How about a potential customer survey!!!

Mark Wolff

How about a potential customer survey to weed out the whiners, 20 call per dayers, LATE PAYERS, want a low price done fast and ALL THE EXTRA's.

1. Are you an engineer or school teacher?

2. How many engineers or school teachers are you friends with?

3. Can I run a credit check on you before we order these parts?

4. Will you be paying by cash, check or credit card?

5. How many other service companies have you called about this problem?

6. What gives you the idea you know more about this than me?

7. How many animals live in your home?

8. How many children?

9. Can you provide the names and contact phone numbers for the last 5 contractors who have done work on your home?

10. Who was the last person to touch (whatever they want to have fixed).



Come on all you other contractors out there, I know you've been waiting for this. I've seen enough of the contractor grill special, anybody else got some gripes about customer attitudes?

Mark Eatherton1

Boy...

seeings as how a lot of my customers frequent this site, I'd keep any complaints I have close to the vest.

Don't know about you Mark, but I'm not into biting the hands that feed me:-)

ME

DanHolohan

Very, very

wise.

Dave DeFord

But Mark does bring up a good point...

This is indeed a two way street. If you expect good service from your contractor you need to take care of them. Actually I started one this morning but a slip of the finger blew it away. It was a little more tongue in cheek than Mark's but he does bring up some valid points. As someone who has owned a business(s) and seen things from both sides there is a need for both types of questionnaires.

Bill_14

Some folks

enjoy being in business and some would rather be very negative. These negative folks should be doing something else for a living.

There is no person or no form that will guarantee that every single business relationship is warm and fuzzy for you. The businessperson, regardless of the type of business, has to make good things happen with or without the assistance of the customer. If this person cannot do this a majority of the time through his/her efforts, hard work, experience, etc., then this person needs to make yet another career decision.

Treat each and every customer with respect and you might be surprised at the outcome.

Mark Eatherton1

Well said Bill...

I couldn't have said it better.

ME

Steve Ebels

Ditto Bill

Dad always said, "You don't have to go to Vegas to gamble, just start up your own business".

Mad Dog

Very witty, Wolfman,...and true , but

Thank GOD! a solid majority of customers are pretty decent to very good. We get one or two a month who should be thrown in the Gulag, who live up to every little quip you gave us. Moreover, the people who use FIND A PROFESSIONAL are overwhelmingly outstanding. Are you LISTED? If not...do it, and you won't focus on the losers and let them get you down like I used to. Mad Dog

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DanHolohan

There's some

wise advice. So true.

Mark Wolff

True Enough

I just think some customers might want to consider what the other side of the fence deals with, whether its the person who chews down bids to bare minimums then when its installed wants gold plated pipes to go with everything or the one that calls thirty times because they think they heard a noise in the system, when really their neighbors car backfired, or the guy that spends the next 2 weeks asking every do it yourselfer to come critique your work and after finding nothing wrong still asks if it could have been done A)cheaper or B)quicker or C)all of the above.

Most of our customers are great. In general there are no complaints, but sometimes the tendency is to overevaluate the competence of the contractor when the customer has no basis of understanding to accurately judge said contractor by.

Nothing personal and I know most of you have too many customers in the immediate viscinity to say much, but hopefully this will at least stimulate some thought in a few of those homeowners we wouldn't even want to pass off to our worst enemy.

Mad Dog

I hear ya Wolfman..and yes many present, past, and future

clients of ours lurk in the shadows at The Wall, but that does not affect what I say too much. As many here know, I don't pull punches and often take controversial stands. I know exactly the lookie loo, pain in the neck people you are talking about. We avoid them as much as possible. It starts when they initially call: "How were you recommended to us???....Do you realize that we are often more expensive than the rest? Yes, we do come out for free estimates if you are a regular customer..otherwise there is a nominal fee of XXXXXX. We find that this weeds most of the cheapos and lookie loos right out. That is why I love the Wall so much.....98% of the folks that call from here are sick of the bozoz, appreciate what we do, and will pay the freight. Don't get me wrong I still let the bums get me down sometimes, but then i think how they really aren't that common in the scheme of things and with our "screening" process in place. Mad Dog

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