Nice customer

[Toddppm]

I finally started using contracts and signed one of my customers up that i've had for 2 years now. She got the full service:mow,fert,fall cleanup etc. When i went to bill her I double checked my numbers and found that i forgot to add in the leaf cleanup $225(which we just did). So on the invoice i wrote a note telling her the new monthly amount and please call. She left me a message that she signed up for $120/mth and that's all she's paying! I couldn't believe it! I finally got a hold of her and she's in between jobs and says she set up her whole budget based on this price, OK fine just pay me the $225 and we'll leave it at $120/mth. She's says no i should have been more careful!I told her she can just pay for what's been done and cancel but she doesn't want that either? She's convinced she's going to hold me to this , because it's a signed contract? I think she's lost it, this is mostly for work not even performed yet. I think i am going to write up a cancellation with the amount due as of now and send it certified. What do you think? Should i include a Xmas Card<img src="http://dirtrider.net/ubb2/tongue.gif">

[mowerconsultant]

if your contract says fall cleanup is included in the monthly dollar amount, I think she may have one on you.
can you do any installs or work not included in your contract, that you may be able to add the forgotten dollars to ??
just a thought.

[TylerAssociatesLLC]

Your contract should state that the price can be renegotiated upon request of either party. If the price adjustment is turned down by either party then the price will stand unless a party voids the contract with written cancelation. Thirty days after the notice work and payments will stop. This all depends on what the "fine print" said in the contract.

[Charles]

When was this contract signed and when does it end?

[Dennis]

I think that you are the one that made the mistake...don't make her pay...
sounds like she is a good cust. 2 yrs serv. and I assume no prior trbl.
Let it go

[landscaper3]

You should keep each job seperated on contract to prevent confusion, Looks like being a signed contract if you stated that cleanup was involved she has the right. Keep it going and sell her extra service next year like some rhodys or other shrubs and make some of that loss back that way. CHECK & RE-CHECK all your bills before going out!!!!

[Toddppm]

This a contract i wrote up. I am not a lawyer don't claim to be. There is no fine print! Each service is described in a seperate paragraph with the total off to the right. At the end there is a space for the total amount of services divided by 12.I forgot to include the $225 in the total before dividing. We had a misunderstanding before on an install job where she thought the total was only part of the bid , she complained but paid. One of my guys backed the big truck into her van and i took care of it no question.($2200). I am not about to eat this because she's on hard times, if i were her i would gladly cancel to save some money considering nothing needs to be done till spring and i will be charging every 1rst until then! Just started 11-1 ends 10-31 next year.

[Charles]

Todd, just hope she nice enough not to take you to court.
A contract is a contract whether you wrote it up or an attorney wrote it up. Seems like you left no way out for yourself. Hit her van?? Well you suppose to pay for that. not like you did her a favor. If you work for her the whole year you won't lose out on too much. Just don't damage anymore of her property and get rid of that van hitter lol

[T. Cagle]

You signed a conract for X amount, you my friend made the mistake not her. She looked at the cost per month and agreed to pay the said amount, because your numbers were wrong isn't her problem. Consider this, if you monthly price had included everthing she may not have signed that contract at all.

[lawrence stone]

Eat it and send her flowers ASAP.

Your in the big leagues now. Your action to demand more money is lunkhead move on your part. Mistakes aren't free anymore.

[65hoss]

I agree with everyone here. You made the mistake. Don't lose your very first contract customer before it even gets started. It's only $18.75 per month. Chalk it up to a learning experience and move forward. We have all eaten something at one time or another. :)

[Toddppm]

I don't believe any of you would just tuck your tail and let this go. Since it was an honest mistake i expect the customer to see it as this,not take advantage of it. I know it's a dog eat dog world. She's in tough times so F the Landscaper, no F her!
Now you'all got me convinced to write that letter. I couldn't work for her now thinking about she took advantage of my mistake and she would be (should be) wary of giving me any addt'l work because it would get jacked up. Oh well one less tightwad customer to worry about.
Not the 1rst or last contract cust. I've eaten plenty but not before i've even done the work and have to be reminded everytime i go!
Bring on the flamethrowers :p

[Edited by Toddppm on 12-09-2000 at 03:52 AM]

[65hoss]

Sounds like you are talking out of anger and not thinking about long term. Wait a couple of days and let things cool off and see how you feel then.

