Time to make customers pay!

[Green Pro Clean Ltd]

We have all been there, we have all had customers that 'Oh sorry, no cash on me' 'oh can you call next week' or the ones that just hide behind the curtains and ignore you knocking on the door.

When I do the job I leave a receipt if no one is home, later I will knock on the door and perhaps an excuse or perhaps no one home, I go back again and no one home so this time I leave a 'Please contact us to arrange payment' slip.

Now at this point I figure I have done enough work to attempt to get my £8 or £10 or however much the bill is, now it is on the customer to settle the account.

This is where it gets fun, some will phone to arrange payment whereas once in a while you will get those wasters that will just ignore you totally and figure they do not have to pay.

Is this because they have screwed over window cleaners before that eventually gave up being bothered to collect the money? Or just cause they feel oh well it's only a tenner i'll pay when I can be bothered?, do they not consider you a real company or a proper business?

Well whatever their reasons are what are ours for not bothering to use all the tools at our disposal to collect the money we are owed for doing the work? Is it because we have to pay £25 to reclaim a debt of £8 well if you can't be bothered to invest in protecting your earnings then I cant help you any further.

I have finally had enough of new customers wanting work doing and trying not to pay for it so now I have registered with the Claims Court online I have a customer that has been ducking me for £12 for three months now so I have bitten the bullet, paid my £25 (which get's added to the defendants ((Customers)) costs and filed the claim.

All done in 20 minutes on line, now I sit back and let the courts do the work for me. If all goes smoothly I should see payment for £37 in the next 14 days, if not I can have it registered as a debt and then sell it on to a debt collection agency that will add their own costs on top to the customer for recovering the debt.

Would be interesting to see how far a customer will go to avoid having to pay.

For those of you interested in letting the government work for you for a change you can register here, www.moneyclaim.gov.uk

 

[High-tower]

i don't let customers get more than one clean behind, if i haven't been paid by the time its due again it doesn't get cleaned until they've settled up.

 

[adamangler]

How do we prove the work has been done or was agreed t be done though, if the custies contested it.

I have one custy at the minute who is by far the worst ive had.

First two times i cleaned she paid cash, no probs.

Next time i cleaned she had no cash, so i said ok pay online.

No payment came, i though ok ill catch her next time

went again, again n money on her but promised she would pay online

so thats 2 cleans.

Never paid, tried to call wasnt in etc.

Third time went round, she was very apologetic, explained she didnt know how to pay online but thought her daughter could do it. she lives in a nice house and seems genuine so i stupidly cleaned them again and she assured me she would leave the money out next time if i text her the day before, she said that would be a good way to do it, problem solved so i thought.

She was due last week, i text her the night before, on the morning of the clean she texts back, can we leave the windows this time and i will leav ethe money out the next time you are around!

couldnt believe it, didnt know whether to tell her to **** off or what i still havent replied.

 

[Jake]

I couldn't be bothered with making claims, but would do if it was a big job and worth while,

The thing you need to potentially watch @Green is if this customer now starts bad mouthing your business (even though there in the wrong) it could end up being more hassle than it's worth, they could leave a bad review on Google etc...

Friend of mine had his happen, he chased a debt and made a claim - next thing he new- random bad reviews started to appear, and social media negative comments etc...

Just be careful they don't get one back in that way!

 

[Dave B]

That i would say is a prime target to try greens method

She is blatantly taking the **** and the courts would see that as you have your records of cleaning it..let us know how you get on

 

[adamangler]

I might tell her i will make a claim if she doesnt pay up next time.

Cant really be bothered but its such a low down thing to do to have someone do work for you and not pay for it.

As for the review thing @Jake not sure about google but on facebook you can remove the review thing from your business page.

 

[Jake]

That's good, (I don't have Facebook so no idea) but you can't delete Google reviews...

He did have to contact Google to have them deleted - but it was a lot of hassle, and took time...

It's just a bit of a risk I wouldn't want to take...

 

[Dave B]

You can also respond to the bad review with a copy of the court demand for them to pay up showing they are a bad customer and just bitter..would make them look stupid then

 

[Jake]

You can also respond to the bad review with a copy of the court demand for them to pay up showing they are a bad customer and just bitter..would make them look stupid then

Problem was Dave, they had friends leave reviews under different names, but yeah you could do that.

