So here’s a first for me. I showed up to my last job of the day and right away noticed there were a ton of drip marks from the lettering. I thought that was weird as I make it a point to leave my glass looking way better than that. But I shrugged it off and decided maybe I was somehow distracted and forgot to towel it last time around.
As I’m about 3 panes into the work, a new clerk who I have not yet met comes out and says a guy just came to clean the windows and got paid. I told her I have signed invoices showing I have been servicing this account for over a year, and asked for some more information about this other cleaner.
Turns out that the last cleaner who got fired from the account had come in about 20 minutes before I got there and poached my job. The clerk I had usually dealt with just moved away last week, so this was apparently a perfect time to swoop in and take advantage of the new girl’s ignorance.
Fortunately I was able to talk to the owner on the spot and get this sorted out so that little trick won’t work a second time.
Seems to me this is too much of a coincidence to be random chance. I think I was being stalked and this dude was ready to pounce as soon as the opportunity presented itself.
Most my other accounts in that area used to be his as well. I thought he was just asleep at the switch. But now it looks like we got ourselves a turf war.
If anybody else (old timers especially) has some good turf war stories, this would be a good thread to compile them all in one spot.
It’s not a war if your quality is better which it sounds like it is. You must have seen other things that pointed to sloppy work? I have that issue of going behind sloppy cleaners and its usually whoever the property management could swindle into doing them.
For the past 18 years I’ve serviced a local property management company who we do a lot of work for annually. Properties range from four-story buildings to strip mall complexes. We clean them all 2 times a year.
It is great when we clean the store fronts because the local window cleaners who clean some of the individual storefronts get extremely irritated that we come in and wash the windows, we actually have some that will stock us calling the property manager and everything thinking were doing something Shady trying to take their accounts.
I get a lot of “I’m glad you came this time, they looked worse when they were done then when they started.” I start off sales spiels with it too, I’m here to save your windows from the property management crews. Begs the question; Is the property management ok with that quality of work for the price? I’m not saying you do that quality but generally they just want it done for as cheap as possible or what?
[quote=“Trenchfeet, post:15, topic:45461, full:true”] Is the property management ok with that quality of work for the price? I’m not saying you do that quality but generally they just want it done for as cheap as possible or what?
[/quote]
All our accounts get the same quality. Our reputation of having more than 50% of our customers for 15-20 years speaks for itself.
They are happy with our services, this customer doesnt even take outside bids.
Few years back a new manager came in, tried switching window cleaners even signed contract for all. I was at the owner of the companies home and mentioned to him we were surprised he switched. By time we finished cleaning his home his new manager called me and apologized and gave us all work back.
That’s the customer base that us worth working hard for, mutual respect.
Back in the 90s I worked for a company here that was extremely competitive. It seemed like there was numerous times when we threatened verbally with threat’s of violence .Nothing much came of it aside from maybe a shoving match or two.
Thanks Will… predictive spelling
