Honesty | Removal quotes
Does a good business of any kind practice honesty with potential customers or not? ive recently found that being too truthful can be interpreted as being rude-negative and not providing what the customer wants to hear, people are so used to not hearing the truth or anyone being honest with them nowadays but when they do it comes across as rude in their mind. In reality I have to find out if we can do the job or not like any decent business really, or simply even if we want to do the job. Not asking anything and just saying yes to all what a customer says might not always be the best for the customer or the removal business.
I know of plenty “removal companies” who willingly tell customers anything just to get the sale with so called charm and deal promises of anything they want.. or worse still provide an inferior service by knowingly selling something that’s not the end product , you would be amazed what people fall for over the phone with the minimum of sales technique normally ending up with wide eyed innocent customer paying for something that’s costly, stressful and not what they expected because if they the removal company told the truth you would have never have used them.
Where do you draw the line? offer something then what turns up isn’t what you expect eg couple of unfit for purpose removal guys with a small old van as other bigger ones in the garage, plodding around for a per hour price or offer a service that’s not really what the customer expected from the sales pitch of an apparent wonderful professional service, that’s how you can be ripped off! Oh but never mind the guy/girl on the phone was a really nice …duh, you`ve fallen for it big time and you’re going to pay for it even if you don’t even know it yet!
I like to be as honest as I can with customers and sometimes getting information from them can very difficult and frustrating, often im asked why I need to know all the information. To be honest if I give someone a price to move home in Edinburgh and I turn up and it doesn’t match what I’ve been told it can be very awkward telling customer it doesn’t match their list and the price has to go up, im not sure why anyone thinks it wouldn’t go up, its business after all!
If when speaking to a customer they answer honestly i can work out if i can do the job or not, one thing i won’t do is say i can do it when it’s clear we can’t. If i had someone looking for a mansion to be moved i certainly wouldn’t greedily say yes thinking it’s a big bumper pay day, simple fact is I’ve not got the capacity and i wouldn’t want to waste the customers time, some people do say yes and have no shame and the only person who looks a fool is the customer in the end.
On the other foot occasionally customers have a removal budget due to their circumstances and don’t want to go over budgeted price so provide the bare minimum information focusing on just the large items or leaving some vital part of information needed just so their budget is kept nice and low and making the job sound relatively straightforward when it’s not. As a small business we have to charge what we charge it’s not a hobby, we also cannot act as a charity or out of sympathy so when asked questions about the job and they are answered that’s what my price is based on, no other info or guess work which seems to be a large part of it on customers part ending with an attitude of aw you got me there that’s your fault for not asking that one question.
I`m fully aware if you buy a bathroom or get some work done on a house you have an end product you can see and touch but with home removals it’s just seen as something of little value to customers and it’s not worth paying for, it’s not a holiday so no tan or nice pictures by the pool, it’s not a bathroom so no new bath, it’s not a car ,new clothes etc. its hiring someone trying to make a living to move your stuff with muscle power in a van that doesn’t run on air and run without anything spent on it – it’s not free and sometimes it’s not cheap.