[Keith]

Originally posted by Toddppm
I finally started using contracts and signed one of my customers up that i've had for 2 years now. She got the full service:mow,fert,fall cleanup etc. When i went to bill her I double checked my numbers and found that i forgot to add in the leaf cleanup $225(which we just did).

Are you saying you missed the yearly bid by $225? What is Fall cleanup anyway? I would think that would be the leaf cleanup, I see why she does. You messed up a bid, we've all done that. Eat it, you don't want to take this to court. We screwed up one this year that included mulching. We usually don't do this, but the last service did, so we included it for her. When it is all said an done, we will make $16 on the mulch. We screwed up, not her.

[thelawnguy]

". Since it was an honest mistake i expect the customer to see it as this,not take advantage of it."

Well you tried to get her to see it your way, evidently no dice, now its time to be a man suck it up, over the life of the contract, and any referrals she may give you for being a man of honor integrity and your word (maybe a persons most valued possession) that 200 bucks will be a drop in the bucket.

As others have pointed out, maybe you learned more than a 200 dollar lesson here.

[HOMER]

You win some and you lose some. You haven't even done the work yet and your cryin' about $18.00 a month. This lady has been your customer for 2 years! You made the typo, she took advantage. If she did anything, she did you a big favor. I bet next time you'll double check your figures. If your charging her for a clean-up like some of the others on here I'm sure in reality you ain't losing much! How long will it take you to do the cleanup? Is the $225.00 going to break you? Your in business. If you go to Walmart and find a $29.95 sticker on a $59.95 item I bet you make em' sell it to you for the "written" price, even though it was a mistake by somebody. Writing her a letter at this point is really the wrong thing to do, especially if you know she needs your help!!!!!!!!! That ain't even good morals man.

Your wrong!

Make it right and you'll have a loyal customer.
Do it your way and you'll have free advertisement!

Homer

[Charles]

An example of how important contracts are: I was watching Judge mathis(my favorite Judge show lol) A woman hired this man to take pics of her wedding. On the contract it was written that he had to be at a certain church and reception area at a specific time. The woman said she called the man and verbally changed the time of the wedding and the location of the reception. He denied ever talking to her about the changes. She said her wedding was ruined because he was late and didnt even show up at the reception at all. He took no pics. The Judge said sorry lady. The written contract is what he has to go by in making his judgement and ruled for the man. Todd, you seem to be taking this personal. But this is a business exchange and the woman is acting in a very business like manner. She made her decision based on that contract. WOW, I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS MANY OF US AGREE ON SOMETHING---LOL

[John DiMartino]

If I made that big a mistake,I wouldnt even think of asking her to pay.You just finished selling her on the fact that her monthly bill wont change,thats one of the reason's she signed with you,for her convience-then you hit her with a $225 unexpected bill.She signed to avoid that.Next time proof read your contracts twice,and add them up with a calculator as you go to recheck your figures.Consider this a 225 lesson in hard knocks.I feel no professional would ask for the money,I would,'nt have the nerve to ask.

[Alan]

I've been involved in things that involved contracts for years. One thing that I firmly believe in is that if you make a mistake you get to eat it! You forgot to add a line item into the total, you just paid tuition in the school of life. Learn from it, shut your mouth, honor your contract, and move on.

[Toddppm]

I can't believe you all agree on something either!LOL. Actually after thinking abpout this for a while, i did give her a break on the total price already to make it an even $120.On the job that she misread i gave her a break of $100 off of about $700(pretty generous huh?)What if i(or you )accidentally left out something bigger like $1000 would you eat that? It's not about the money anyhow it's principle. Nowadays people are just out to get you any way they can and you just rollover and let them walk over you because of an honest mistake? Business or life i aint letting noone just walk over me. I try to be as honest as possible with everyone i deal with. I'm not crying about it and i won't shut up! Just thought i'd entertain you'all for a while :p

[tazman]

Nobody is questioning your honesty. You made a mistake, brought it to the customer's attention, customer is holding you to the written contract, not a lot of money, accept it and move on. The last thing you want is a good customer (2 years) saying you wrote her a nasty letter or took her to small claims court over $200.00. Word gets around. Admit the mistake and move on. Wasted energy. It has happened to everyone and like everyone else says, chalk it up to experience.

