When a client refuses a reclean, you may feel like you have a high maintenance customer.
As a house cleaner, it is important to clarify expectations with your cleaning client.
When a client refuses a reclean it doesn’t mean you have difficult cleaning clients. How to talk to cleaning clients is an art every house cleaner can learn.
A frustrated client is bad for business and costs money on your customer satisfaction policy. Clean don’t re-clean.
Listen: When a Client Refuses a Re-clean
Watch: When a Client Refuses a Re-clean
What to Do When a Customer Refuses a Re-clean
What do you do when a customer refuses a re-clean and they won’t take your money on the satisfaction guarantee? One House cleaner has this question.
“I cleaned the house for a woman who is problematic. She complained at the very last minute, after I cleaned for seven hours, that the floors were not clean. I did look at them and do agree with her, actually. But she provided the supplies, and her mop is a string mop, which day is done. It needs a better mop. And the broom and no real vacuum, except a Shop-Vac, which I use, but she doesn’t want to use Shop-Vac. And has no other vacuum cleaner.
Once she started being upset that I didn’t bring my own tools, but she had provided hers and never complained about it before. So I did tell her, ‘Listen, I agree with you. I’ll be glad to fix the floors.’ But she insisted on it. I said, ‘And no charge. Just you’re not happy. No charge.’
But then she stuffed a check in my purse. Anyway, I said, ‘I want to make you happy. What can I do?”‘
This Can be a Moment of Truth
Now, what you have in this particular case is not necessarily a problematic customer. Because you’ve both agreed in this scenario that the floors were still dirty.
So what you have here is you have a moment of truth, and a moment of truth is not to be confused with a difficult customer. What you have is a customer. Sure, she’s stubborn, in that she wants you to take the money and she won’t do the satisfaction guarantee. She won’t let you re-clean the floors and all those things. Okay, so she’s stubborn.
What she’s trying to do is she’s trying to communicate with you. She recognizes the fact that you spent seven hours cleaning her house already. She appreciates that and she wants you to have the money, which you have earned. The rest of the house looks amazing.
Cleaning Floors Can be Tricky
Now the floors. The floors can be a little bit tricky, because what are the floors made of? And I don’t know from this phone call what the floors are made of. But often times, when a floor is still dirty after it’s been cleaned, it’s possible that at one time, it had wax on it.
Or there are a lot of products on the market that you see on the grocery store shelves that you squirt on the floor and it makes your floor shiny. But if you get too much of that on the floor, it can make the floor sticky, and as it settles into the floor, often times it will attract the dirt.
And then because it’s kind of sticky and hasn’t quite dried yet, dirt and dust are going to get on top of it. So even though you mop it, you’re kind of smearing it around. And so it needs to be removed from the floor to bring the floor back to its original surface. So you can do the floors lightly.
Re-Cleaning a Client’s Floors
Now, for most floors, usually, you can do something light, if it’s a home. And I’m talking about a dust mop and a little damp mop to clean up the floor.
Oftentimes, it doesn’t need these squirt-on products that leave coats of stuff on the floor. And so once upon a time, when the floors were old and they did waxing and all that stuff, there were a lot of products that were popular at that time. But in the last 15, 20 years, all the flooring has been replaced, and they have all this new engineered wood and stuff that already has a coat and a finish on it.
So all you need to do is like a damp mop and it’s good. You don’t even need lots of water and all that stuff that’s going to warp the floorboards. You don’t need that.
A Lot of Times, Putting More on Can Ruin a Floor
More cleaning solutions on the floor is not better. The fewer chemicals and the less product you can use on a floor, oftentimes the cleaner the finish is going to be. And it’s going to go back to that original shine.
Lots of the new engineered flooring has a matte finish. If your customer has a matte finish floor, you’re not going to be able to get it to shine. Ever.
Not All Floors are Designed to be Shiny
Not all floors are designed to be shiny. But if they are clean, that means you have removed the sticky squirt-on stuff or we removed that too much product that we used on the floor.
So be very careful about how you clean the floors. And what kind of chemicals are you putting on there? Because oftentimes you don’t need a lot of chemicals on the floors.
How Commercial Cleaners Clean Floors
In commercial cleaning, there are big burnishers and there are floor machines that go along and they scrub the dirt and the gunk off the floors. But those are for high-traffic areas.
Lots of people in their homes don’t have high-traffic areas or they are wandering around in their socks.
And even though they might be eating across the house, if they spill something, it’s usually a spot or two. Spills are not coated evenly across the whole floor.
Be Careful When You’re Re-Cleaning the Floor
Setting customer expectations upfront is important so they don’t expect you to shine a matte floor.
And if the floor is dirty, the customer needs to be able to communicate that with you.
They have to be able to say, “Hey, this didn’t meet my satisfaction.” And you’ve agreed. You say, “Yeah, it didn’t meet mine, either.” Together you can come up with a solution.
Communicate With Your Customer When They Refuse a Re-Clean
When a customer refuses a reclean ask them why. Maybe there is a good reason. And then listen with the intent to understand. You don’t want to create or harbor weird energy that affects every cleaning.
You’ve already spent seven hours there and she recognizes that. She wants you to go home. She wants for next time something to be different, but nothing’s going to be different if you don’t know what to do differently.
Have a Plan When Your Customer Refuses a Re-Clean
So, the two of you have to come up with a plan. You mop the floors while you clean and in between cleanings and she uses a dust mop to pick up the big pieces, crumbs or pet hair.
But once you guys come to an agreement and you’re on the same page, then she’s no longer a problematic customer.
But she’s a customer that gave you great feedback and now she can give you great referrals.
Resources:
Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose – https://amzn.to/2Q4bq6D
Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In – https://amzn.to/2W1LXPi
Hug Your Haters: How to Embrace Complaints and Keep Your Customers – https://amzn.to/2TE2mI1
The Anatomy of Peace: Resolving the Heart of Conflict – https://amzn.to/334SOsu
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