When Misaligned Expectations Lead to Angry Client Emails

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Introduction

Hello everyone. Welcome or welcome back to the Filthy Rich Cleaners podcast. I am your host, Stephanie from Serene Clean, and this episode will be a little bit of a doozy, because I’m going to be sharing with you a situation that we had happen this week at Serene Clean. We had an absolutely horrific complaint come in, and I know I’ve been boasting about our amazing quality and our long streaks that we’ve had without complaints, and we have just been killing it when it comes to that side of the business. All of those things are still true. However, we did have a valid complaint come in, valid in some ways, invalid in others.

And I thought, why not share this with you guys and talk about several different points that I want to touch on related to how we handled the complaint, how we troubleshoot it, and things like that, but also understanding if it was valid or not in certain areas, and does that even matter when you’re dealing with an angry client, and how do you handle that? So I’m going to go through the entire process, obviously to respect client privacy and things, I will omit any type of details that would reflect who it is, not that you guys know our clients, but still, you know, obviously confidentiality as well as my respecting my cleaning technicians privacy, because this is a really great cleaning technician on my team, and they really are a wonderful person. They just messed up in some ways. And we actually have not even shared the feedback yet with the cleaning tech, and I’ll even explain why that hasn’t happened as well.

So there’s a ton of nuggets of gold in this entire situation. And I was just being all, oh, that sucks, whatever. And I’m thinking podcast, let’s talk about it. There’s so many things to learn here. And also I’d love to hear how, if you guys would handle different parts of this situation differently, because obviously, you know, we’re all learning and trying to do better, and we handled this to the best of our ability, given the resources we had on hand, and we made it work.

Setting the Scene

Let me first off, set the scene. The cleaning occurred on Tuesday, and it was scheduled for a full eight man hour day, I believe, and we had one cleaning tech on it. And this is a client who gets sporadic cleanings with us once in a while when they are looking for it. And this particular cleaning was actually at a different property than their old home or their current home, or whatever, but this was a new space to us, and so the cleaner got there, did their thing, and they even left a half hour early, because sometimes when we’re doing initial cleans, or specific areas of a home clean, sometimes you can get done early, right?

And so we trusted that the cleaner had double checked everything. It all looked good. They filled out their checklist, left it behind even, they even expressed certain things about the cleaning that went well, or things that they had to note. For example, they couldn’t find the garbage bags, and that’s why they were not able to switch out the garbage that type of stuff. So seemed normal and attentive.

And then we get the email when the client gets home. And this is one part that I would love to touch on is it can be really stressful when you get complaints coming in after technically work hours, right? Your cleaner is done, you’re supposed to be done, and now you have an angry client emailing or texting, and that is just so tough. And that’s not uncommon, because they’ve been at work, we’re cleaning, and then they get home.

Setting Work Boundaries

And so it is very challenging not to freak out and just stress about it. And so for us, before, when I was younger in the business, I would immediately email and address it, and depending on the situation, we would still maybe do that occasionally. In this instance, we do not. And this is kind of a work boundary thing, if it is a we are going to be working the next day, the next calendar day, we will leave it until the morning.

And the reason why is this is a boundaries thing. It’s a we are not at work thing. And I know that that’s really hard when you have an angry client, and especially if it’s your business. And again, back in the day, when it was just me in the office, yeah, I would absolutely answer it. I would, because I would just stay up all night freaking out about it, right?

And so we decided, you know, it’s whatever, six o’clock at night when we get this email, we are going to leave it until right away in the morning, and we will rally and figure this problem out in the morning, because there’s nothing that we can do. We can’t talk to the cleaner. We can’t have this discussion as the management team, because it was very important that we talked about this as a team in order to know how to move forward.

Managing Client Expectations

And so for you, it may be right now, you are the admin, you are the owner, you’re everything. You can answer if it’s going to eat away at you, but just remember that when you’re responding at eight o’clock at night. Now that client knows they are going to respond at eight o’clock at night. So we’re not large corporations. We don’t have 24/7 customer service. We make sure we put it in the voicemail it says our hours, that the phones are manned and the offices are manned, so that people are setting the expectations, basically, and that’s going to be a big part of the conversation today, is setting appropriate expectations.

But anyway, so we made the choice to leave it because we’re going to get to this right away in the morning. So again, you might disagree right there, but this is more so we are a larger, established company and jumping in and going back and forth, especially for any my managers to do that they are no longer on the clock. They need to have life balance as well. I could have done it, but I would have been missing information if I had jumped in and immediately responded to the client, right?

And so the client was clearly very emotional. And actually a caveat, the client actually messaged Crystal, my HR manager, directly on her personal Facebook, and Crystal was already done with work, because Crystal gets done earlier, and Crystal did say, yeah, email everything to the office and we will get to it. If it’s after hours, it’ll be right away in the morning. So she was able to establish that, and you could certainly set an autoresponder as well.

The Complaint Email

If this is something you’re petrified of, hey, these are business hours, we’ll get back to you as quickly as possible. But after business hours, the email is not manned right? Because, again, it’s okay to act like a business sometimes guys because you are, you’re not just at beck and call of everybody just because they’re upset. And again, I know you might be thinking, no, you need to bend over and do everything for the client. And again, I would make exceptions, depending on what we’re talking about.

But this is a perfect example of after hours we’re going to be working the next day. The caveat is, when we are working a complaint, and this is why I hate first times on Fridays, right? I hate move outs. And I hate first times on Fridays because if something goes wrong and they want to complain or they have some type of issue, now we’re leaning into the weekend. We can’t ask the cleaners what happened. We can’t get their side of the stories, which we really, really want to get the cleaner side of the story, depending on what the situation is first, before we even respond.

So that is an example of I will send an email on or send a text or whatever on the weekend, just so that we’re not leaving it all weekend, so it can faster, at least saying, listen, I received this. I’m so sorry. We will get back to you with the solution on Monday. Or if you want to solve the thing right then and there, you certainly can too. But just to give a little bit more context.

The email: “Hello, I wanted to start off saying, I absolutely love Serene Clean. I’ve recommended you to numerous people who have used your services. I can provide names if interested, and have never had a problem with the services, and any issues that have come about, they have always been taken care of promptly. Our new residence was cleaned today. Unfortunately, our home was left in worse condition than when I left home this morning. I’m incredibly disheartened, upset and absolutely appalled by the service we received. Truthfully. I can’t even photograph all of it because it’s so many areas that were left untouched or disregarded. I have over 28 photos of the major items missed. I truly believe a walkthrough to see it may be beneficial at this point.

The Context Behind the Complaint

My grandparents are traveling 26 hours in their 70s to visit me and their great grandchildren. I’m the only grandchild with three children and a full time working mom. I hired Serene Clean to come in and do a thorough cleaning, as my grandpa, unfortunately has terminal cancer and his days are very numbered, and I wanted a squeaky clean, fresh home for him to visit. They will stay with us for a month. I came home this evening to discover our main floor bathroom was not cleaned or mopped. Dust remained on all of the blinds in every room, windows smudged, all of them, including patio doors dead ladybugs, mosquitoes remaining on window sills. Kitchen appliances dirty, not touched and smudged. Floors, not mopped. Washer and dryer, not wiped down. Toilets and showers uncleaned window sills, not touched. The list goes on.

More concerning we live at a particular type of farm, and her husband and one of the hired workers observed our cleaner spending copious amounts of time outside smoking cigarettes, and, more importantly concerning, tossing cigarette butts into our driveway. Our home is very close to the type of plant that we grow, if my spouse didn’t disgustingly pick up the discarded cigarette butts they would have washed down into our plant fields, causing contamination and potentially destroying the entire plant field, which is super expensive. We will now spend hours locating other discarded cigarettes. This is a significant cost and concern on top of hiring for work that was not performed and has left me in a position scrambling for another company that can perform a cleaning before my grandparents arrive on the morning of Friday the 18th.”

So this was on Tuesday night when she emailed.

“I will attach as many photos as email allows. However, if you have another form capable to receive a large amount of photos, I’m willing to send them that way. I hired for eight hours of service. The cleaner arrived 30 minutes late and left early. We have cameras on site providing this information. Arrived at 9:04am and left at roughly at 4:30pm. I will also attach the checklist that was completed. I do also want to note she did use my cleaning supplies, which is fine, but thought they were provided. I’m an avid cleaner, OCD cleaner. My home was clean before she arrived, and truly needed someone to come in and do the deep clean, nitty gritty stuff that I’m unable to do as a full time working mom of three, to prepare for my out of state grandparents visit, one of which is terminal and isn’t expected to see Christmas. Hence, this visit, they left the cleaning supplies of mine out and or shoved under sinks. It only allows me to attach a few photos. Please let me know how I can send the rest. I can provide timestamps as well.”

