Reaching new lows in Customer "Service"
As a Boulder homeowner with two properties, I often contract services to local providers, anything from house cleaning, to professional gardening, to tree-cutting, and handyman work. Never before in my 19 years in Boulder have I found more disregard and affront to the term "customer service" than with my recent experience with the janitorial services of "Boulder Snow Removal & Landscaping." I contracted them exactly one year ago to mow lawns, trim branches, clean up leafs and shovel snow for the fall, winter, spring and summer season, 2016-2017. In the year I contracted with them, they did the work as well as it is expected -it doesn't exactly take a PhD to do these chores. However, as I noticed last spring, they would not bill me monthly, but instead sent me a fat envelope with invoices going back three months, marked "Past Due" in the mail. This went on for the next two seasons. This month, after receiving again one envelope with all my bills for the summer, I complained that I didn't like this practice: it lead to "sticker shock," and made me look irresponsible. They replied with a dismissive and argumentative email claiming that they had emailed all my bills monthly "for years" and I hadn't responded. A thorough search of all my email correspondence showed to me that this wasn't correct; I invoked some sort of "mistake" in communications or billing, and requested that, from now on, I be issued a monthly paper bill through regular mail. But the people who run this outfit went to the Business School where they teach that antagonizing and alienating your clients is the best practice. Instead of admitting that there may have been a mistake, and agreeing to my simple request to be billed -in paper- monthly, the man who runs the company, the Janitor-in-Chief, refused to accommodate and proceeded to cancel my contract. What sensible business person would rather loose a client -who'd payed more than $1400 over the course of the year- rather than take a look and see if there is some reason to the client's complaint and/or request? Not these guys. Short of any sensible rationale for the guy's decision -and what would that be?- I couldn't help but get a whiff of a chip on the shoulder, could it be because I'm the one with the Spanish name, but they are the ones cleaning up my yard? Well, they lost a client, and every possible referral that might have come from me. Luckily, though, Boulder is full of guys with lawn mowers, leaf blowers, and snow shovels. read more