Estela was hired to do a post-construction clean in my 2,100 ft2 row house. She charged $700 but assured me that even though she charges a lot, that everything would be detailed and I wouldn't need anything cleaned again.
When she was done, I caught some things that she quickly corrected, but when I was in the house later that week I saw many larger things hadn't been cleaned well. The living room and dining room floors had a lot of small to large dirty spots on them, like they'd only had a quick, cursory mop but had not been detailed. The back sun room looked like it hadn't been mopped at all. The kitchen cabinets looked like they'd been quickly wiped down rather than detailed, and the stair risers weren't touched at all and had dirty spots all over them.
When I told her about it, she said I hadn't reported it within a 24 hour time period, which was news to me because she'd never mentioned that policy before! Honestly, I couldn't even be in the house for a few days after she was there because while she was working the heat was inadvertently turned on, and the thermostat was turned up ALL THE WAY UP on a 99 F, humid August day! It took days for the house to cool down again. Obviously this happened while wiping down the thermostat. When I explained what must have happened she denied it and suggested that I had turned on the heat!
Another thing that made my experience with Estela unpleasant was that she texted me the night before our appointment asking me to pay her in cash, which required last-minute late night and early morning ATM runs to accommodate her.
When I asked for a receipt she said she didn't usually give them and gave me the run around for days before she finally sent one. Even then, she only sent it after I lost my temper and told her that her customer service was poor.
There were other inconveniences, like trying to fitting me into a cancellation the same week rather than scheduling further out, making me rush like crazy to get things ready in time. She was also either 30-45 minutes early or late, making me scramble over there in a hurry or wait around for her while she was stuck in traffic (happens), but never on time or within 10-15 minutes of the agreed upon time.
Ultimately, Estela over-promised and under-delivered. I felt like I had to do a lot of running around to accommodate her, yet she refused to give me the same courtesy when I'm the paying customer! She did not admit to any oversights and once she'd been paid she did not care to correct any areas she or her team missed. It's too bad because she did some things well and initially seemed honest, nice, and hardworking. Why not just make it right and retain the customer? Not a good way to run a business.
Estela really needs to work on her customer service skills, and she needs to adequately communicate important policies. She falls way short of "satisfaction guaranteed" as it says on her business card, and my only recourse is warning the rest of you. Maybe that's why she insists on cash. You're better off having a larger cleaning service come twice--and you'd still pay less than what I paid Estela! Lesson learned. read more