Frustrated with customer!

MirandaAutoSpa

MirandaAutoSpa

New member
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
278
Reaction score
0
Here comes a rant!
Last week we detailed a customers 2 vehicles.
One was a 1995 Audi sedan, pretty old but he put some money into it to try to keep it going. He purchased our full detail however was not satisfied with what he received. He complained about the door jambs not being clean enough, the leather, wiper cowl and dash not being treated with dressing, the paint not being waxed, and the engine not being cleaned out. Well, this vehicle is in poor shape, it needs restoring, not detailing. The leather and dash being old and cracked did not look any different after dressing. We only rinse and degrease the top portion of the engine so as not to disturb anything. and the paint was starting to fail, so nothing we could do would help it.
His other vehicle was a trashed our minivan, again he did not understand the work that goes into cleaning these, only complaining again about the door jambs. He thought we should have spent more time on these vehicles.
On top of it, he left a review on Angieslist that simply is not accurate. He expected perfection from us on vehicles that are abused daily drivers.
He said he used to work at a Porsche Dealership, and he knew how to detail a vehicle properly. Well if these were well kept, prized Porsches we obviously would not have had a problem.
It left us feeling burnt out and not appreciated. I replied to the review on Angieslist with a courteous, professional reply, simply stating that the Audi needs restoring and the Minivan was detailed thoroughly, however that some customers vehicls will can not be detailed up to everyone's "standards".
Here is a pic of his van that we went a little overboard on the paint, I now regret putting this much into his vehicle.
View attachment 17148
Anyone ever have to deal with such difficult people?
 
There are those that are never satisfied with anything.

It's always amazing so see someone driving a 17 year old heavily used vehicle showing signs of failure everywhere and they expect a full detail to somehow completely restore their beast to new condition.....it just ain't happening...
 
Looks good to me. If they wanted like new paint maybe it should be repainted with new paint. Old neglected is just that, old neglected. Old and cared for is another story.
 
The guy claims to know how to detail a car properly, so he should have just done it himself if he knew better.

I've come across customers like that when they've had their vehicle detailed at my job, a Toyota dealer. They get so nit-picky over little things that they really should just do the job themselves. That's why I work on my own car. In my head, I feel as if nobody can do a decent and thorough and safe job on my car, so I do it myself, save my money and save any possible hassles.

There's always one guy who can ruin your mood or your whole week, but as long as they're not coming out of the woodwork, I'm sure you're doing all the other jobs just fine.
 
Thanks guys, This is the first customer that had some complaints out of all the jobs we have done in almost 4 years.
Well I guess i will take it constructive criticism, sorta.
 
Did you e/plain to your customer the EXPECTED results based on the condition of the paint?
 
Looks like you did the best job possible and I am sure you did a great job . With that said, like may others have said on this site on other threads, did you go over the vehicle ahead of time and tell them what not to expect or could be done? Like you can't detail out cracked leather and that you can't make an 18 year old engine bay, that's never been cared for, look like new. Sometimes it's about managing customer expectations before you take on the job.
 
That's why you should list the work to be done and not call it a full detail. It has a different meaning to different people. Even though the car is 18+ years old.
 
I agree with hades02 And it is a shame that that happened but now you can chalk it up as a learning experience. The work you did on the paint looks awesome. Just keep putting out good work.
 
banzaitoyota said:
Did you e/plain to your customer the EXPECTED results based on the condition of the paint?
Click to expand...

Yeah I explained the paint issue to him, but for some reason he was skeptical and didn't believe me.
But you guys are right, 99% of our customers know what to expect and we do not always go over every little detail and expectation of the customer before hand. But I need to be mindful of that with each customer.
Its a good learning experience to make sure THEY know, but sometimes even then they don't always believe us. That's the frustrating part.
 
bcope said:
That's why you should list the work to be done and not call it a full detail. It has a different meaning to different people. Even though the car is 18+ years old.
Click to expand...

