A poor experience getting our windows cleaned this week.

1 week ago I decided that our windows needed cleaning.  Of course I checked WOMOW first, but unfortunately there were no ratings on Window Cleaners.  Well, there was one but they didn't get a very good rating so I wasn't going to use them.

So I pulled out our local paper and found that there were 5 listed there.  Not having anything to go on, I randomly called two of these.  The first one wanted to come out and quote on the job.  In a couple of days he did this and quoted us $260 for the lot.  This seemed pretty expensive to me.  The second one said that he would give me a rough price based on my description of the place and then confirm on the day.  Based on that, he said it would be around $150 so I decided to book him in.

When he arrived a few days later he asked to be walked around the outside of the house and then said that the job would be $225 for the house.  I couldn't believe the price could go up so much from his initial quote - but now he said that he'd orginially quoted $180 (I had written down $150 next to his name in the paper).  Anyway, he was here now with two helpers and the price was still cheaper than our other quote so we decided to go ahead and get it done.

A few hours later, he said that they'd finished but when I looked, there were several windows that they hadn't cleaned.  He stated that he'd never been shown those windows and was never asked to do those.  Admittedly, you can't see these from the outside and having never had our windows cleaned before, I hadn't thought to point them out separately.  However he acknowleged that he did see these windows while he was working.  We argued that we were expecting all the windows in the house to be cleaned and if there were some that were to be treated differently, he should have spoken to us about it. He viewed the situation differently and the only solution he offered was to come back another day and quote on them then.  By this stage, we were adamant that we never wanted to see the guy again and ended up paying him the $225.

It was a very disappointing experience.  We were expecting to pay around $150 and had now paid $225 and still didn't have all the windows cleaned.  We might well have been much better off choosing the other guy who had had a good look around the place and done a proper quote.  This guy did a pretty good job of the windows he did clean but will we use them again?  Absolutely not.  So much about a service experience is the expectations you go in with and this guy did a very poor job at managing our expectations.  In some senses his methods could be seen as smart because he quoted us low and ended up getting the job.  But he will not be getting any repeat work or recommendations.

If you're interested, you can see my rating for them on WOMOW here.

This is one of the reasons I'm so passionate about the potential for WOMOW.  Once more people start using it, businesses like this will not be able to get away with shonky service because the effect on their reputation and future business will be too great.  Don't get me wrong, I don't mean that I would want this business to go under.  But I would like them to know that there are direct ramifications of providing poor service.  And conversely, had this business provided a great service, I would have entered a great rating for them on WOMOW and he'd be rewarded with new customers calling him up because of his good reputation.

Anyway, hopefully in 6 months or a year when I get the windows cleaned again there'll be lots of window cleaners in WOMOW! 

If anyone else has stories about good or bad service levels they've received, I'd love to hear them.

PS - For those of you in Melbourne who like to ski or snowboard, we're currently offering $20 off your Mount Buller Ski Lift ticket.  See www.womow.com.au for details.