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Just realized I was the problem in a client mess I had last month
Had a customer in Tacoma who kept pushing back on every estimate I gave for taking down a big maple near their house. I got frustrated and told them they were being unreasonable. Later I found out they had a bad experience with another tree crew that dropped a limb through their roof last year. That changed how I look at difficult clients now. Anyone else had a moment where you figured out you were part of the issue?
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finley_smith5d ago
Just realized I was the problem" - see, I gotta push back on that a little. Sometimes being direct with a client isn't being the problem, it's just being honest about what you can and can't do. That customer had baggage from a past bad crew, sure, but that doesn't mean your frustration wasn't valid either. You were trying to do a job and they kept fighting you on it... that gets old fast no matter how understanding you try to be. We're not therapists, we're people trying to get work done. Sometimes the "problem" is just two reasonable people who see things different.
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zarag174d ago
Three weeks ago I had a client in Puyallup who wanted their AC unit mounted on the roof instead of the ground. I told them flat out that was a bad idea because of weight and drainage issues. They kept insisting and I almost walked off the job. Turned out their last HVAC guy had installed it wrong on the ground and water kept flooding the basement. They weren't being difficult, they were trying to fix a past screwup that cost them money. So yeah, I get what you're saying about being direct with clients, but how do you tell the difference between a client who's just being stubborn and one who's actually been burned before? Because that line seems way blurrier than people want to admit.
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