As a business owner...

[MASTERMOWER]

...how much pissin' off can you do? You can't keep everyone happy, but isn't there a point at which you'll have to start kissing azz to keep the customer from devastating your business?

I'm starting a thread on this because I had to knock some damn customers bill down by a little over $100 to keep the guy from writing editorials to the paper. The fiasco wasn't entirely my fault, other than the fact I once again failed to put things in writing. Customers hear only what they wanna hear. Anything beyond that is hearsay and worthless in a court of law.

Butt anyway, that's not the point of this thread. Gotta get opinions on how much one should tolerate before the butt kissing kicks in.

Bad publicity is bad....or is any publicity good?

[steve-o]

what happens next time??????

...how much pissin' off can you do? You can't keep everyone happy, but isn't there a point at which you'll have to start kissing azz to keep the customer from devastating your business?

I'm starting a thread on this because I had to knock some damn customers bill down by a little over $100 to keep the guy from writing editorials to the paper. The fiasco wasn't entirely my fault, other than the fact I once again failed to put things in writing. Customers hear only what they wanna hear. Anything beyond that is hearsay and worthless in a court of law.

Butt anyway, that's not the point of this thread. Gotta get opinions on how much one should tolerate before the butt kissing kicks in.

Bad publicity is bad....or is any publicity good?

the guy gets upset next month and starts spouting off about editorials, are you gonna kiss his butt again and lower his price another $100? drop the guy and move on. AND if this guy actually threatend you with that bull $ h i t, you should have really given him something to write about, like the a $ $ whooping that he would have taken had this been here in hooterville.

steve

[yardboy]

MM, Dont take krap like that. That dude shat on you. Taking 100.00 off his bill. Sheeeooootttt, if you did not screw him, and he writes a slanderous editorial, SUE his frickin ass. Piece of chit people like this. Sorry azzez don't deserve to breath the air outside. But the question to you........ Did and how much did ya screw him on the bill?????????

Anology -Ding! Ding! customer aiming for MM! Looks like the customer won this round!!

[Scaper-S2k]

Does this have to do with the K-Mart deal?


Yardboy, you can't sue someone if the other person is telling the truth. Well, you can, but you won't win.

[Seascape]

...how much pissin' off can you do? You can't keep everyone happy, but isn't there a point at which you'll have to start kissing azz to keep the customer from devastating your business?

I'm starting a thread on this because I had to knock some damn customers bill down by a little over $100 to keep the guy from writing editorials to the paper. The fiasco wasn't entirely my fault, other than the fact I once again failed to put things in writing. Customers hear only what they wanna hear. Anything beyond that is hearsay and worthless in a court of law.

Butt anyway, that's not the point of this thread. Gotta get opinions on how much one should tolerate before the butt kissing kicks in.

Bad publicity is bad....or is any publicity good?

Man how dumb do you take us? Every guy on here is gonna read this and ask himself how many years theyve been in business and how many times a customer has strong armed them over $100.00.

If you backed yourself in a corner instead of crying and blaming take an honest look at the situation and learn from it. Than it may not happen again.Dont promise stuff you cant deliver and dont perform poor work...you wont have these problems you have.

[yardboy]

Yardboy, you can't sue someone if the other person is telling the truth. Well, you can, but you won't win.

If he is telling the truth sure you can't, but if MM is honest and has nothing to hide and is just scared this cat is gonna run his name in the ground then let him write some chit that is not true and then MM may be able to proceed with a suit. However................. if MM is doing some unethical business practices, then he gets just what he deserves. Let the guy tell the readers and MM can't do chit about it.................. If MM would go into further detail about the screwing he is about to recieve, then we might know the whole story...........................

[yardboy]

a customer has strong armed them over $100.00.

Never, and will never ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever allow myself to be put in a position to do so............. Yardboy, looks out for himself, FIRST!

[MASTERMOWER]

First year entirely full-time....learning a lot..??

Was not poor work, was mis-communication. As I said, I failed to put things in writing. I'd have no proof of what the agreement was.

Yes, customer won, I lost. Butt it'll never happen again. Did I still show a profit from the work? Yes, but it sucks to be raped. Live and learn.... and just move on.

[GrassMaster]

Some prople...

