I agree completely. It's not about the actual cost in this case, but the perceived value. If they needed to change their hourly rates, then they should simply change their rates and not ask for $5 extra to clean dishes for 5 minutes.
Well I would have fired them too,not because of the increase in the service fee,but because they were not honest enough with their business.If the cleaning details were good,and they finished the day with you being satisfied,and politely asked for an increase,with an explanation as to why,you might have understood. I would not hesitate to add a little more for good quality service.
With the power of the internet,they can loose a lot of customers (like this post for example).I believe in good customer relations :) Nice post and right decision!
It's one of the oldest tricks in the books of hired helps like removers, cleaners, etc. to try and change the perceived value of the job from a simple $15 per hour payment for reasonable labour to something more complicated. So many dollars per room, or $10 per dusting , or $20 per box. Anything to try to get the client out of the hourly rate mindset because it's too simple. It doesn't reflect the nature of the work and it's not possible to fiddle an hourly paid activity. You work one hour and you get $15. End of story. We’re not hiring nuclear physicists or brain surgeons.
This is a common occurrence with contractors, they start the work based on an agreed price but then find additional charges that they call change orders.
Hi, I will do the same thing as you did. I mean 5 minutes of extra work wasn't that bad. You can consumed 5 mins just by walking around the natural area rugs or talk nonsense. I guess they really need a job, I mean why pull some strings and did such tricks? $5 for extra 5 minutes is hard to understand!
This is an interesting story. I probably would have asked them what was the reason by the extra fees. 160 a month sounds pretty reasonable for cleaning the house. As I was reading the article I thought about how I should have a home cleaner come in for that price. If they were doing a great job I would ask what the fees were about and if it was within reason I would have paid.
I would have done the same as you, but if it was my husband they would have heard some very strong langauge. He is British and as he always says he is a English gentleman but try to con him or over charge and he becomes a British thug.
It seems people pulling tricks like that happens so oftern they give you a price but then try to add extra charges.
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Why You Shouldn’t Nickel & Dime Your Customers
by Joshua Dorkin on December 8, 2010
This story can be applied to any kind of business, so pay attention . . .
Almost a year ago we found a local company to clean the house. They worked on a few homes in the neighborhood and did a great job. Unfortunately, that relationship came to an unfortunate and abrupt end today.
We had been paying them $85 to come and clean the house, and in the early days they would typically stay between 2.5 and 3 hours. Over the course of the year the amount of time they spent declined as did the attention to detail that was present early on. As we noticed this, we began to get somewhat disillusioned, but not enough to get rid of them.
Fast forward to this morning . . . they arrived and began to clean while I worked perched on the couch. A few minutes in, one of them walked towards the kitchen, stopped, turned to me, and told me that “from today onward we’re going to have to charge extra to clean the dishes.”
“Really? From today onward?” I remarked. “How about giving someone a little heads up before springing something like that on us” I continued, annoyed by this revelation.
Silence.
The kitchen sink had a handful of dishes, some cups and a bit of silverware.
I told her that we weren’t going to be paying them any more to clean our dishes and proceeded to clean out the sink for the next 5 minutes.
I was not happy and immediately called my wife to pass on the new info. Now mind you, two weeks ago we asked them about cleaning some of the dust from under the bed and was told that there would be extra charges for doing it.
I’ve been asking to get rid of them for a while now, but was always rebuffed by my wife. That wasn’t going to happen today. She immediately told me to fire them . . .
We needed the house cleaned, so I held off and simply went on with my business.
When they finished up, I handed over my check for $85 and they told me that they’d see us in a few weeks.
“Hold on. That’s not going to happen,” I said as we all walked out the door. “If you’re going to nickel and dime us on everything, we’re going to just find someone else. Thanks for everything and good luck to you.” I was talking to the back of one of their heads as they stormed off, annoyed at me, while the other guy was very cordial and nice about it.
Do You Run Your Business Like Them?
Forget the decline in quality of service, but when they stopped offering services that are typically standard and started trying to upsell us on these very services, they lost us.
Think about the stupidity of this move . . . they were going to charge us an extra $5 or $10 to do 5 minutes of dish cleaning. There’s no way we would pay that kind of money to clean a few dishes for a few minutes, so had we not fired them, they would never see any dishes from us to clean going forward. The most they would possibly have gotten from us on this up sell would have been the $5 – $10 had I decided to eat crow and let them do it today.
Instead, we felt like the principle of their nickel and diming us was something we couldn’t deal with, and fired them as a result.
Mind you, we pay $85 every 2 weeks or $2210 over the course of a year.
They lost that steady cash-flow because they got greedy and wanted to make a few more bucks from us.
Not only did they lose our money, but it is going to cost them money to acquire that next steady customer, so the losses compound themselves.
Was it worth it?
The fact that I was talking to the back of her head as she walked away, tells me that she probably realized at that very moment that it probably wasn’t.
What would you have done?
Photo: Paul
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