What do you do about difficult customers?

[Sebculb]

Hi everybody, here's a question of a more philosophical nature rather than technical. For all you owner operators who do little jobs for people around the way, what do you do for people who want you to do things that are dangerous or abusive for the machine, or want a big expensive job done way faster and cheaper than is possible.

The first situation I generally attribute to over hopeful ignorance about what these things can do and how expensive it is to fix them.

The second situation, where people budgeted six hours for a job that could take two days, is generally signified by the customer getting agitated and making big waving motions with their arms, like I'm just not understanding and if I understood the the dirt would move itself faster.

Sometimes the situation degrades, I generally try to be polite even if I'm getting angry, and explain why I'm getting annoyed and apologising for getting annoyed but SORRY IT'S JUST NOT LIKE THAT! Too expensive to fix this thing and go flip your own Backhoe down the hill.

Rural Costa Rica, steep mountain terrain. Twenty one year old Deere 310d with 24k hours on it. Customers of limited means sometimes which also makes things difficult. Farm roads and rural building sites are the bread and butter.

Anyone have any perspectives or advice? I suppose this theme runs across all aspects of contracting.

Thanks!

Sebastian

 

[art]

Sebastian you must be near Golfito? Very interesting country and do enjoy it and your problem is not unique! You might want to leave yourself some reserve in your bidding process. There are some jobs you might not get because of not being the low bidder and you actually might enjoy watching the company who did get the job have the frustrations that you could have put on yourself. There are few people that would tell you if you did under bid and they would volunteer extra payment for it! Even with adding a little you still will find you didn't add enough and with the surprises you might find! I do enjoy the country and the roads do leave a bit to be desired! This past December we came from San Jose to San Isidoro and then down to Dominical on our way back to Quepos for some fishing.

 

[oosik]

I will say that most people have no idea of how expensive and time consuming, repairs to your tractor or implements can be. I DO NOT do any contract work - at all. BUT because I have a 65hp utility tractor and a lot of road maintenance implements - I get asked quite often if I could just "touch up" a gravel driveway.

My "out" - I have homeowners insurance that only covers my equipment while used on my property. You would be surprised how many folks seem to have no cares what-so-ever if you are cover by insurance. At least, until something happens and they have Jack-the-BAG for their attorney. Some even say they will pay for commercial insurance if I'll do work for them - until they find out how much commercial insurance is.

I'm so very pleased that this insurance thing provides me with such an easy out. I do whatever is required on my property and those without the required equipment can hire contractors.

In your case Sebastian - my answer would be - I'm very sorry but my equipment will not efficiently handle the situation you have in mind. Moreover, it is very likely that my equipment could be severely damaged and require extensive and expensive repairs. You will need to find a contractor with bigger or more job specific equipment to handle your situation. I thank you, though, for considering me and my company. Have a nice day.

 

[EddieWalker]

I'm not an equipment contractor, but I am a contractor and I meet people every week that want me to bid their job. While talking to them, if they start telling me what it's going to cost, or what they are going to pay, or in some way give me the impression that it's going to be an confrontational job, I either decline the job, or double the cost of my labor. People to avoid have a habit of letting you know that they are going to be a problem, they cannot help it. I listen closely, and avoid dealing with them.

If you are not making enough off of the job to cover expenses and make a fair profit, it's better to not do the job.

 

[MickeyDBC]

My day job is I own a contract manufacturing company. Difficult customers are easy to deal with - just raise quotes and prices on them until they either go away or you make enough money from them that the pain on your end is replaced by green. Don't be afraid of losing them, they have probably pissed off everyone else and they stick with you because they like your work. Remember, you are a business and not a charity.

 

[marchanna]

Detailed quotes including hours and materials for milestones of the project. Then if they want any changes, require them to accept a change order with a new detailed quote. That痴 what I would do.

