The Customer is Not Always Right!
There is a phrase that is thrown around a lot in any customer service field. “The Customer is Always Right.” By and large, this is true, but unfortunately there are many customers who abuse it. When remodelling kitchens and bathrooms, the best way to avoid getting into situations is by excellent planning and attention to detail. For those potential customers reading this, please note that Kitchens take no less than 10x the amount of planning than bathrooms do. That is why they are so much more expensive!
In most cases when the customer wants something different than what was originally planned, we do a thing that is called a change order. Some contractors try to charge a lot for little things like this, but unless it truly is a big change, you can expect that at Hillview we will never charge more than a fair rate for these. Change orders should not be that complicated, however they are to be collected 100% up front because it is too complicated on the bookkeeping to do it any other way.
So now, back to my target statement. Is the customer always right? Well, that depends. Most customers from the beginning trust that we really are the experts and that we know what we are doing. That usually gets us very far along in the project and in most cases, there are no issues that arise that we have not seen before or cannot deal with in a professional manner. Everything regarding tile, flooring, backsplashes, painting, texture and carpentry we have basically seen it all and done it all hundreds of times in hundreds of situations. Therefore, we don’t encounter too many “new problems” these days. So, what normally happens when a customer comes to us with an issue is that we almost immediately know how to answer them with a solution or we can tell them what kind of change order it will take to fix the problem. Usually small things, nothing to worry about.
The real issues come when customers don’t take our advice and then try to blame us for issues down the road. For example, we had some sewer back up problems at a beautiful house one time. Once the blockage was out, everything looked and flowed awesome, but we told the customer they needed to install a clean out in the front yard. They had also been told this when they bought the home by the home inspector. They decided not to listen and later on, when the blockage came back, the sewage problem was much worse! They tried to blame me for this but I reminded them I had given them instructions that they did not take seriously.
Another example. I got called just last week and was told there was a small bathroom fire from a vent we installed. I immediately rushed over there and was as kind and polite as I could be. The fan in question was completely torched, but I noticed it was also very heavy. The damage was minimal but it was still very concerning. I then took the customer to the other restroom where we had worked and pulled off the vent cover. It was very dirty and also obviously a much older fan. We had just completed the work there a few months ago. After he saw that he apologized and asked me how much to fix the damage. He’s one of my favorite customers, so I’m glad we were able to see eye to eye!
In one final example with a big tile job we did, the lady was SUPER thrilled to get the work done. 11 months later she called me back and asked that I come fix some of the tiles that were broken and within warranty. I asked her to send pictures. It was obvious from the pictures that her foundation was moving badly and it was not our work. I told her that I was willing to come do the fix, but that I STRONGLY recommended foundation work. She refused. I then told her to have the replacement tile, grout and thinset ready for us to do the work. She also refused to do that, so at that point I had to respectfully bow out. She was not happy about that and she changed her 5 star review to a 2 star! That was frustrating, but nothing I could do. The customer is not always right unfortunately!