[Runner]

Chances are, if you let it go and handled it gracefully, it'll come back to you somehow sooner or later. I would DEFINITELY be trying to sell some extra services to help make up the loss, but do it LIGHTLY. Don't try to stick her on anything, or she'll recognize it right off the bat and retreat. Actually, your honesty and consideration on this one will probably take you alot farther than just having completed the service and collecting for it. Everything happens for a reason, and one reason YOU already have is that you learned from this and will PROBABLY make sure it never happens again. Next one could be a $500. issue. See what I mean?

[Double D]

If you bought a new (insert any of the following items-truck, trailer, mower, or anything on a payment plan), and after seeing the cost per month price, agreed and signed a contract for the item, tell me honestly what you would do when they called you a week or two later, and explained that they honestly left out a charge that should have been included, and the new per month price is now $20.00 per month more than the signed contract price. Are you gladly going to fork over the money in a lump sum, or by paying more per month than agreed. I think we all know the answer to the question. As for you getting rid of a tight wad customer, I think your tight wad customer will be much better of in the long run after she gets someone else to handle her lawncare needs, it seems to me that you have been quite a bit of trouble for her in the past two years, and she has stuck by you. Seems to me after causing damage to her van, a fall cleanup on you would have been a nice gesture to compensate for the inconvience of having a vehicle in the repair shop. I think you are the one with the problem.
Jarius

[Toddppm]

Buying a product has nothing to do with buying a repetitive service. And like i said the price for each service was right there in plain english just added wrong at the end.She was compensated for not having her vehicle, my point in bringing that up was i immediately told her i would take care of it i didn't try to dodge responsibility or tell her to give me 3 estimates;) I'm not leaving her hanging, she has her choice of thousands of contractors in this area.Yes that many!

[thelawnguy]

Originally posted by Toddppm
...When i went to bill her I double checked my numbers and found that i forgot to add in the leaf cleanup $225(which we just did). So on the invoice i wrote a note telling her the new monthly amount and please call. She left me a message that she signed up for $120/mth and that's all she's paying!... (snipped by thelawnguy for brevity)...I think i am going to write up a cancellation with the amount due as of now and send it certified. What do you think? Should i include a Xmas Card

Well the votes are in "Al"..er, Todd, they've been counted, recounted, handcounted again, Supreme court has struck you down...I think its time to concede this issue. ;)

[larrv45390]

If you let her know that you made a mistake on the contract and you are going to stick with the $120/mo she may become your best form of advertisement ever. Most all service companies stay on top by ref. Let her know she is a good customer and you do not want to see her go to another lawn care company.

[T. Cagle]

It makes no diffrence that the $ amount is 100$ or 1000$,
you screwed up. The coustomer is right (even when they are wrong) its called word of mouth advertising. Do you get the picture here, she can be a help to your business or she can really hurt it, don't let this chump change hurt your whole business.

[HOMER]

Todd,

Has anybody ever told you you were hard headed?
I bet you was a hard one to raise!

Love ya, mean it!
Homer

[jaclawn]

BAck in '89 I went to the Grvely dealer looking to buy a walk behind. They had them priced sepertly for the traction unit and the deck. I wanted a 48" deck, and the salesman had quoted the price from a 32" deck. His error.

He realized what he did, and said that he would sell me the machine at his quoted price, because it was his error.

That was very good business sense.

[Greenkeepers]

If you specified that all tasks were included in the contract then your stuck. You tried to recover your money but you didn't so you learned the hard way. I wouldn't drop the customer because of your mistake though.

[Toddppm]

Yeh i know i'm hardheaded:)
Well i didn't have to write the letter, she wrote me one cancelling. Fine by me.

[HOMER]

IMAGINE THAT!

[cantoo]

I know we have all had deals like this and sometimes they turn out for the better other times you just bite the bullet and live with it. Maybe some of us would have handled this particular customer the same way Todd did. We don't know her history like he does, maybe this isn't the first time she has got the best of him. I have a customer who checks every dot on my bills just hoping for a mistake.
Give him a break, **** happens.

[curlawngreen]

I can't belive she waited this long. Beat up her car, lie about year round service, and you probibly said to her"But the fall clean-up isn't in the yearly price. Give the client SOME credit for being.BE A PRO DEAL WITH PRO'S.

[Kirby]

How many people will she tell about her experience with you? What is your companys reputation worth? In the end it this may cost more then a few hundred dollars.

[Barkleymut]

I would have never even made the customer aware of the mistake. If you were my lawnboy and called me saying you had made a mistake I would have thought "I knew that grass cutting boy was as dumb as a box of rocks". Nope instead of reaffirming our customers beliefs in our trade I combat this the first time I meet any customer. I tell them of my experience, expertise, my college diploma, and the fact that I am very dependable. Seems to work for me.

[lawrence stone]

$225 seams like a lot money for one time clean up on a $1000 maint job.

By chance does your equipment come from Sears, Roebuck & co?

[T. Cagle]

She dropped you,now shes telling all her friends about what happened. Hope this area is not where you do alot of work,if it is everone in the neighborhood is going to remember you.
But not the way you want to be remembered.

[Toddppm]

Beat that Horse some more i don't think it's really dead!

Glad there are so many of you perfect pros out there.

[thelawnguy]

Todd, just because you appear unwilling to learn from your mistake, dont assume others wont.

[KindGardener]

That last point is a good one. I just read the entire thread - and while I can sympathize with toddppm (I've misquoted once or twice), I'm sure that the "overall impression" that this transaction created out in the marketplace is NOT the optimal one (to say the least!)

To the point, I'm meting with a cust. in the AM tomorrow - they left a voice message questioning their $200 bill for re-landscaping an area in the front of their home.

Bottom line- I will do my best to make sure it is "right" in the customer's mind - which may require selling them on the "value" of the completed job (they did get good value for the $). wish me luck!

[Toddppm]

" <B>I would have never even made the customer aware of the mistake. If you were my lawnboy and called me saying you had made a mistake I would have thought "I knew that grass cutting boy was as dumb as a box of rocks". Nope instead of reaffirming our customers beliefs in our trade I combat this the first time I meet any customer. I tell them of my experience, expertise, my college diploma, and the fact that I am very dependable. Seems to work for me.<B/> "

Now that you sold them on this idea and when you do make a mistake and you don't even mention it, what do you think those people are thinking? "<b>I knew that grass cutting boy was as dumb as a box of rocks". <b/> Cause yes, they saw it.

I handled this one the way i felt i had to, i never said follow me if you make the same mistake.

For those of you who use contracts, how would you handle a mistake like this? Besides just act like it never happened?
How would you bring it to their attention? Would you wait until the renewal?
We got plenty of bashing but only a couple people saying what they would do?

By the way how do seperate a quote anyway , wasn't trying to make this all bold?

[Edited by Toddppm on 12-13-2000 at 07:01 PM]

[cleancut]

Studies have been done and they show that if a customer has a good experience they will not go out of their way to tell someone about it (some rare cases they will)..But if a customer has a bad business experience they will go out of their way to tell others...Good experiences - People will on average tell 1 other person..Bad experiences - People will tell an average of 10 other people..YOu do the math..Just deal with it and realize that you made a bad business decision...Hopefully this won't cause you to lose any other customers in the area..Good Luck and Be Smart..Clean-Cut...

[Nathan]

Be careful, she sounds like she might screw you. With the contract she could send a complaint to L&I and start a lawsuit. Worse yet, if you aren't a licensed contractor she will win and you will get a pretty hefty fine for operating without a contractors license. Do what you have to in order to keep her happy until the contract expires. Unless $225 is worth the risk to you.