Analyzing the Emotional Dumping

After that absolute essay with a lot of information that was put on us in an emotional dumping situation. And I’m sure many of you have experienced this before, where you are not just getting the emotions of disappointment related to perhaps missing the mark on a cleaning, you are also getting a lot of just absolute wall of emotional dumping, right? Because that’s what just happened. There was about that could probably have gotten whittled down to about half point being a lot of times when clients have a complaint on our work, they want to feel heard, they want to feel seen, they want to have a place to say, this is how you disappointed me. And so she did all that. And it’s very easy to just get sucked into, oh my god, we’re terrible people. She had all of these other things going on and, you know, her grandpa and traveling and mom and mom, right? All of those things are true and valid. But let’s focus on what we can focus on, which is apologizing, making it right, in analyzing the situation first, because now we’re on a time crunch, right? We have until Friday to make this right as Tuesday night when this came in. So now it’s Wednesday morning when we are discussing this.

Understanding Our Service Agreement

So let me give you some background on this cleaning and how Serene Clean operates. We follow cleaning checklist. We follow very specific cleaning checklist. We have our standard that is going to be done at all initial cleans and maintenance cleans. And our standard is very, very detailed, but there are some add on things that can be done, whether that be the blinds, whether that be interiors of appliances, closets, that type of thing, cabinets, those are all add on services that somebody could add on.

So when this client reached out, she did not use the word initially to book the cleaning. She did not use the words, you know, deep cleaning. She did not request any add on items outside of what she specified was window sills.

And so additionally, let me actually let me pull up the appointment notes and ZenMaid so you can I can read exactly to give you guys some background here. So this was a priority list clean, or a limited hour clean, is what we call it, at Serene Clean, where they are saying, I understand that you will not get through the whole house. This is the time we have available. This is a priority list to work through.

So when we booked the clean, we asked her for her priority list, and that is the order in which the cleaner is to clean the home. And so this is the note and ZenMaid: “Limited hour clean. Bring all tools and supplies. Make sure to have easy off degreaser with you. You might not get through the entire home or full checklist. Priority List is due in the order listed below, number one, kitchen two, living room three, dining room four, main floor bathroom, five, basement, six, main floor bedroom, seven, loft. Most windows have screens and just need window sills wiped down. Important to note, see attached photos for tasks to complete in each of the rooms above, reach out to management questions.”

She provided her own list of tasks, which confuses things, and I will go over that, and then approved up to eight hours of cleaning. We have cleaned for her before, but not at this home.

The Confusing Priority List

So the priority list here that she sent over was kitchen blinds, dusted window patio door, sink, counters, wiped out appliances, microwave, stove, mop floors. Living room, vacuum window sills patio door, dining room windows, wipe down table mop main floor, bathroom, shower, sink, mop, toilet, basement, mop, vacuum stairs. Wipe down washer, dryer, toilet, shower.

So what happens when clients do this and she provided this, literally, the day before the cleaning. This cleaning had been booked for a long time, and then we realized she had not provided any detail of what she wanted. And so she finally sent that in, and that’s what it said.

And so when you have something compared to our normal, standard checklist, that’s where things get confusing, and that’s where, ideally, what we would have done is she had our cleaning checklist. We wish she would have on our cleaning checklist said, these are the add on things, or these are the particular things. Because now, going between either our cleaning checklist or this list, it makes it seem for example, the bathroom, right? Main floor, bathroom, shower, sink, mop, toilet, right? On our cleaning checklist for a bathroom, there’s 15 different items, right? And so that, can you even say mopping? It’s well, technically, we have to vacuum for it, right? It’s very specific on our cleaning checklist for good reason, so that nothing can get missed.

Additionally, with the note saying most windows have screens and just need window sills wiped down, and then having windows only in the kitchen listed, but then in the complaint saying no windows were done throughout all of these areas. But I don’t want you to do the windows only the window sills, but you were active, but I’m going to complain about the window glass so things started to get complicated.

So anyway, that’s the email. I’ll digress a little bit here, but that is the instructions that we had going off of it. And again, stove, not interior oven, the words used in her request versus the things that she is complaining about. Some of them obviously, are incredibly valid, others questionable.

