40
NCA 16
071809
Caller: Can I ask you a quick question?
You sure can.
Caller: You got an employee out there, a solo cleaner, who messes up a job; misses something or doesn’t do something properly; you get a complaint from a customer. How do you handle that? Do you send the employee back the next day?
Yep. Absolutely. And I also, of course, like to weigh each situation somewhat individually. If it’s an employee that’s been with you a long time and hardly ever messes up and a lot of times you can just send that employee and say hey look, you didn’t make the kid’s bed and you didn’t pile up the toys into the toy box. And a seasoned employee would be like oh ok. I didn’t realize we needed to pile up the toys in the toy box. Well could you please take care of it? If it’s some new person and she probably just needs some more guidance then generally we’ll have a seasoned technician meet her there; preferably the person who trained her. So if she’s kind of new and you really don’t know or is it this new customer we took on and she’s kind of ultra picky and you know what I’m saying. So if you’re not real sure or if the tech is saying I did that. I’m telling you I did that. It won’t come off or whatever. We’ll send a manager and meet her there. And the manager can say, look this comes right off. Or the manager can go, you know what? You’re right. This is as clean as it’s going to get. I’ll let Jim know back at the office this lady is just overly picky. Looks like you got it as clean as anybody could. I’ll let them know. Then it’s just PR work. Ok well let’s spiff it up and show the client we couldn’t get it off even with a second try and then the client’s happy because you tried again and didn’t blow her off and the employee is encouraged because somebody saw that she didn’t really blow it. So depending on who it is, how often it’s happening, how new she is, we’ll either send someone so that we know or we’ll send a tech back who’s been with us awhile and let her take care of it herself. Does that help?
Caller: Yeah, but you have to pay those people who go back right? Do you pay the person who messed up as well going back? I know you have to pay the trainer.
We typically, of course, if we send a trainer to go meet her there, we pay her. If we send the tech back we don’t pay her. Now we make a judgment call. If the trainer calls in because we always have the trainer or the manager or the quality person call in and report what they found. If the quality control calls in and goes this is ridiculous. There was nothing wrong. I couldn’t even find the smudges on the mirror the lady is claiming. It’s ridiculous. Then we usually will pay both of them because it’s just PR work and we have an unreasonable customer and we’re not going to allow it to keep happening. That type of customer, the next time she calls and says I’m not happy with my mirrors, then we will obviously say something like oh ok let us know what was the problem so we’ll know for next time. We won’t let the customer abuse us. If the training manager calls up and says that was ridiculous. I don’t know how anybody could miss that. She just didn’t clean that mirror. She just didn’t. Then that girl was there on her own time.
Caller: Do you send the seasoned employee back; do you pay them as well if it was an honest mistake? You send in a seasoned employee back who does generally does a great job. Once in a while something is messed up. Do you pay them to go back?
Nope. We just say hey you need to stop by Mrs. So and So’s house. Yesterday you completely forgot to take out the trash can in the guest bedroom and it’s sitting right there in the open. Oh…well then she’s like really I missed that? Yeah you did. I don’t think there was a trash can in that room. Yeah there was. She goes back. She goes oh you’re right. I didn’t see that right there in the corner. Well that means you also vacuumed around it. No we don’t pay them. You would definitely check in your area to make sure you can do that. You don’t want to do anything that would violate the labor laws in your area. But because our pay is so high that even with that time that was unpaid, they would never even come close to earning minimum wage or below, then we’re safe. We’re safe. Obviously if a person were going back and doing so many redos and didn’t have that much work on them that their average dipped below minimum wage, you’d be in trouble. You would have to pay them. And that’s not going to happen anyway. You’re not going to allow somebody to have so many redos that they’re going back that often. So…but that’s the critical thing is nobody can average below minimum wage. So does that answer that?
Caller: Yes. It messes up their schedule too by having to go back.
Well. If they’re a seasoned tech and they have a full schedule, we’re talking a 10 minute stop in and maybe a 15 minute drive. So generally fine you just work an extra half hour today. You know what I’m saying? It shouldn’t mess it up. And if they’re doing one person cleaning, solo cleaning, their schedule is kind of loose, you know. And a lot of times we know the day before so you get a voice mail or you get a call the day before. You call her at home and say hey Margaret, I need you to start about 15 minutes earlier tomorrow morning and here’s why. Or I need you to stop by this house and take care of it first. She’s going to let you in at a quarter to 8 instead of 8:00. I’ve already called your other customer and told her you’ll be about 30 minutes late and since you normally arrive at 8, you’re going to get there at 8:30. So you can almost always make it work to where it’s not a disaster. The difference would be it was a first time clean. She’s furious. This wasn’t done and this wasn’t done and blah, blah, blah. Now we’re talking an hour to two hours. I’m almost always going to send someone to meet her there; a quality control manager to size it up. Did we really blow it? Or was this customer completely out of line because she turned down the top to bottom. She refused to pay for it. She insisted her house didn’t need it and now we’re going back playing catch up. See what I’m saying? I’m not going to zing that girl. I’m going to pay her. I’m the one that let the client have the general cleaning and now we’re eating it. If it were going to eat up her day and cause her to be late at her next job or miss her next job, we’re going to figure out a way to prevent that. We’ll have someone meet her there and share that job redo. Probably pay her. That kind of thing. Does that make sense? If she’s new and really just an unproven employee, we already know that we could get complaints because she’s new so I won’t have loaded her up on a dozen houses. New people are the most likely people to have some redos so she’s still at one house a day and she’s got to prove that she can clean complaint-free before I’m going to give her 2 a day. So you know what? You have a redo. That’s fine. I was going to give you another house tomorrow but I’m going to go ahead and give it to someone else. You’ve got a redo. You need to take your time and slow down. So it gives you time to get to know this person’s quality before you fill them up.
