customers i hate them

[stevetheplumber]

Hello Mr Barnes,
I'm the landlady at132 xxxx Road. You kindly did a job for us in January (below).

The Gas Safety Certificate for the cooker and boiler at this property expires on April 26. Are you available to carry out an inspection for the year from that date?
If you are available this week or next, it would be great if you could contact the tenants there are xx and xy and arrange a time that is convenient for everyone. Hoping you can find a suitable time.

I have copied them in on this email. xx phone number is

If you email me the invoice, I will make the payment direct into your account, as before.
Looking forward to hearing whether you are able to take on this job or not

regards

the above is an email from an absentee land lord i read this as please complete the job so i go and do a lsc boiler co is way out and i sorted it while i was there so having opened the boiler i gave it a clean out internal check cleared condense trap and charged her £125 below is the reply i got

Normally you should specify the fee before doing the job. I will pay on this occasion but next time will get several quotes
Rgds
just that when she next phones up with water running through the ceiling i will suggest she gets several quotes first then comes back to me

 

[Gray0689]

If you did it last year they would of been expecting the same price
If you had to do anything extra you by rights should inform them what is needed doing

Your not wrong with what you did as you was probably saving them money by not failing it and having to go back and rectify it
But a lot of landlords are tools and tight as a duck

 

[Best]

Email the pig back & tell her the next time you will gladly specify the estimated cost of the job to allow her to make a decision, but only after you can inspect it fully first which will mean wasted time waiting for her response or a second follow up visit to service/repair the boiler. Either of which would make the bill more expensive.
Tell her nobody (including her) knows the reality of a "service" until the boiler is opened.
I have had worse, where I got abuse for having to call back with parts for a boiler, which apparently I should have done free as I didn't have them in my van!

 

[rpm]

If you did it last year they would of been expecting the same price
If you had to do anything extra you by rights should inform them what is needed doing

Your not wrong with what you did as you was probably saving them money by not failing it and having to go back and rectify it
But a lot of landlords are tools and tight as a duck

Get this all the time, paperwork from office say`s "Call office to advise of any parts required, we need to contact landlord before ......" Thing is you end up sitting in the van for 30mins or an hour waiting for a call back which pee`s me off.

 

[Ray Stafford]

You guys are so thin-skinned!

I hope you are all as reasonable with your merchants as you expect your customers to be with you.

Just take the money, say "thanks" and move on.

 

[stevetheplumber]

im not realy bothered provided i get the payment as promised just using it as an example of the strange ways customers think lots of plumbers wouldnt work for absentee landlords

 

[Millsy 82]

Get this all the time, paperwork from office say`s "Call office to advise of any parts required, we need to contact landlord before ......" Thing is you end up sitting in the van for 30mins or an hour waiting for a call back which pee`s me off.

I used to hate that! I got to the point that I said to them you have 10 minutes to get back to me otherwise I'm gone and you will be charged more for a return visit. After 10 minutes jump in the van and off I went, when they phoned back after half hour I used to say I'm sorry but I've had to leave as I had other jobs to do.

 

[Millsy 82]

Was there any reason you couldn't phone them just to say that there is a problem with it it's gonna cost you x amount?

Did she know you had to do extra work?

 

[rpm]

Wish I could mate but I`m told to stay and wait for the call back but if somebody else from the office calls asking for an eta for Mrs Jones then I tend to blow a fuse. Often there are 4 people in the chain, me and my office, the agency and the landlord.

 

[Millsy 82]

Wish I could mate but I`m told to stay and wait for the call back but if somebody else from the office calls asking for an eta for Mrs Jones then I tend to blow a fuse. Often there are 4 people in the chain, me and my office, the agency and the landlord.

When I started for the company I had to phone my office then they would put a price together and phone the lettings agency but I soon got fed up with it and said to my boss about it, he said it's the way it's done so I said give me your price list then I will cut out our office making there life and my life easier. After about a week the boss called me in and said it was working brilliantly so everybody had to do it.

 

[lame plumber]

I have landlords who tell me to do a LLC and are happy to cough for extra work to put things right without a twitter of anguish. There are also others that break out all guns blazing if the annual LLC goes up 50p and they arent told in writing 4 weeks in advance. Normally I just carry on regardless and if the latter carry on winging, I dont call them the following year and if they call me moaning I have missed the LLC and why I explain they were a pain to work with the previous year and if they wish me to continue it this price take it or leave it in a few weeks time. 9/10 times they back down apologizing, those that dont never see me again.

 

[rpm]

When I started for the company I had to phone my office then they would put a price together and phone the lettings agency but I soon got fed up with it and said to my boss about it, he said it's the way it's done so I said give me your price list then I will cut out our office making there life and my life easier. After about a week the boss called me in and said it was working brilliantly so everybody had to do it.

I know their pricing and have suggested a few different ways of changing procedures to make life easier for everybody but the manager is a control freak.

 

[Nostrum]

We phone before carrying out any work, if they don't answer then fail and walk with a quote to re-attend.

I would imagine you wouldn't have a leg to stand on if they refused to pay. It's not about trying to save them money, it's about giving them the option in my opinion.

It's like making an order from Ray and then finding a bag of discounted fittings in the box when it arrives. Although they were probably a great deal, you didn't ask for them.

 

[Masood]

You guys are so thin-skinned!

I hope you are all as reasonable with your merchants as you expect your customers to be with you.

Just take the money, say "thanks" and move on.

I'm normally in the merchant's, in person, to settle my bill by the 26th/27th of any given month. I have to prompt them - never waited for a statement to be sent. I've had a couple of faulty bits supplied by them - never even hinted at them covering my labour to replace, or time spent going back to the shop to pick up replacements. I reckon that's pretty fair treatment of a supplier who makes a profit out of me...