A few of your undesirable customers will find a loop hole or try to create one.

Close to the very beginning of the business I had written a contract & I can't remember exactly what it said now?

...fertilize bushes, trim all as needed? Sorry I can't remember exactly but anyway it was obvious they were wrong & they wanted me to trim up the dead branches on their pine trees.

It was a lot of work, I tried explaining that to them that there was nothing mentioned about trees or trimming trees & they kept saying "Trim all as needed" and they thought it meant everything.

They threatened to tell other customers if I didn't, I trimmed the trees, left them a note dropping them, explaining how much extra work it was, that I didn't get paid for & told them that if they said anything to my customers or didn't pay me that I would tell the customers what really happened and let them decide.

I received my check & I didn't work for them again. You must be very careful what you write up & say what your going to do and not do.

[steve-o]

Was not poor work, was mis-communication. As I said, I failed to put things in writing. I'd have no proof of what the agreement was.

Yes, customer won, I lost. Butt it'll never happen again. Did I still show a profit from the work? Yes, but it sucks to be raped. Live and learn.... and just move on.

customer only won cause you let them win.

steve

[MASTERMOWER]

Coulda lost a hella lot more...

customer only won cause you let them win.

steve

There was no way I could win...it was quite obvious. So should I try to fight the BS, and allow the idiot to start writing newspaper editorials slandering my business?

So he does write those editorials....I get pizzed, take him to court. Who's gonna win? I have no proof of what was said, other than what's etched in my memory and what's in his memory. Noone else knows. It's all a he said/ she said mess.

So what? Write an editorial in response? That'd be stupid. Who'd believe anything? If anything, the general public would side with the consumer.

Better to leave with knockin' off the $100 than to spend thousands to reverse what damage this idiot is capable of causing.

Ask yourself, how many lawsuits filed against businesses are settled before they even reach the courtroom? And why is that?

[Seascape]

what exactly happened?

[clclawn]

Is your city that lame, that the news paper would put this guys letter in.

As far as your situation, let it go. sometimes this crap happens. just move on.

[Seascape]

Is your city that lame, that the news paper would put this guys letter in.

As far as your situation, let it go. sometimes this crap happens. just move on.

SHHHH......... We are just supposed to nod and follow along. Dont you know the rules here?

[MASTERMOWER]

what exactly happened?

Got the time??

Customer failed to send in his leaf clean-up form. I cleaned them up for him last year...so I was curious why he was stalling this year.

When I was there to mow one day, he pulls in the drive. I asked him what he wanted to do about the leaves. He asks, "well how much will it cost?"

Like I normally always say, "I can't give you a set price, it all depends on the leaves present at the time. But it wouldn't be much more than what you paid last year. Maybe about $5-15 extra per week to have them bagged."

Now you gotta understand, $5 is maybe 1 or 2 bags full of leaves...$15 is for the lawn to be mulched over, then bagged. His normal mowing price is $28.

You gotta also understand I offer two options. 1st option is to bag up the leaves when I'm there to mow. 2nd option is a full clean-up at the end of the season...this gets the leaves outta the beds and such.

Anyhow, so he said something in the lines of, "Ok, so all I'd have to do is look at last year's bill to see what it'd cost?" To which I said yes....and he said "ok, go ahead and plan on it."

So I did, mowed once or twice (I'd have to go back and look) in October and only tacked on $5.

November is a different story. Every mowing $15 was added. So I charge $43 each week essentially. Did a final clean-up the last week of Novemeber, in which I charged $90. It was all fair....he was to pay what any other customer would have to pay.

Well he gets the bill and throws a fit. Calls me and wants to know why he was charged $15 extra when I said $5. He says I charged him right in Oct, but not for Nov. I explained why. Even referred to last year's billing, which he was also charged $15 extra per week. But he says the extent of our conversation was that I was gonna pick up the leaves for $5 extra.

It's all hogwash apparently. I tried many times to tell him how the conversation went, but he kept swearing he doesn't remember a thing past the $5 part.

Beyond that, he says he never wanted a complete clean-up, even though one was done last year and they paid with no gripe. But since he never actually said he wanted that and it never was really discussed, I knocked that down to a 'option 1' deal....a big loss.

Does this make sense? It's all stupid and embarrassing anyhow. :alien: