Dealing with an unhappy customer...

[kaval]

How do you handle an unhappy customer, and foster a possibility of retaining his/her business in the future? I have been detailing for profit since May and am trying very so hard to build a solid reputation for myself which I can use to move forward into the future.

This is the subject detail: LINK

When I say 'unhappy', I refer to the work itself. I detailed the SLK a while ago and the customer was not happy as there were some scratches left. These scratches were actually RIDS (see pictures of the passenger rear fender wheel arch). I explained to the customer prior and post detail that some defects are going to remain as they are deeper than the rest, and in the best interest of the clearcoat, I would rather not go any more aggressive than I did given that the car was going to be sold to someone else.

Another thing that caused his unhappiness (which I personally found to be rather laughable) was that the next day after the detail my client was driving in the rain and his windows started fogging up. He called me to complain and said "what did you put on my windows?" I told him what to do to get the fog out.

It just seems that the customer was nitpicking, but either way it wasn't a pleasant experience to have someone who was unhappy. Ontop of that, he sold the car to buy a Ferrari, which I would love to have an opportunity to detail.

Out of my efforts to provide great service, I offered to go over the car in the spots where he was unhappy but he refused. I guess it's reasonable to say that I move on from this client and just send him a thank you card at Christmas as I will do with all my clients I have had thus far.

What would YOU do? I suspect this rarely happens as detailing (at least for me) is something where it's either done properly, or not.

Your input is greatly appreciated!

Kaval

[jsatek]

Kill them with kindness. Hopefully he wont return.

[elitemobile]

I have learned it is absolutely impossible to please everyone and if you try youll kill yourself doing it..... chalk this one up as a learning experience dont beat yourself up over it

o and about detailing his ferrari i would definatly pass if he was that picky about his MB i could only imagine with the Ferrari he might call you up a week later and complain about the dust on it

[howareb]

I agree with elitemobile. The car you did looked trashed before you started. I think that you reached the level of perfection that you could for what you had to work with.

Go ahead and send him the christmas card, but given the situation I would not want another one of his cars, even a Ferrari.

Now a Porsche Carrera GT maybe (Just kidding).

[mcc]

You aren't going around finding really nice, appreciative people and giving them full details for cheap, so don't do the opposite and give really unreasonable and unappreciative people a chance to take advantage of you either. If a person isn't reasonable, chances are you won't be able to make them happy. You told him before and after what the deal was, and he didn't want to hear it. Move on, and be happy that you don't have to deal with those types of customers anymore.

If I mess up, then I will fix it. However, I won't go above and beyond reason as, contrary to the saying, the customer is not always right. Good judgement has to be exercised, or you can paint yourself into a corner and then get blamed for following their direction.

Move on, there are other Ferrari's in the world.

[Cleaning Fool]

Sweat it not. You did a fine job on the car. You told him upfront somethings may not come out

[Kmhawaiidh]

Total disclosure up front is the best that you can do, but with those types of customers I like to also walk them around the car and explain and also show what has been done the little things the major things. You never know the next time he shops you or uses someone else those things you pointed out might get you his business next time. Good luck.

[mr.ikon]

Whats to complain about? The car looks so much better after you worked on it. Seeing the befores and afters, I would be thankful you corrected all that.

Just move on. I'm sure you'll find lots more customers and down the road to forget about this one.

[coscooper]

kaval - as everyone else stated, can't please everyone, you set expectations up front did an awesome job on a clearly neglected car. Sounds like customer just being unreasonable. Considering they didn't care for their car before, probably took it to $10 wash-n-wipe on corner, it's obvious they could care less.

Save the pics for your personal gratification & show-n-tell.

Like I once heard from some comedian, "Don't sweat the petty stuff and don't pet the sweaty stuff"... no clue who said it... just sounded funny.

[JoshVette]

The car did look very nice afterwards, but even if your correct all the paint and spend 12 hours on it and to you and all of us it looks great, it doesn't matter because the client had different expectations.

I always ask what their expectations are before hand and then try to tell them what level I am willing to take the car to and when you're done have them do a walk around and point out anything they're unhappy about and then you correct it.

You're not going to get that level of correction the customer is wanting using a PC, you should really consider stepping up to a rotary for paint correction.

Remember, always underpromise and overdeliver.

Learn from this, find out the expectations before you touch their car.

[Scottwax]

That is the type of customer you fire.

[salty]

You can't please everyone.

Back in the day i would wet sand, compound and spend too much time trying to make it perfect. When 98% of people don't care or know no difference.

Now on such jobs i will discuss their expectations and what i am willing to do. If they want it perfect, it is by the hour.

If i am discussing paint perfection now, i give them this example. I show them my baby finger nail thickness and say, "that's about the thickness of your paint, i can only remove so much before it causes a problem."