Response from Ned Stevens Gutter Cleaning
We never had as much trouble communicating with a customer as we had with this one. He had sent an email asking a question about service, which we responded to by email, but he said he never got. He sent a couple of emails after, to which we finally were able to reach him on the 8/31, in responding to his 3rd email. On 9/3/13, we put him on the schedule for service on 9/11/13. We called the day before, but got no answer to confirm. The service involved window cleaning, and window cleaning can involve inside windows, and if the customer isn't home to let us in, there is no point in going out. We left a message, but never got a call back. The job was put on hold till we could confirm. After a month of not hearing from the customer, and having the jobs still on the books, our manager, Bobbie, called the customer again on 10/21/13 at 3:49 PM (yes, we even have the time of the call) and left a message asking if he still wanted the service done, and when we could do it. Customer never called us back. The whole thing was serial, it was as if the customer, by email, really wanted the service, but any move forward we did, the customer disappeared. I don't know if it was buyer's remorse, or if the customer was in the hospital, or called out of the country for some reason. Accept for not answering the customers second email he sent us, we responded to every email, and followed through with everything we said. We just could never reach the customer when we needed to. Had he answered or called back on 9/10 to confirm he'd be home, the work on 9/11 would be done. Had he called us back on 10/21, we would have rescheduled. I cannot fathom anything more would could have done, except for literally tracking him down like Dog the Bounty Hunter. It was a shame too, because as a business, we really needed that job. That is the slowest part of the year for us, and we do just about everything we can to get every job possible to keep our crews employed. When the customer didn't respond, that created a whole on that date that we couldn't fill at the last minute, and that crew lost wages they would have otherwise received.