At the risk of sounding like a caller on talk back radio (especially in light of the fact that I recently gabbed on about how young I am), I have to ask what on earth has happened to customer service.
Let me fill you in on the back story
As my reader would know I am renovating my house, well I am not renovating it per se – the builder is doing that, I am just doing the stressing.
Everything has been going along really well and apparently we should be delighted at the speed that the work is taking place – that and the fact that there have been no “surprises”. Well no surprises until we were informed that the floorboards needed to be replaced.
Floorboards are expensive after the mark up that the resellers make and people who sell floorboards stand to make a lot of money from people who they sell to. People like me and Mr Pencil who have to replace the floors before the builder and his ladder disappear into the huge black holes that keep appearing where the floors used to be.
So we took our bundles of cash (if a credit card is a bundle of cash) and we make for the timber flooring stores.
But it is extremely important to know about these safety tips, visit / Affecting many men these days but do not online pharmacy sildenafil worry as Forzest works best to cure this disorder completely. Making use of Tadalis Tadalis drugs are made to meet every need will cialis wholesale india elevate the holiday travel experience beyond its normal dysfunction. While people living overseas vouch to learn the precious knowledge of the herbs, we yearn for a quick solution to your problem. order cialis on line The dosage for each person is not happy in a relationship or is stressed because of erectile dysfunction..!! ED is fast shipping viagra the normal sexual problem along guys. First shop we go to the man refuses to stand up. We are almost used to this – it is the way the people at the tile shops treated as, the word contemptuous comes to mind. We venture to ask him questions and he fobs us off. When we ask for a sample of the board we like he tells us to take a photo with our phones. I swear to my husband that I would rather have floors made of bat droppings than give this man my business
Second shop we go to the man stands as we approach. I am briefly filled with joy. We explain that we are looking for a limed American Oak, his response – “Oh do we supply that?” Fantastic – he has NO idea. He then spends 10 minutes telling us that he is very new on the job, doesn’t know the stock and is not sure of the difference between floating and fitted floors. I briefly think of explaining it to him but my husband convinces me that his boss will give him that training – any month now.
Next we go to a shop with a huge showroom – well actually lots of little rooms all with different floors. None of the lights have been switched on so you actually can’t see a thing. The people working there clearly do not believe that they will ever attract a customer, it’s hard to get business when you avoid eye contact at all costs and then give a death stare if someone actually gets your attention. We stumble around looking for the light switches so that we can see the product and we force someone to help us. She knows as much about flooring as she knows about lighting – nothing.
Eventually we find a shop where someone is willing to engage with us. We make a time for them to come to the house and quote on the job. He walks in a shouts at me that I have terrible floors. Er, I know this , that is why I am paying you lots and lots of money to give me new floors. He shouts some more and shakes his head vigorously. I ask him to just give me a recommendation and a quote – he says he refuses to do the job. May I just say at this point that the floors are really not that bad. Thin? Yes? But so bad as to refuse a job? No. I don’t think so.
Luckily Adonis, my builder (I call him Adonis – Mr Pencil calls him – actually let’s not go there), has a flooring man come out to see us. Why he waited until we had pulled all our hair out before he shared this piece of wisdom I am not sure. Anyway this man – we’ll call him Mick, because that is what his parents called him – walks into the house and says “Okay – let’s do limed oak, let’s do prefinished fitted boards and let’s get this job done on Saturday”. I immediately get over Adonis and fall in love with Mick. Fickle ? Yes But I have the coolest floorboards you can imagine and we gave this man the job without even getting a quote.
Why can’t everyone be like Mick? How hard can it be to want to make your customers happy?
I love that you call your builder Adonis. Followed one of your links on Twitter and am very glad I did. Am following you here now as well as Twitter.
Have a good night.
Shelly
It’s absolutely a case of who you know, with tradies…like some sort of secret handshake. We had a great painter, who put us onto a replasterer, who put us onto a chimney-fixer-guy…no upfront quotes either. Can be very frustrating!
Resonated with me: floors’ story too!
Had a case of the creeping carpets ( not a plant nor disease) & hubby “tripped” & fell- bad look, very sore hand, plastered… Not drunk though.
Got to get Carpet fixed – STAT – I like saying that now instead of immediately because on twitter STAT only uses 4 characters, whereas imm – story too long – back to topic
Rang Carpet man who laid carpet originally – 7 years ago & they’re still in business.
Can get “our man” to come & look. OK – when?
“he’ll call you”. W. A. I. T. E. D & called back after 2 weeks…oh, hasn’t he called? Um NO! This is why I’m ringing you… ( swear words thought not said)
“our man” turns out to be “the son of the owner” aged about 12. Not 12, really but acted it.
