sudsmobile
New member
- Jan 10, 2018
- 970
- 2
A little background. We have a customer that has been on a bi-weekly schedule for over a year. He got in at a rate that I'm no longer comfortable with, but even that I can live with. Around mid December, he decided that he would skip his normal day because it was supposed to rain. Then it rained and rained and rained, always like one or two days a week, but enough where he simply didn't call.
Finally, two weeks ago, he contacts me that he's ready to start up again. I SHOULD HAVE used that opportunity to tell him that I was full of washes or that I've had several price increases and missing three months of your schedule means you're no longer in at the same rate. But I didn't. Fast forward to this week and I show up and the two washes is one wash on a vehicle that hasn't been washed since mid-December (the last time I did it). It was destroyed. I invoiced him the normal single vehicle mid size SUV rate and he pays but no tip.
In the past, he's used the tip/no tip thing to signify when he thinks the price is too high. About six months I made the mistake of removing a bird bomb that had etched his black Porsche and he went off a little about running it past him first. It was $25. I mistakenly thought nobody is their right mind would argue about $25. I was wrong. I ended up not invoicing him for that work and he paid with a $25 tip instead of his normal $15 tip, so basically paying me $10 for the work.
A few months before the end of the year, he asked us to remove this shoddy carbon fiber wrap from the hood, mirrors and rear spoiler. Whoever installed the wrap had glued it on the mirrors and spoiler which was nearly impossible to remove. It took 5 hours to remove. It was so hacked up that we ended up doing a one step basically for free just to make the car look good. I charged him, get ready for this, $265 for 5 hours of wrap removal and the one step. I charged him so little because I knew he'd throw a fit if I charged him properly for the work. He paid 10 days later, again no tip.
I've basically had it with him. I almost do the job now out of a feeling of duty to try and reward the fact the he was a good customer for a long time, but today was the last straw. He doesn't value our time, he pays what he thinks a job is worth and it's nothing to him to just give me one car without telling me and leave me with an hour hole in my schedule. We did over $11k in March. I need his $100 job like I need a hole in the head. The entire time he was off my schedule, I had absolutely no problem filling his spot with a bigger, better paying job for 3 months. Like I said, if the guy was cool with us, valued our time and paid anywhere near the going rate with a smile on his face, I'd do the job purely as a favor, but I'm done doing favors for somebody I feel like doesn't appreciate anything we do for him.
I've thought about simply telling him that we are revamping our business model and we're not doing washes anymore. It's not far from the truth. I probably average 2-5 washes per week as it is. I'd like to find a way to drop him that doesn't leave me open to negative feedback on Yelp or whatever. I feel like he's really lost any claim to maintenance under the past terms by taking a 3 month break and also not honoring the number of vehicles that he agreed to.
In any case, I'm just looking for ideas from anybody that has ever had to navigate a situation like this before. I will say this, I've dumped four customers in the last 3-4 months for nearly identical issues. All of them were customers from when we were just beginning and surprisingly all of them were like the worst customers we had. Time wasters, didn't return texts, slow pay, you name it, it was like they were clones of each other. A few of those situations ended less than amicably and none of them saw fit to do anything to negatively impact our business so maybe I'm overthinking this.
Thanks in advance.
Finally, two weeks ago, he contacts me that he's ready to start up again. I SHOULD HAVE used that opportunity to tell him that I was full of washes or that I've had several price increases and missing three months of your schedule means you're no longer in at the same rate. But I didn't. Fast forward to this week and I show up and the two washes is one wash on a vehicle that hasn't been washed since mid-December (the last time I did it). It was destroyed. I invoiced him the normal single vehicle mid size SUV rate and he pays but no tip.
In the past, he's used the tip/no tip thing to signify when he thinks the price is too high. About six months I made the mistake of removing a bird bomb that had etched his black Porsche and he went off a little about running it past him first. It was $25. I mistakenly thought nobody is their right mind would argue about $25. I was wrong. I ended up not invoicing him for that work and he paid with a $25 tip instead of his normal $15 tip, so basically paying me $10 for the work.
A few months before the end of the year, he asked us to remove this shoddy carbon fiber wrap from the hood, mirrors and rear spoiler. Whoever installed the wrap had glued it on the mirrors and spoiler which was nearly impossible to remove. It took 5 hours to remove. It was so hacked up that we ended up doing a one step basically for free just to make the car look good. I charged him, get ready for this, $265 for 5 hours of wrap removal and the one step. I charged him so little because I knew he'd throw a fit if I charged him properly for the work. He paid 10 days later, again no tip.
I've basically had it with him. I almost do the job now out of a feeling of duty to try and reward the fact the he was a good customer for a long time, but today was the last straw. He doesn't value our time, he pays what he thinks a job is worth and it's nothing to him to just give me one car without telling me and leave me with an hour hole in my schedule. We did over $11k in March. I need his $100 job like I need a hole in the head. The entire time he was off my schedule, I had absolutely no problem filling his spot with a bigger, better paying job for 3 months. Like I said, if the guy was cool with us, valued our time and paid anywhere near the going rate with a smile on his face, I'd do the job purely as a favor, but I'm done doing favors for somebody I feel like doesn't appreciate anything we do for him.
I've thought about simply telling him that we are revamping our business model and we're not doing washes anymore. It's not far from the truth. I probably average 2-5 washes per week as it is. I'd like to find a way to drop him that doesn't leave me open to negative feedback on Yelp or whatever. I feel like he's really lost any claim to maintenance under the past terms by taking a 3 month break and also not honoring the number of vehicles that he agreed to.
In any case, I'm just looking for ideas from anybody that has ever had to navigate a situation like this before. I will say this, I've dumped four customers in the last 3-4 months for nearly identical issues. All of them were customers from when we were just beginning and surprisingly all of them were like the worst customers we had. Time wasters, didn't return texts, slow pay, you name it, it was like they were clones of each other. A few of those situations ended less than amicably and none of them saw fit to do anything to negatively impact our business so maybe I'm overthinking this.
Thanks in advance.
