Meeting customers

[aflemi]

Always alter my approach depending on the customer and sometimes my price too! Not in the way you would think (i.e. wealthy or not) but depending on how much I’m going to have to hold their hand through the job, some customers want to be a part of every detail and others do not want to be involved. So my price sometimes reflects what level of service they require, for example do they want me to source samples and bring them to them? Or are they happy to do the leg work?

Take one of my current customers, I did no less than 8 different kitchen designs before we agreed on one, had 3 site meetings, of which she was more than 3 hours late for each one. None of that annoyed me in the slightest but it showed me that decision making is not her strongest point although she wants to be involved at every step so I’ve built that into my price.

With most of my customers I have a friendly but professional relationship but I'm quite happy to be ultra business like or on more friendly terms although never fall into the trap of being their best buddy as at the end of the day they are still a 'customer'

3 hours late, 3 times?????? I think that would annoy me 'slightly'. Unless you knew you had the job and were charging her by the hour...
The upside with 'pain in the ***' clients is that their behaviour can put off the competition who don't have the patience to look at the long-term.
I mainly quote for full bathroom design and install so I have to gain the client's confidence. If that means staying for 2 hours chatting about whatever, I'm happy to do it. Just won a job today:hurray:, nice couple have £10k to spend on a new bathroom, I'd probably already spent 10 hours on it, working out a design, doing drawings, trailing round tile shops for samples to show them, poring over brochures and magazines for the perfect taps within their budget and visiting them 3 times. If I didn't think they were serious I wouldn't have invested that time, but having spent the facetime getting to know them a bit and listening to what they wanted to achieve from the re-fit, I was fairly confident. Now i feel we have a good relationship and I want to provide them with a beautiful new bathroom.

 

[The Legend; Phil Hobson RIP]

I tend to price jobs mainly from recommendations. So most customers know about me from friends, I always try to be very polite and friendly. I like to engage them in conversation about the cowboy element of this industry. Hopefully convince them I am the man for their job. My one gripe is, as I'm sure my fellow victorian fixers will be aware. Is the time you can spend planning and pricing a job, only to find the end result comes to nought:mad2:

 

[Time's Ran Out]

If you are looking to price up a Victorian floor - I do view the job very carefully and listen to the customer intently.
Is it right for this house - can they afford it!
Because some people have no idea how much these tiles cost - and how much work goes into them.
But generally after a good hour (sometimes more) of talking and looking through a porfolio of completed work you have usually won them over.
That only means if they are going to have a Victorian floor done then you will get the job.
The price is often the defining item.

 

[Richard Edwards]

Hello Phil - As a fellow Victorian Specialist, I have recently noticed that enquiries that start with a client visit to our web site, who then ask me to price either a new floor or restore an old one, invariably comes to nothing on grounds of costs. Those that are recommendations - and thats most of what we do, nearly always result in a booking - I have a feeling that if a potential customer searches the internet and find us, are looking for cheap and those that come by recommendation are always prepared to pay a proper rate for a superior proffesional job