It's Not Always The Electricians Fault - Sh!t Clients | 142

Had a lead cancel the electrical job while I was literally parked across from her house. Spent ten seconds blaming myself before I realised what was actually going on. It's not always the electrician!

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Transcript

Pass the LED batten to the next electrician in the relay race. Welcome to Simplified Sparky Marketing.

I was having a cracking week this week, apart from one job, which I'm gonna get into. The main reason for this podcast today, or what I want you to take from it, is — it's not always the system. It's not always your fault. And I feel like there's just certain individuals that you shouldn't do work for. They shouldn't make it through the hurdles you put in place. And this one nearly did, but fortunately she didn't.

So what had happened was, the week ahead was brilliant. There was loads of EV charger installs, bits and pieces, very profitable days. And this one particular job was a really good gap filler. It was profitable, costed it quite well, and I feel like that's one of the reasons why that person ended up not going ahead.

So this job came in on a Saturday morning, and I happened to be at the laptop. It came in through the website and it was a very simple job. It was just replacing one LED batten, which was allegedly installed in 2023, so only a few years old. So what I said was, send me some pictures, et cetera, et cetera. She sent back pictures and I was like, okay, that's easy. I wanted to give some options with the call as well, which I did. I talked through, I gave her the information on the quote, sent it across, and she was like, okay, cool, that's really good. Is there any chance we can have a quick chat now?

I don't usually talk to people if I'm dealing with them over email. But in this case I did. Initially when I replied to her email first, she was like, oh, thanks so much for the rapid response. She was very grateful for the response, so just remember that part.

Then I went to the phone call. I called her up, explained everything, and then she said, there's actually two battens in the kitchen. And I was like, well, that's gonna look a bit weird if we replace one batten. Because they were underneath kind of like a glass enclosure. It was weird. It was kind of like a troffer in an office set up where you had the diffuser and the batten sat above it. But this was kind of like a feature in the kitchen. So I was like, look, if we replace that one, it's not gonna be identical to the other one, because I don't know what brand is under there. So I would ideally like to replace the two of them, so it's gonna look uniform when you turn on the light.

I think what was happening in the kitchen was the light was consistently blinking, as LEDs do when they're on the way out. So it was just a hindrance to work in the kitchen or do anything in the kitchen, and it was really irritating her. So that was fine. I was like, okay, we'll swap the LED batten. There was work on the switchboard as well, which I mentioned.

Then I said, look, I know you want this sooner rather than later, and my schedule is quite packed at the moment. I looked at my schedule in front of me and I was like, look, I can probably do next Tuesday. And then she said, oh, is there any chance you can do further in the week? And I was like, like what day? And she's like, can you do Wednesday? So I looked at the schedule and I had a Tesla charger install on Wednesday, and I was like, okay, I should be able to slot that in on Wednesday afternoon.

So I accommodated her. I said, look, I've got a job beforehand, I don't know how long it's gonna take. It could be four hours, it could be six hours, but it will be Wednesday afternoon. Is that okay? And she said yes. And I said, okay, it's most likely gonna be between one and two. It'll be the afternoon essentially. So that was fine.

Fast forward to Wednesday just passed. I knew I was going to that job, so I stocked up, went to the suppliers in the morning and grabbed the LED batten, and some bits for the Tesla job as well. Then I went and I did the Tesla job, and it was a bit more than I expected on the Tesla job. I costed for it, don't you worry about that. It just took a bit more time.

So I was like, okay, shit, it's gonna be like one or two when I get there. But I was just flat chat all day and I never looked at my emails. What had happened in the meantime was, at like 1:01pm she called the admin and she was like, what time is Alan gonna be coming at? I purposely turned off the booking reminder on this job because I didn't want her getting an email triggering saying I'm coming at this time or this window, when I wasn't going to potentially arrive in that window — which is exactly what happened. So I left it off. I was like, I've told her it would be the afternoon, so she should be bracing between 12 and four. However, it's slightly my fault — I should have given her a more broad time. But I don't know what the panic or pressure was. If she had told me she had to go somewhere or something like that, I would've been like, okay, let's definitely lock it in for that time, or I'll let you know.

So anyway, I was working away and I packed up my stuff. Went to ServiceMate, went to navigate the job, went to go to the second job. I navigated to the job and sent the text message as well. Nothing was responded to or anything like that. And I arrived at the job. Now mind you, this job was probably 25 minutes from the job I was on, and the job I was on was about two to three minutes back-roading back to my house. So I drove all the way into the close to the city, and I was literally parked across from the house, and I was grabbing the stuff out of the van. I said, hang on, I just gotta double check her name so I get it right.

Went back into ServiceMate, checked the name, I was like, cool. And as I checked it, I clicked on the notes, and there were two notes put in there from the assistant. One of them said she called at, like a minute past one, and wanted to know what time. I missed all this. Then at like 2:05 or something, the note was, she's called up again wanting to cancel the appointment due to the treatment that she has received. And I was like, for fuck's sake. You cannot keep everybody happy.

I looked at the timeline and I was like, I feel like she was trying to wiggle out of it from the start. Even when we spoke on the phone, she wasn't that happy about the pricing, and I feel like this was an out that she used to get out of the job. Fair enough. I should have been checking my emails and stuff like that, but I was just super busy. Nine out of 10 people, 99 people out of 100, would generally be cool with this. The clients I tend to work for are excellent people. This was an exception. A glitch in the matrix.

If this was years ago, it would've really upset me. But I'm aware that that was just a shit person to work with. Because I had told her it was gonna be the afternoon, and I told her it could have been any time in the afternoon. I'd have to double check all that. But I got to the job, and I had made the money for the day. The targets that I set, I had made that money in the first six or seven hours of the day, and I wasn't fussed about this job.

So when I got to the job, I could have knocked on the door and asked her what's the situation, what's going on. But I was like, you know what? I don't need that client in my life. And I just got back into the van and drove away and just marked that job as unsuccessful and walked away. Because I felt there was something deeper, that she didn't go ahead for some reason.

Sometimes we blame the system. Like I was like, fuck, I should have done this or I should have done that. Everything else is streamlined. But for that one job, typically I'd turn the booking reminder on, and she didn't get that reminder. If she did get it, she would've been waiting for me between 12 and one, because that's usually what I do — I'll slot an afternoon job and slot the morning job.

And with this as well — when I was doing loads and loads of Teslas, when they were coming through the woodwork, when I was first listed with Tesla — I had a process in place where the lead would come in, I would have specific forms that would go out, I would have specific questions on the forms. And maybe one in every 20 clients would come through and they'd complain that the form is too difficult for them to do, that it's not a good system. I would get down on myself and I would say, fuck, maybe I need to change the system. This is broken. Should I tweak that?

It's the minority that were doing it. It's actually just a user problem, not actually my problem. Because the other 19 people out of 20 were well able to fill out the form, give me the details, and then receive the quote and lock the job in. It was the minority of people that were making my life difficult, because they were like, no, I can't do this, can you not just come out to the job?

All that is, is it's a lazy client who essentially just wants you to waste your time, go kick around. And it's becoming extremely common as well. It's a podcast in itself that's coming in regards to qualification of leads, because we all know at the moment Tesla chargers are red hot and there's a lot of curious people out there that just want to waste your time.

But I just wanted to pump this podcast out today and just reiterate that it's not always you. It's the end user. If that client was a decent person — they were even offered by the assistant that takes the phone calls, that we can call Alan immediately and check where he is and get you a time. And she was like, no, I've been treated so badly.

It's funny when you look back on the email chain — she essentially had said, thanks so much for the rapid response, thanks for the info about this, thanks for the info about that. But when it came to the part where it was about money and doing the job — I feel like in the last couple of days, between the lead and locking it in, she had spoken to other people and they're probably like, we can do it for cheaper or something. Because I felt she was very price conscious.

But yeah, it's not always you. It's generally them. If you've got a bad gut feel, or you just get a bad client, it's not always your fault. Look, I could have done better with this, but she just happened to slip through with the booking reminder, which would've given her some insight into the times. It just goes to show the importance of having these systems in place. I make sure that the booking reminder is set 24 hours out — they get a reminder. Because it's like when you get a dental appointment and it's six months down the track, they send you a text message three days before, and only for sending that text message I would not remember that. So it's very important you do put the booking reminders in. I'll put my hand up with that.

But hopefully you'll take something from this and not get too hard on yourself if you've got some shitty clients or they try to ruin your day. I'll catch you next week.