[cantoo]

Todd, I don't use "contracts" but I usually write down a proposal describing the exact job that I am going to do, what it will accomplish, how much it will cost and when I expect payment for the work. Things I leave out are when I will do it and the fact that if something doesn't work I will come back and fix it. hmmmm I guess this probally sounds like a contract doesn't it? The only times that I haven't used this approach was when the customer wanted an estimate right away and then they said to go ahead. I would usually still write it up and give it to them just so they knew the "rules".

[ericksonbrad@hotmail.com]

for those who think this is trow away money, throw it my way. this &*%&^% knew what she was doing, look at last years totals and by comparing the two it should be obvious to her that in fact you did make an honest mistake. get rid of her anyway you can, she will suck the life right out of you and dump you at contracts end anyway. as far as word of mouth goes, this tight &^$%&^ probably has the same kinds of friends anyway and is that really the kind of customer you want? i would try to find a diplomatic way out (even if you have to give up the money owed you now) but if not possible i would try to find a legal way out(sell the contract?) and if thats not possible let her chase you in court i just bet she wont. if you had overcharged her(by accident) on the contract do you think she would want it ammended? you bet your ^%* she would and you would probably do it.


if it stinks on the surface it rarely smells better as you dig! my advice dig out not in. give her an inch and she will take a mile. GOOD LUCK!!!

[Edited by ericksonbrad@hotmail.com on 12-14-2000 at 05:09 PM]

[bobbygedd]

if i went to walmart, and brought an item to the counter with a pricetag of $29.95, that should have a tag on it that says $59.95, i imagine they will call the police! anyway, u have been dealing with this customer for 2 yrs, she knows what the prices have been, and she knows after she does the math that there was an error. she is trying to take advantage of your mistake, and that makes her not a nice person. her financial problems are not yur problems. remember u r in bussiness to make money for u, not for her. make a decision based on the value of the customer, is she along your route, will u be able to make the loss up another way(sell her mulch, fert, etc?)i would hate to lose a customer that was close to the rest of my work, and that i could make alot more money on. she is taking advantage of that mistake, and u r taking it personnaly. dont act out of anger, calm down and do whats best for your bussiness. remember, these are customers, not friends.

[Green Finger]

Yo T Dog,

What you did was not wrong. You made a mistake and you tried to correct it.

It has happen to all of us. Don't change your system, learn from it and move on.

What I would do to save face I would finish the contract without her paying me.

Sounds crazy. It is, and It works.

Your word is bond and you are only as good as your name. She proberly cancelled because she couldn't pay because she was umemployed.

You never know what a person is going through.

I did that for a customer. And til this day I can walk on water, because I took care of her.

She told everyone at her Church, they called and I got plenty of business.

People remember who was around when they were down and out; and They will never forget you.

Words of advice, call her and find out why exactly she cancelled.

What advice she has, What you can do better next time. Get her point of view as well as ours.

That will allow the healing to take place.

Peace out!

[eslawns]

These guys are sure hard on you when you're wrong. :D When I bought my truck, I told the sales guy I only required power steering, and A/C. However, once he finished showing me top-of-the-line-loaded-trucks-I-didn't-want, we looked at the one I bought. It was a cold day, and guess what I didn't notice? No A/C. I went back to the dealer, and he said "Sorry!" End result? Bob's out $900.

When I bought my wife's Honda 2 months later, the dealer let us have the contract, we all signed the paperwork and left with our new car. The sales guy called me and said "We made a mistake on the contract. We need to do another, can you come in?" I went in and they had ommitted A/C (an option on the car) from the buyer's order. The sales guy had another contract.

I was willing to split the difference, maybe even pay dealer cost in cash, until I read the new contract. They assumed I wouldn't read it and wanted to charge me $2200 more for the same car, and a 5% higher rate of finance. I told the sales manager I had a new car already, a signed contract, and have a nice day. He called the police who informed him it was a civil, not criminal matter. When the dealer made his threat to take us to court, I smiled and said "See you there." Haven't heard from him since.

Moral of the story? A contract is a legal document, binding to both parties. Be careful what you sign.