What costs are you cutting
So I finally got my floors done about a week ago. I signed with the same person that has done two other jobs for me in the last 10 years. He was hurting for business. I was happy to give it to him and since I know a few people who were itching to spend their tax refund, I figured I’d refer them to him as well. Win, win, win, all the way.
Well…until I came home that Friday afternoon, when I was supposed to walk into my house and admire my brand new floor.
The new floor in the living room was nice, but I was too distracted to notice it. My furniture was in the kitchen. The baseboards weren’t done, and the hallway carpet was ripped off but not replaced. Apparently there was a “problem” with “something” and they have to come back and finish another time.
It wasn’t a problem with my guy, but I guess in an effort to cut costs and compete on pricing, he is now working with cheaper installation people…and they were able to charge cheap because they book a whole bunch of installations at once, start several projects just to hook the customers — when your floors are already ripped off, would you be calling someone else?
Now, I’m a reasonable person, except he agreed that the job would be COMPLETED before the end of the day. Sure, issues can come up, we can’t help that, but none of it was communicated to me.
Furious, I demanded that the job be done that night, or I wasn’t going to pay. (My ex-husband did say that I was the customer from hell…it would be a shame not to live up to the expectation). I did not put down any deposit whatsoever and agreed to pay 10 days after the job was completed.
My guy eventually had to go find some other installer to finish the job and he didn’t find one until late. But the job was done that night. My guy and his installer was working in my house until 1 am.
Oh but there’s more to the story!
The following morning I went into my garage and found that everything was covered in sawdust. Because they were working late the previous night, the installers cut wood inside the garage instead of the driveway to avoid making excessive noise and having my neighbors call the cops. Sure, that’s fine, but for crying out loud, clean up. Vacuum or something.
So I called my guy again and he saw the thick layer of dust in my garage. He knew it was his responsibility to clean up, so he offered to take off $100 from the total price and labeled it as “cleanup.”
The moral of the story…
We’re all hurting due to the economy and we’re all tightening our belts. But what sorts of corners are we cutting? Does it adversely affect customer experience? Are you losing clients because of your cost-cutting measures? I could’ve brought “my guy” more business through referrals and even though I still like him, I’m not so sure about the service vendors he’s using.
My guy not only lost whatever future business I have to offer plus referrals, he had to knock off $100 from the total amount I owe him. I’m ok, my floors are ok, my garage got cleaned up…but I wonder if he is aware how much cutting corners ended up costing him.