 

[Dave B]

I would risk it and happily respond to the bad reviews with the facts as i don't see why people should get away with it

I had 2 outstanding. .a 33 and a 20 quid

Posted a couple of @Green style letters and now only have £20 outstanding

I was thinking of putting the dirt back on her windows but judging by the state of the insides she probably wouldn't botice

 

[Jake]

Not saying he shouldn't do it Dave, but it really effected my mates business for a while, all for £30,

90% of people wouldn't think to wrote bad reviews over a spat, but from seeing what my mate went through, I just wouldn't bother,

I'd rather take the approach of @High\-tower and just not let it build up.

 

[Dave B]

90% of my work has been built up on reputation and recommendations and am very busy now

I see your point but i haven't even posted on facebook for weeks now as i don't need to

I don't have a website

When I need extra work i shove some leaflets through doors

But i can see how it could affect someone who relies on social media

 

[Jake]

Me too, I only use Twitter, never touched Facebook, website brings in the most work, its just a slight worry these days with how fast word gets about on all the social media outlets...

Im sure green will be fine, I just wanted to put that possible consequence out there, as I saw first hand what a horrible time it was for my mate

 

[Dave B]

Shows how arseholes can make it awkward for everyone

 

[Green Pro Clean Ltd]

How do we prove the work has been done or was agreed t be done though, if the custies contested it.
.

With this customer Adam you already have a confession via text that she owes you money, eg: her offer to leave the money out next clean.

Solution, file the claim, sure you have to pay £25 to the court to do so but that gets reimbursed to you by the customer when they pay up.

I would risk it and happily respond to the bad reviews with the facts as i don't see why people should get away with itI had 2 outstanding. .a 33 and a 20 quid

Posted a couple of @Green style letters and now only have £20 outstanding

Glad my paperwork is working for you Davey.

As for reviews, so what? Respond once, honestly and leave it be, they will not be able to help themselves and will retort again, any grown adult will be able to see they are playing tit for tat. Are you so weak you are going to allow someone to rip you off as you are afraid they will bad mouth you? Well close your doors now and stay home, you aren't fit to run a business.

Do you think major companies, Virgin, BT etc give a stuff if you write a bad review? No they care about getting paid.

It is a valid point though, I will be writing a letter that I will give to all customers with links to facebook and google that I have pages on, and explain that I wish to expand and promote my service and could they spare a minute to write me a review on the site? I reckon at least one in 5 would do so that would give me around 100 decent reviews.

It all comes down to personal chats at the end of the day.

Adam, this woman has made you her bit"*h, what are you going to do about it?

 

[boarcity]

i find you can get even in many ways if someone welches on paying ,some very satisfying

you need to think it thru , make sure you are not the obvious culprit

 

[Green Pro Clean Ltd]

Yes boars but some of us are adults and conduct ourselves as such, only on perhaps 2 occasions have I been annoyed enough to lower myself to those standards and regretted it.

Revenge, regardless of cost to the customer does not pay my mortgage. Getting what I am owed does.

 

[Dave B]

i find you can get even in many ways if someone welches on paying ,some very satisfyingyou need to think it thru , make sure you are not the obvious culprit

The annoying thing boar is you clean the windows and they don't pay..go round and put the dirt back and the police call it criminal damage..how does that work??

 

[boarcity]

The annoying thing boar is you clean the windows and they don't pay..go round and put the dirt back and the police call it criminal damage..how does that work??

wasnt meaning criminal damage . iv usually found that theres a time and a place to get even , sometimes years later . id wait these things have a habit of resolving themselves

 

[Green Pro Clean Ltd]

My mortgage company is waiting years for the payment, they expect it on the 1st of next month so I am not waiting 'years'' to get paid.

'Revenge' is a pathetic notion. I have a nice home, a nice car, enjoy my holidays and hopefully if I can find the time I will finish my CBX500 cafe racer this summer.

Waiting years for revenge does not pay my bills, getting paid pays my bills.

Following a process put in place by the courts and actually getting my money makes me happy and I then consider the matter 'resolved' and never need stress myself with that customer again.

 

[Jake]

Woh green chill! It's just a word of advice, reviews matter a lot to small businesses.

Reviews are what drove my website up to top spot on Google, they do matter, and it's not good for a small business to have several bad reviews that's all...

It effected my mates business a lot, I mean a lot!

Just letting you know that's all