 

[tomplum]

In describing the second situation, are you saying that these are things that come up once the job has commenced or during the initial bid process? In bidding the job it can be OK to lay things out for how things should go, but that you don't have control over a particular part of the project that is unseen. When these things come up in process of getting the job done and then you have the red flag thrown that doesn't make the job cost effective or even feasible there is much less control of how things play out.

 

[sixdogs]

As above post (Eddie Walker) states, if the job isn't profitable and you can't make a profit, don't do it. Nothing brings someone around to your way of thinking than refusing to do a job.

On things I do, I believe communication up front and along the way is the key. I give someone a ballpark and don't make guarantees. I often come by referral so they know the drill. I may give a price thinking estimate and state what that assumes. If I'm going to rearrange six acres and you decide to put 30 trees in a week before, count me out or count me in for double the labor.

Very often I call back on the first day and tell them how it went and what I'm thinking so they know what to expect. If I find tons of rubble buried and I need it gone, well, we spoke about that type of possibility. With good communication back and forth, there are far fewer problems. You also have to thin the herd in advance. I'm not going to give estimates by the dozen and if someone looks like trouble, they will be. I stay clear of them.

They also know how to pay and on the day I finish I expect the final payment as we agreed in advance. I'm not doing a museum quality job only to be left begging for the $$ that is now mine. It doesn't work that way and so far, it's worked. Every now and then I rip up a phone line that the owner put in themselves and I tell them to fix and tell me what it cost so I can square up. No one has ever asked me to pay despite my offering. I think the good communication is behind that.

 

[marchanna]

In describing the second situation, are you saying that these are things that come up once the job has commenced or during the initial bid process? In bidding the job it can be OK to lay things out for how things should go, but that you don't have control over a particular part of the project that is unseen. When these things come up in process of getting the job done and then you have the red flag thrown that doesn't make the job cost effective or even feasible there is much less control of how things play out.

It should be included in the quote, that it does not include unanticipated items.

 

[bcp]

"That engine block that wrecked your mower isn't a foreign object. It's a Ford."



Bruce

 

[Complete Turf Care]

Hi everybody, here's a question of a more philosophical nature rather than technical. For all you owner operators who do little jobs for people around the way, what do you do for people who want you to do things that are dangerous or abusive for the machine, or want a big expensive job done way faster and cheaper than is possible.

The first situation I generally attribute to over hopeful ignorance about what these things can do and how expensive it is to fix them.

The second situation, where people budgeted six hours for a job that could take two days, is generally signified by the customer getting agitated and making big waving motions with their arms, like I'm just not understanding and if I understood the the dirt would move itself faster.

Sometimes the situation degrades, I generally try to be polite even if I'm getting angry, and explain why I'm getting annoyed and apologising for getting annoyed but SORRY IT'S JUST NOT LIKE THAT! Too expensive to fix this thing and go flip your own Backhoe down the hill.

Rural Costa Rica, steep mountain terrain. Twenty one year old Deere 310d with 24k hours on it. Customers of limited means sometimes which also makes things difficult. Farm roads and rural building sites are the bread and butter.

Anyone have any perspectives or advice? I suppose this theme runs across all aspects of contracting.

Thanks!

Sebastian

This problem may be your fault. Are you bidding the enough to cover costs? Is your equipment able to handle the jobs you bid? You said your machine is 21 years old and has 24k hours on it. Is it time for an upgrade?

Putting what you will do and what you will NOT do in your bid helps when surprises come up. Maybe you should bid by the hour and not by the job?

 

[QRTRHRS]

Late sixties or early seventies (after some time with Uncle Sam) I worked for an excavating contractor. He was asked to backfill a 15 course tall block wall with no pilasters. Advising the homeowner was futile so against his better judgement, the boss agreed to do the job.

We were careful to bring in super clean fill and kept the dozer well away from the wall and did a lot of handwork to level out the fill job. That night it rained and the wall blew out. He sued but lost but the boss lost as well having to pay us for the day to testify.

The customer is not always right.