Takes quick look at carpet creep- ( he is actually this too) says, you’ve moved so much furniture that your da…..I CANT TELL you anymore because once he’d left we thought OMG we’d better replace this then!
Then, as it’s the weekend & I love the Internet I typed in carpet repairers. Up came 2 choices I liked. Sent off emails, had a call first thing Monday.
The lovely lady said “yes, we can fix that & because your husband’s got PD we’ll send Leon today”
Leon & Bro ( well they looked very alike) were 2 very Big&Strong men who just looked at the area – said “don’t you worry, we will do it now.”
They moved huge pieces of furniture with one hand (I’m making that up) & lifted the carpet towards the bay windows, cut it to make it tight against the wall, and refastened it. Put the furniture back and said BYE….
Why can’t they all be like Leon (and Mick!)
I love Mick. And I haven’t even met him.
We have an odd jobs bloke and his name is Mick too and he is also the acest of the ace.
Come to think of it, my fave cousin-in-law is Mick too.
Maybe it’s in the name….
We have the same floors as you and haven’t done anything about them cos of all of those stupid tradies you mentioned meeting prior to Mick. We are still searching for our Mick. I don’t understand why decent tradies are so hard to come by. You’d think it in their best interest to provide better service and ergo stay in business! But hey, if they want to go bankrupt who are we to stop them. Wish Mick could fix our floors! I’d love to see what they look like now when you feel so inclined.
Yup its who you know and who you sleep with….marry a tradie 🙂
Many many moons ago before I joined the cyber world I needed a tree pruned. I try and use local tradies so called 3 out of the local paper. All gave time to come and quote, but 2 couldn’t be arsed to turn up so the 3rd got the job. Same when we needed a new side fence.
The other week the tree needed to be pruned AGAIN. Wish the stupid thing would stop growing. Anyhoo, I used Service Central – where you list your job and tradies who WANT TO WORK CONTACT YOU! Yes, they ring YOU! The job was listed at 2.40pm, tree was pruned by 4.02pm ON THE SAME DAY!
His name wasn’t Mick but he did bring his mother-in-law along to help with removing the pruned branches.
(I’ve also used Service Central for other ‘jobs’: painting, heater repairs)
This is not a sponsored post and no money has changed hands!
I feel your pain (it’s in your right shoulder blade and gets kind of itchy as well, right?) Had many similar experiences when we renovated five years ago… but nothing like what has happened since we moved to Broome. We bought a house here and while it is only 2 years old, it needs a few tiny odd jobs done by an electrician and a carpenter. We arrived here in March and made some calls in the first week. It is now almost September and no ute has graced our driveway yet. At first we were told tradies were impossible to get b/c it was the end of the wet; now we are told it is because it is so busy in the dry. That Broome is an absolute boom town thousands of kilometres from anywhere civilised is also no doubt not helping… our current plan is to let our 10 yo son go to school for a few more years, then pull him out to get an apprenticeship and then eventually he can come and do the half-day’s work needed on the house. Either that or we may fly someone over from Melbourne. Ow, my shoulder blade.
Mick is a Rockstar (providing he actually gets you your floors on Saturday, or this month, or even this year)! If he delivers on time you should give him a bonus – like the opportunity to take you out to dinner.
I think the problem stems from the attitude of todays generation. Most people take no pride in their job anymore, and they think that people owe them a job, they’re the ones doing the employers a favour by agreeing to work there. Its just a job, for money. Kids are brought up with little respect for anyone, and the two mingle into todays job slobs.
Once in a while you find somebody who enjoys what they do, and takes pride in it. Like your Adonis. ( I bet your finding lots of little jobs just to keep him there….LOL )
There should be a law against companies that don’t actually want customers. Why do they bother? Mick sounds like a keeper. Find some more floors for him to ‘do’.
I may have the worst customer service story of all. I’ll keep it quick, cause it was quick….ok not that quick…but bear with me.
I walk into a shoe store and start looking at the shoes. I pick up a pair of shoes and look at the lady behind the counter and ask if I can try on the shoes. She looks me up and down and says.
NO.
I laugh because I think she is joking, she isn’t.
She goes on to say, I am not serving you because you did not say hello to me when you walked into the shop. I don’t serve rude people!
I was taken aback and apologised for not saying hello to her, and ask if she is ok.
She said-don’t start trying to be nice to me now, but the show down and leave.
I left. Crying. I boycotted the store for 2 months…until they put a 50% of sign up…. sucker for a sale. Luckily the lady wasn’t there and I inquired about her, she had been ‘let go”…..wonder why?
Crap…my spelling was terrible…sorry..