Through Dirty Window Screens; I Can See Clearly Now By Laurie Kapugi: After a bad experience with a window washing service, the company tried to salvage me as a customer, did they succeed? I’m one of those customers that will go out of my way to recommend a company that has done great work for me. On the flip-side; if the service was below average I will not recommend, and most likely inform people of the sub-standard experience I’ve had in the past. I recently had some routine work done around my house that fell into the sub-standard category. My dilemma in this situation is the fact that the prior year this same company did an outstanding job. I will not throw anyone or any company under the bus in this column, but I will include the fact that I had my windows washed. My house has three stories so I leave the window washing to the professionals. This columnist has a fear of heights!
Last year a team of five people showed up at the scheduled time. They went right to work and washed the inside and outside of my windows and they took all the screens off and scrubbed them clean with soap water and a brush. The screens dried and were reinstalled and the job was complete. Total time for the task was one and a half hours. I was thrilled. I put them in my calendar to call in April for another cleaning.
The first scheduled appointment didn’t happen because it was raining. We rescheduled for the following week and all was well. The day of the new appointment they arrived within the scheduled time, but much to my surprise it was a team of one! I decided to go with the flow and let the gentleman get to work. He started counting my windows and then informed me my front windows were going to be sixty dollars each! How could that be when last year they were ten dollars? I decided to call the company and they informed me I was correct. They called their employee and informed him of the correct pricing. He went to work and five and a half hours later I saw him reinstalling my screens. I was confused by this because he never used my hose outside to clean the screens. I questioned him and he informed me, “I used a dry brush to clean them.”
Now I was extremely upset. Not only was I a prisoner of my home for five hours, but he tried to over-charge me for the window cleaning, and then didn’t clean the screens with soap and water. I paid extra for the screen cleaning and it was not done correctly. I called the home office again and they apologized and told me they would speak to the employee about the proper way to clean the screens. At this point I didn’t want to wait around the house for another two hours to have the screens removed, cleaned properly, dried and then reinstalled so they offered to remove the fees from the final price. I had a long conversation with a supervisor about the experience I had with their company the previous year versus this current service. She understood why I was upset and offered to have someone else come out and clean the screen the next day. I politely informed her that I wasn’t able to stay home for another day. She told me she would call me in one week to set-up the appointment. I hung up feeling the problem had been resolved and eventually my windows and screens would be cleaned the proper way.
Fast forward three weeks from my phone call to the supervisor. I never received a phone call to set-up my new appointment. I decided I would email the company to let them know they lost a customer. Of course, they quickly responded with an offer to come out in the next few days and all I would have to do is call and confirm. After all the time I had invested in my window washing this year I felt it was best to let this one go and move on. I never called or responded to the email and it’s no surprise that they never called or followed up with me after I didn’t respond. If they followed up I thought I still might be able to do business with them. I guess they didn’t want my business after all.
This kind of experience and lack of true customer service drives me crazy. I understand that at times there are problems and things go wrong, but that is what a customer service department is for. I was reasonable after multiple problems. I was polite and I agreed to let them make good on their promise, yet they did not deliver, or even follow through in the end. If I am the customer, why am I doing all the follow-up? A good customer service department stays one step ahead of the customer, not two steps behind.
Unfortunately, I have experienced far too many scenarios like the one above. Usually it’s a first time experience and not a second experience though. In today’s world it is so easy to get in touch with customers . We have phones, cell phones and emails. My dentist even sends me text messages to remind me of appointments. So why is it in this world filled with so many ways to communicate; companies don’t communicate with their customers? If anyone out there knows of a window washing service please send me an email with their information, I’m going to need it next spring!
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