
If it is something else, obviously it would fall under her hands.
She responded back that she didn’t think that was fair, that I should at least pay for something.
And then I had a conversation with her on the phone, I said, “If you go to someone’s house and you flush their toilet and it leaks… would you be responsible? Or is it just the old pipes?”
She understood.
We kept calm and we talked us through the whole situation, she talked to me, I talked to the crew leaders who were included.
I mean, years ago, I would have been off the wall, and the reason for this post is, before you react to something on the job, take a step back, maybe sleep on it, before reacting.
I hope this helped, sharing my story with you of what just happened.
If you would like to reach out to me, it’s ron@dybcoach.com.
Send me an email, I chat with people all the time.
Also, find me on Facebook, I would love to talk, thank you.