Handling Complaints in Your Home Cleaning Business
A Home Business Article Contributed by Jenni Mckinney
Why Your Home Cleaning Business Should Have a Complaints Policy
When potential customers begin searching for a home cleaning business, particularly if they do not have any friends, family, or neighbors involved in the industry, they will usually begin by comparing services. Since most home cleaning businesses offer basically the same services for basically the same price, the extras will stand out and become the deciding factors for the potential customers. One of these extras is obviously how the company handles complaints. To be able to advertise your services with a "Money-Back Guarantee" on your flyers or classified ads is a major selling point.
How Does Your Competition Handle Home Cleaning Business Complaints?
In deciding how to handle complaints that may arise in your home cleaning business, it is important to first of all research how your competition handles complaints. Do they have a money-back guarantee? Do they provide additional work at no charge, or return to correct mistakes or omissions the same day? However your competition operates, you will want to be sure to either match or exceed their policies regarding complaints, so that your customers will have no reason to switch companies.
Customers who have had their complaints taken seriously and satisfied effectively will be your biggest word-of-mouth advocates.
Setting up a Ratings Board for Your Home Cleaning Business
In this age of high tech everything, the majority of families that are able to afford the services of a home cleaning business will undoubtedly have internet access and be computer literate. To market to this sector of the public impressively, you can set up a ratings board for your home cleaning business. This gives each of your customers a way to go online to your website and post their opinions about your services.
This vulnerability is only risky if you plan to offer below average quality and service. But if you, like most other home cleaning businesses out there, plan to go the extra mile and do your best, having a ratings board that allows customers to give you five stars for your service can only improve business. In addition, the ratings board can provide you with a more accurate assessment of your performance than asking the customer face to face.
The ratings board can serve as a "quality thermometer" for your business. And when a customer posts a complaint and you rectify it immediately, the customer will then feel obligated to post their satisfaction with how you handled the complaint. This encourages potential customers reading your ratings board to trust you, knowing that you do make mistakes but that you try to fix them honestly.
Additional Suggestions for Handling Complaints in Your Home Cleaning Business
We have discussed providing a money-back guarantee, returning the same day to correct errors or omissions, and providing a ratings board for customers to have a voice about your quality. Other ways to handle customer complaints include leaving behind an opinion postcard after every job, so that customers can write down their complaints and mail them. When you receive the complaints, call the customer and try to resolve the situation in their favor.
Additionally, you can hire a third-party telephone polling company to call your customers at random times and survey them on your quality. Customers are typically more likely to complain honestly to a third company than to your face. Regardless of the methods you employ, it is vital to the success of your business to have an effective complaints handling policy in effect immediately.