 

[Sebculb]

Sebastian you must be near Golfito? Very interesting country and do enjoy it and your problem is not unique! You might want to leave yourself some reserve in your bidding process. There are some jobs you might not get because of not being the low bidder and you actually might enjoy watching the company who did get the job have the frustrations that you could have put on yourself. There are few people that would tell you if you did under bid and they would volunteer extra payment for it! Even with adding a little you still will find you didn't add enough and with the surprises you might find! I do enjoy the country and the roads do leave a bit to be desired! This past December we came from San Jose to San Isidoro and then down to Dominical on our way back to Quepos for some fishing.

Wow, cool! You passed right through my neighborhood. I live in Rivas about 10km east of San Isidro.

Thanks everyone for all the replies! Golly, looks like this is a common issue in machine work and contracting in general.

Funny thing, none of it's actually contract work with a bid. Everyone around here is just hourly. Leaves some room for miscommunication but I also haven't gotten"screwed" yet. (Except for breakdowns)

 

[Sebculb]

Hola Complete Lawn Care:
" This problem may be your fault. Are you bidding the enough to cover costs? Is your equipment able to handle the jobs you bid? You said your machine is 21 years old and has 24k hours on it. Is it time for an upgrade? "

The old Deere is the upgrade! Broke a little toy Kubota in half doing work for people with a 3 point hitch hoe. Put the feet down on the hoe and it closed the crack in the central beam or whatever you want to call it, welded it like four times and sold it to buy the old Deere.

The Deere's great for what it is but I want to get another similar one so I can usually make sure at least one is working. Two old hoes cost less than half of a newer one around here, and there's no guarantee a newer one won't have catastrophic failures. I've watched it happen! The only worrisome thing is parts availability in the future for OLD machines

 

[Oldpath05]

Late sixties or early seventies (after some time with Uncle Sam) I worked for an excavating contractor. He was asked to backfill a 15 course tall block wall with no pilasters. Advising the homeowner was futile so against his better judgement, the boss agreed to do the job.

We were careful to bring in super clean fill and kept the dozer well away from the wall and did a lot of handwork to level out the fill job. That night it rained and the wall blew out. He sued but lost but the boss lost as well having to pay us for the day to testify.

The customer is not always right.

I couldn't disagree more, if a customer is paying the bill, he's right even if a house is built wrong, if someone is paying you to do a job, he's right.

When I walk into a auto parts store like I did today, (a well known one) to buy a oil filter thinking that like a Purolator oil filter only has one version, so the salesperson gets me the basic version, I get down the road and open the box then notice this isn't the one I wanted, so I go back and ask them why they didn't tell/ask me about which one I wanted, which was Purolator ONE, they go well all you said was Purolator, which I did, not knowing that Purolator had a basic oil filter version. If I was the salesperson I would've said sorry and NOT give the PAYING customer STATIC like they did, no wonder more people are buying online, I've gotten better service at Walmart and Amazon THE PAYING CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT, if you disagree put me on your ignore list.

 

[bcp]

If a potential customer wants you to do something unsafe or that won't work, do you take the job anyway?

Bruce

 

[My Gym]

If you have a customer that demoralizes, demotivates, and costs you money, the best thing you can do is refer them to your competition. Nothing is better than a demoralized, demotivated, unprofitable competitor.

"The customer is always right", but some people should not be allowed to be customers.

 

[4570Man]

If a potential customer wants you to do something unsafe or that won't work, do you take the job anyway?

Bruce

I’ll warn them it won’t work but I’ll do it anyway. Define unsafe.

 

[bcp]

I’ll warn them it won’t work but I’ll do it anyway. Define unsafe.

Something like a small bridge over a creek or gully, that won't have any safety margin for his usage.

Or the retaining wall mentioned above.

Bruce

 

[4570Man]

Something like a small bridge over a creek or gully, that won't have any safety margin for his usage.

Or the retaining wall mentioned above.

Bruce

I’m not in the bridge building business so if it was more than just a short bridge over a shallow ditch I’d pass on the job. If I felt like it wouldn’t work I’d probably not do it just to save feature headache.