Thats a good point too. Our detailing services are by no means to be compared to show car detailing. We have detailed a few high end vehicles, but we cater to the daily drivers and trashed out family vehicles. Those are the ones who contact us all the time, and they are always happy.
But maybe I should word our "detailing" services a little differently so people won't have it in their minds that their "prized" beater will be restored to like new condition.
 
Philip I totally hear ya' bud on just not knowing what the guy was expecting. :rolleyes: From what I can see you dramatically improved that blue paint!:xyxthumbs:

I guess the question is what did you 'promise' as being included in your "full detail"? (I'm taking it as you are only talking about exterior problems that he only bought an exterior detail.) I've labeled some services that take hours even as nothing more than a "Basic _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _". For instance wash & wax but includes claying but nothing more than a spray wax is still "Basic".

By the time it moves to "Full" it's at least half a day and will be some sort of multi-step buffing, depending on which option is chosen. One may have simple spray wax over a clay then AIO polish, where another could have AIO but added machine applied sealant or wax. Or even better yet say the MF system where you use a two stage system, both compounding and then polish/finishing wax. That's still "waxing" just not a separate process after 'polishing'.

The way I figure it is I'm only going to put so much time into a given price point. It doesn't matter to me if I spend most of it with a machine or not. What I WILL NOT do is start layering, compound, polish, THEN sealant, wax and so on unless it's the package they are paying for.

I mean if it's nothing more than a gripe about the door jambs and the cowl (and there IS a way to make them better) then just do it. Hopefully he'll take that work as getting whatever he wanted. (Or that he was able to get one over on you... which should make him feel better anyhow.) Sometimes people are more about what they perceive as making you go out of your way, than you ACTUALLY going out of your way. ;)

Not knowing what you dressed the cowl with.... I know sometimes I get frustrated with them because they tend to get so screwed up, baked and faded, and getting results that are both GOOD and LAST are not as easily said as done. I'm going to try PERL on some this week at different dilutions to see what differences are over 303, WG trim tealant, Griot's vinyl and rubber sealant. Actually I'm going to try Hydr02 too as soon as I can get a chance. (Might put UTTGP in the mix as well just for snits-n-giggles.) ;)

I wouldn't sweat it though. If he's that type of guy he's just hunting the lowest prices anyhow. Passing that problem off to someone else may be the best idea. :props:
 
Like bob said can't make everyone happy sorry you had to deal with someone like that. I'm very lucky have never had to deal with that yet :). I have talked to people on the phone that I can tell they will be very difficult to deal with so I tell them I'm booked far out.
 
cardaddy said:
Philip I totally hear ya' bud on just not knowing what the guy was expecting. :rolleyes: From what I can see you dramatically improved that blue paint!:xyxthumbs:

I guess the question is what did you 'promise' as being included in your "full detail"? (I'm taking it as you are only talking about exterior problems that he only bought an exterior detail.) I've labeled some services that take hours even as nothing more than a "Basic _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _". For instance wash & wax but includes claying but nothing more than a spray wax is still "Basic".

By the time it moves to "Full" it's at least half a day and will be some sort of multi-step buffing, depending on which option is chosen. One may have simple spray wax over a clay then AIO polish, where another could have AIO but added machine applied sealant or wax. Or even better yet say the MF system where you use a two stage system, both compounding and then polish/finishing wax. That's still "waxing" just not a separate process after 'polishing'.

The way I figure it is I'm only going to put so much time into a given price point. It doesn't matter to me if I spend most of it with a machine or not. What I WILL NOT do is start layering, compound, polish, THEN sealant, wax and so on unless it's the package they are paying for.

