ex-customer is slowly coming back and calling me for various things...

[huggytree]

i lost my biggest customer last Fall....i feel it was due to price...i started working for them 2 years earlier and it was due to ME being cheaper than their regular plumber....so i know price is always important....they werent the easiest to work for and payed 30 days late(but always payed)...i was happy to work for them, but my price reflected their way of doing business....

i was upset when they quit calling.....and noticed she was always 'very busy' when i tried to call her to talk about new projects..........i decided to just let it go

6 months later she called w/ a bid for a friend of a customer that i did work for......she later told me that we didnt get the job..
2 weeks later she calls me for an emergency call and needs me the next morning for a job i know nothing about....she got herself into something and her current plumber couldnt help her i guess.....well it just so happened to be a day i had a project i couldnt get out of...so she said 'ok ill get back to you then'..

in the past ive always JUMPED when she needed me in an emergency....i saw it as good customer service for a good customer....now she wants me to JUMP again for her when im not her plumber anymore.......ive had this issue before....ex-customers who keep me on their list for emergencies... i typically dont JUMP for ex-customers.....why work long hours or screw up my schedule to make a couple hundred when they are giving the 10's of thousands to someone else with poor customer service, but a cheaper price

im almost offended and feel they are just 'using' me instead of having a business relation ship with me

should i handle these 'emergency' calls for ex-customers???? even if it means time away from my family and putting off steady customers to handle their emergencies???.....my feeling is i only do these emergencies for steady customers as a perk.....

should i call her and let her know that the emergency Perk is part of being a steady customer of mine???? and that she needs to hire a plumber with better customer service again....and not just price....

she is on my flier list again...so she gets a flier every 4 months...it lets her know i want her back....

how should i handle this? i feel it may be possible to win her back....she dd not fit my typical customer model as she never wanted to become a friend...she always kept things very 'business' like......i am typically friends with ALL my customers

[Steve B]

I think you've handled it perfectly so far. If she calls you for an emergency job and you're sitting there with nothing to do than go do it. Otherwise, just decide on a case by case basis if you want to respond. You might throw in a little hint that you need to reserve some of your free time in case a regular customer needs something on short notice.

[MyITGuy]

should i handle these 'emergency' calls for ex-customers???? even if it means time away from my family and putting off steady customers to handle their emergencies???

As Steve mentioned, if you have nothing else to do then I don't see why not...but I would absolutely not recommend putting of new/steady customers to accommodate an emergency by this client that no longer sends the bulk of work your way...this will just leave a negative/bad taste with your new/steady customer.

[Business Attorney]

I agree that you are doing the right thing. Unless you get strong signals that she is ready to give you steady work and not just call you for emergencies that her cheap plumber can't or won't handle, I'd take it only if I needed and wanted that specific job. I would not consider it a way to get my foot back in the door, given the history.

On the other hand, if there is a reasonable indication that she will give you the good stuff again, I would treat her like any other prospect and would try to accommodate her needs within reason.

[huggytree]

how do i let her know that if she wants me to do emergencies she needs to use me full time again?

should i write her a letter saying it outright?

' you contacted me recently for emergency service and typically emergency service is a perk of a full time relationship.'

how do you put that nicer inside a paragraph

[Business Attorney]

I would not put it in writing. I'm sure one of the writers here can say it better, but I think it is best conveyed in a conversation. I wouldn't call it a "perk" in any event.

I'd tell her that you are not an "emergency plumber" and that you handle plumbing emergencies only on a very limited basis as an accommodation to your regular customers. I would explain that it is disruptive of your regular business to alter your work schedule for regular customers to handle emergency work. I'd nicely point out that because she had been a regular customer in the past, perhaps she did not realize that you were not providing those services to people who didn't have that relationship. Let her put 2 + 2 together rather than throwing it in her face.

[huggytree]

i will just wait until she calls me back again for another emergency...and i will explain it to her then....hopefully ill be slow enough to handle her emergency which will put a positive spin on it

[Blessed]

This sounds like the perfect way to handle the situation. I have a client who went to someone else and then came back - it was much in this same type of way (except that my business and yours are worlds apart!) now she's back to me full-time and it's a better business relationship than it was before. I think I earned a degree of respect from her that I didn't have previously.