Caller: Thank you.
You’re welcome. Anybody else want to ask a burning question which we’re going to do some questions at the end anyway but if you want to…
Caller: Yes, I have a question Debbie. This is Marion from Canton, OH. I’ve been telling my customers if they have children, sometimes the toys are just overwhelming. I say would you mind picking up all the toys and all that and making sure their rooms are tidy if you wish us to come in and clean or we’ll have to charge you accordingly. No, No, I don’t want you to charge me for that. So more or less they pick up the toys but on occasion I guess because they work full-time jobs and they’re busy and all that, they don’t have time to do that. So sometimes it takes us an extra 15 minutes to do. I didn’t want to make waves because they’re good customers and I just didn’t…I guess I didn’t want to make waves but should I say something like…
Let me guide you with a different approach. When you say to a customer would you do this or I’m going to have to charge you for it. That’s a very negative sell. You’re there to simplify her life and make her life better and make it easier. If those toys are all over the place you’re not going to change their lifestyle or their patterns or their habits, but you are going to get a promise out of her that she probably won’t be able to fulfill. Ok? So instead of saying if you don’t do this, I’m going to have to charge you for it which is really negative. I’d rather you say as you’re doing your walk through now I notice this room has a lot of stuff all over the floors. Tell me what would help you most. Would you like for us to go ahead and plan on picking this up every time we come and clean and just putting it in the toy box very quickly or do you need us to pick all this up and neatly put it on the shelves and take maybe an extra 20-30 minutes every time and kind of organize it and try and put the puzzles with the puzzles and the Lincoln logs with the Lincoln logs. Do they even make that anymore? Ask her what she wants. Don’t tell her anything.
Caller: Yeah. You’re right. You are so right.
If she most people, understand you’re not doing anything for free. So she’s already getting it. If this is truly a need, I’m disorganized, I’m too busy and I never have time to pick up. If it’s truly a need, she’s not going to volunteer oh I’ll always have this picked up. If it’s a need she’s going to say well yeah go ahead and plan on picking all this up because I’m not sure I’ll be able to get to it. At least now you know. So you write down at the bottom of your sheet so you don’t forget. You write down your estimate of what you think. She’s either going to say well don’t spend too much time on it. Just pick it all up and throw it in the toy box. Oh ok great. So you write down 8 minutes. Or she’s going to say well no I don’t need somebody just picking stuff up and throwing it in the toy box. I could do that myself. I really need someone to pick it up and put stuff on the shelves where it belongs. Now you write down at the bottom of your sheet 30 minutes. Because you want to find out what does she want, not what do I want her to do? If she really doesn’t care, she’s going to try and save herself some money. Oh just pick it up and throw it in the toy box. I don’t care. So you can vacuum the floor. But if she is one of those people that’s kind of picky but sloppy, we’ve got lots of those, picky but sloppy. They’re picky because they want it done. They’re sloppy because they never seem to get it done. If she’s picky but sloppy she’s going to say well I don’t want you to just throw it in the toy box. I’d rather you take the time and organize it on the shelves and you can even say well you know what? I think I’ll go ahead and build in an extra half hour of time onto your quote. She’s either going to say oh you know what? My budget is tight. How about you just close the door and forget it. But if you get her to try to make a promise she’s never going to be able to deliver, it’s always going to be a tug-o-war. I didn’t charge her enough, now what do I do. She promised to pick it up so I didn’t charge her for it but it’s never picked up. Do I make her mad?
I would ask what do you want us to do with this room and like when we come into a house and it’s a complete disaster, it’s a wreck. We would never assume that it’s going to be the way she promises it will be. So don’t build your price around what she says it won’t look like. Build your price around what you see today. And so if the place is a wreck, kid’s room is a wreck, master bathroom has lotions and hair dryers and clothes and towels all over it and laundry piled up in the corner and you know what I’m saying and dishes in the sink and pizza boxes laying on top of the trash, I wouldn’t assume anything. I would say now as I’m walking through, if the house looks like this, do you want us to go ahead and load your dishwasher? Yes if it looks like this. Ok no problem. We can do that. If the kids’ bedrooms look like this tell, me how much time you want us to spend on this. Would you rather us really spend a good 30-40 minutes picking up and sorting and emptying trash and blah, blah, blah or do you want us to maybe spend only 10-12 minutes in here; empty the trash, throw all this junk on the floor on the bed after we make it and vacuum.? You’re going to hear one way or the other no go ahead and take the time to really clean it or no just give it 10 quick minutes. You’ll hear one or the other. Rarely will you hear oh no we’ll pick it all up. Now they will say that when you say we’ll you pick this room up because if you don’t I have to charge you more. Well then they’ll start making all these promises they can’t deliver. You’ve just reminded them of their nagging mother who always told them to pick up and they never could or their mother-in-law who criticizes them and they can’t seem to get it together. So just if we find it like this, how extensive do you want us to be. If we find your kitchen like this would you rather us wash up all those pots and pans and put them away for you or do you just want us to stack them back in the sink after we clean. Most people are going to say no, no go ahead and do them. Then build them into your price.
Caller: Your price is going to change then?
No, I would always charge them for that because I will assume it will always be a wreck and so I wouldn’t even assume that they’ll ever have it together no matter what they say. If the house is a wreck and they’re constantly promising oh don’t worry. This will be picked up. Oh don’t worry this won’t be here. Oh don’t worry. Oh don’t worry. It’s all through the house. They’re telling me it won’t look like the way it is today. I wouldn’t refute them or embarrass them.