I mean if it's nothing more than a gripe about the door jambs and the cowl (and there IS a way to make them better) then just do it. Hopefully he'll take that work as getting whatever he wanted. (Or that he was able to get one over on you... which should make him feel better anyhow.) Sometimes people are more about what they perceive as making you go out of your way, than you ACTUALLY going out of your way. ;)

Not knowing what you dressed the cowl with.... I know sometimes I get frustrated with them because they tend to get so screwed up, baked and faded, and getting results that are both GOOD and LAST are not as easily said as done. I'm going to try PERL on some this week at different dilutions to see what differences are over 303, WG trim tealant, Griot's vinyl and rubber sealant. Actually I'm going to try Hydr02 too as soon as I can get a chance. (Might put UTTGP in the mix as well just for snits-n-giggles.) ;)

I wouldn't sweat it though. If he's that type of guy he's just hunting the lowest prices anyhow. Passing that problem off to someone else may be the best idea. :props:
Click to expand...

He complained about things that needed restoring also. Such as the leather in his old Audi the paint and the wiper cowl, which I used Meguiars Ultimate Black Plastic Restorer which did an ok job, but again it needs restoring not just dressing. The plastics and rubber on this poor car were shot!
Maybe I should have used greasy, shiny armor all over everything! :surrender:
Also its me and my wife that work together, and we are very thorough, but this job frustrated us.
Yeah know the mold or stained paint inside the door jambs and trunk lid areas? Thats what he also complained about.
 
Pureshine said:
Like bob said can't make everyone happy sorry you had to deal with someone like that. I'm very lucky have never had to deal with that yet :). I have talked to people on the phone that I can tell they will be very difficult to deal with so I tell them I'm booked far out.
Click to expand...

I like that! "Yes sir, we are booked on until.........around next year." :laughing:
 
aaaa yes, we've all had one or two of these people.
I won't work for these kind of people.
Listen to your instincts. You know you had a bad feeling since they called that they would be a pain.
I'm now proud to say I won't detail certain peoples cars because of there attitude or the condition of the car.
I feel you pain but learn from it and listen to you instincts next time you come across these type of people.
 
oh yea, I had one of these last week. (well not as bad as yours)
I knew from the moment she called she was going to be a pain.
Everything went fine until I turned her SUV over to her and she complained I didn't put dressing all over her beautiful Lexus.
So I did, I used Meg's Natural Shine, but it still was all shiny and a little greasy looking. Oh well, I think she was happy but probably not. These type of people are never happy.
 
Detailing by M said:
aaaa yes, we've all had one or two of these people.
I won't work for these kind of people.
Listen to your instincts. You know you had a bad feeling since they called that they would be a pain.
I'm now proud to say I won't detail certain peoples cars because of there attitude or the condition of the car.
I feel you pain but learn from it and listen to you instincts next time you come across these type of people.
Click to expand...

Agreed and Lesson learned. Oh yeah I forgot to mention that we detailed both his vehicles about a 1 1/2 years ago, with no complaints, at least not then. Maybe he thought he had to teach me a lesson.
 
If you greatly improved the appearance of his car than you did your job. Some people you can't please. If you look at his Angie list reviews you will find he probably complained about everyone who has ever done work for him.

I looked over your website and if you did all the steps you advertise then you kept up your end of the deal. Customers like this is the reason I am against money back guarantees. If I spend 4 or 5 hours in your driveway I want to get paid.
 
MirandaAutoSpa said:
He complained about things that needed restoring also. Such as the leather in his old Audi the paint and the wiper cowl, which I used Meguiars Ultimate Black Plastic Restorer which did an ok job, but again it needs restoring not just dressing. The plastics and rubber on this poor car were shot!
Maybe I should have used greasy, shiny armor all over everything! :surrender:
Also its me and my wife that work together, and we are very thorough, but this job frustrated us.
Yeah know the mold or stained paint inside the door jambs and trunk lid areas? Thats what he also complained about.
Click to expand...

Phillip I fear your right! Shiny slippery Armor All just anywhere and everywhere.

Do want to apologize to you for what I may have said earlier though. (Didn't look at your site first.)

I'm taking it you have a steamer? Just wondering how well that works on the door jambs with APC? Especially up in the hinge area? My next (affordable) machine needs to be a steamer. (Was looking at the McCullouch/Wagner type ones for now.) Then a decent extractor next, like a Mytee.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top