Trust a customer dot com

Discussion in 'Carpenters' Talk' started by Paul Otter, Mar 14, 2016.

  1. Paul Otter

    Paul Otter Active Member

    After a week dealing with an annoying customer (I have had a lot worse) I seem to remember that there was once a website where troublesome customers could be listed, anyone remember it?
     
  2. Emanuel

    Emanuel Member

  3. Paul Otter

    Paul Otter Active Member

    Thanks for this, it all appears to be U.S. or am I missing something? Cheers
     
  4. Emanuel

    Emanuel Member

    oo. I thought that you could enter customers from all over the world. I don't know of any other platforms in the UK which is unfortunate. We could all use something like this. It's not only the customer that needs to be protected, but us too (the ones that are doing the actual service).
     
  5. matthew west

    matthew west New Member

  6. Jitender

    Jitender Screwfix Select

    I got this reply:

    The owner of www.bestwebsites4tradesmen.co.uk has configured their website improperly. To protect your information from being stolen, Firefox has not connected to this website.
     
  7. gpierce

    gpierce Active Member

    Gee wiz, are you saying you can set me up with my own Wix website without me having to use their website myself? Wow. And sign me up for one of those fancy mail.com email addresses.

    I especially love how it plays annoying noises on the home page, it gives me fond memories of 2001.

    Add in fantastic SEO such as advertising 'graphic desig' in the site description meta tags, and it seems like a no brainer.

    Wix = no control over source code, which in turn means no real control for anything other than basic SEO.

    Theres nothing wrong with building quick websites using Wix and selling your service doing that, but don't bill yourself as a web design or SEO expert when you're not. Any web designer worth their salt will code their sites, because you need that control for clean, optimised code that gets results without buying them using Google AdWords. Take a look at the source and Wix doesn't even directly contain the page code, it dynamically loads it from an external Wix server using Javascript, which means no content in the code for Google to crawl effectively, which is the biggest no-no in SEO, it all starts with content. And if you don't know what any of that means, then you need to go and learn web design.

    Buying a Makita drill doesn't make you a builder. And having a website saying you are a web designer clearly doesn't make you a web designer.
     
  8. philthespark

    philthespark Active Member

    I think there are probably laws over here to prevent you naming bad customers,which imo is wrong.Same with those programmes about dodgy tradesmen,they never do one about dodgy customers,and there are quite a few about.It was funny the other week,I was talking to my last apprentice,he's qualified now and working for a decent firm but like most sparks,he does a few foreigners.He was asking me how I'd coped for all those years with awkward ones,the ones who want the impossible,or the £1000 job but only want to spend £100.I smiled "that's life kid,you learn over time how to weed out the ones you don't want". I got that way with customers that when they rang up I could work them out over the phone,if I got one of "those" then I'd ask them how much they were thinking of spending,then usually just tell them over the phone that it wasn't happening at that price.
    I vividly remember one guy,he'd bought a 10.5Kw shower that was on special offer,he knew the existing 6mm wasn't big enough and neither was the fuse in the board,it was something like a 20 mtr run and was going to be in 10mm iirc,the guy was expecting me to supply the cable,fit it,and uprate the fuse,and in his opinion "I don't expect it'll be more than about a hundred quid"
    There are 3 types of customer in my experience,the type who knows what they want but have no idea of cost but will pay anything,sadly these types often get ripped off, Then you have the ones who know what they want and a rough idea of how much it will cost,and finally the ones who live in dream land,they know what they want but think they can get it for next to nothing,these are usually a mate of "john" from down the pub! We've all heard of "John" a few of us have even seen his work,but very few have met him.
    Client "Hi mate,I want a price for 3 extra sockets in my lounge"
    Electrician "no problem mate,it'll be around £130"
    Client "HOW MUCH ! John from the pub reckons he can do it for £50"
    Electrican thinks to himself,"well why are you asking me then?"
    Dodgy or difficult customers are a right pain,some of the forums I used to frequent had a private section that the public couldn't access,it was usually in her that naming and shaming bad customers went on.
     
  9. teabreak

    teabreak Screwfix Select

    Maybe we need a code to mark on the outside of the house like tramps (is it OK to use that term still?) used to use that told who was a good bet for a handout, or now, so we hear scammers use to mark an easy touch! Perhaps a "gentleman's sausage" scratched into the wall!;)
     
    philthespark and FatHands like this.

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