Meeting with Management

So I meet with my managers the next morning. Right away, in the morning, I’m just, you know, my stomach’s in knots because I’m thinking, fuck, we fucked this up. This is terrible. This is bad. We haven’t had a complaint this in so long. And I’m just shocked. And so I huddle with my managers, and I’m thinking, this is wild, and again, I had not reviewed any of these, this checklist stuff, or anything that. I’m just, I’m going off of this email and what I know to be our standard cleaning and so I had not delved into the details of the actual booking of this appointment.

And so I start going off, and then my managers are saying, okay, first off, we need to discuss one this client. Because I was thinking, you know, we’ve cleaned for her before, we’ve never had any issues. And they’re like, whoa, pump the brakes. Yes, we have this client on every single cleaning she’s ever had with us. Had an issue with something, and we had to go back and fix it, even with some of our best cleaners.

So doesn’t mean that there was not valid issues previously, but we have never successfully cleaned for this client. And again, considering our, you know, I would say brag worthy level of quality, typically, that that’s very unusual for it to happen repeatedly on the same client, right? And so this is a sporadic client. Very nice again, super nice lady. Obviously got a lot on her plate, right? So nothing to discredit her as a person or anything that. But context matters, right? So that’s number one.

Analyzing the Photos and Complaints

Number two, my managers start bringing up of the discrepancies between what she is listing in her complaint versus the services requested, as well as the photos that she sent. So we start looking through the photos, and there’s lots, some of them, it’s we can’t even tell where you know the room it is in, right? Because this, we’re only supposed to be doing these specific rooms.

She sent four or five of the photos were interiors of the dishwasher, the oven, the washer and dryer. None of those things were requested to be done or put on the checklist that it was completed. So it’s very interesting that she is complaining about things that were not completed. Were not requested to be cleaned completed, nor were they set on the checklist they were supposed to be completed, right?

Some things absolutely valid. Clearly, the one bathroom was not done well. Some smudges on the floor, smudges on the stove, you know, ladybugs and things that. Window sills were wiped down on some windows were not wiped down in others. So there was absolutely validity to a lot of the complaints.

So that is the main thing, is, just we fucked up in a lot of ways, and us this was kind of the general consensus us arguing over semantics is not going to make this client feel better or fix the problem right, even though we could say, yeah, well, but technically XYZ, that’s not how we handle this type of situation where they are so upset, there is so much emotional baggage related to the clean specifically because of the time sensitivity and obviously all of this background that’s going into the clean, right?

And that’s why, yeah, sometimes, people freak out. They freak out because it’s not just, oh, now I have to clean it. It’s all of this other shit, right? So keep that in mind. And when people throw a wall of emotion at you, a lot of times they just want to be heard and vent. Doesn’t mean you have to tolerate any types of abuse. She wasn’t being abusive here, right? She just, she needed to let it, let all out this. And again, we fucked up in a lot of ways.

The Smoking Issue

And the most important thing for me, not the quality. I mean, that’s, that’s a big issue. I think again, I think our cleaning tech was confused, because, if I came into this house again, there was some things that were missed 100% if I came into the house and I saw the priority list attachments that she had listed, meaning the client versus what our cleaning checklist is, it’s living room vacuum, window sills and patio door. So she didn’t want us to mop where we would normally mop. And some of the smudges on the floors were in the living room, on the photos. So, it just, it came across very confusing.

And so to give my cleaning tech the benefit of the doubt, I could see where these instructions were very confusing. And, you know, she filled out the cleaning checklist, and, and, and put everything on it that she did, and some things, again, bathroom, the big one for me. But some of these issues I can totally see where it’s this was, this was confusing, right?

Number one, the biggest problem I have is the smoking that is, what I heard or when I read, you know, she was seen smoking outside at a client’s house and throwing cigarette butts that they found onto the ground at a client’s house. I just I’m very disappointed. I’m very disappointed, and this this cleaning tech knows better. We are very clear on our smoking policy, which is, you are, you are not to smoke on anyone’s property, commercial, residential, I don’t care. You can smoke in your car, on your break, off of the property, but you are not to smoke at a client’s house. You are not to smell cigarette smoke.

So this is a clear, you know, blatant opportunity for a written warning, and that’s exactly what is going to happen. So we do have a sit down meeting with the cleaning tech on Monday, so I’m recording this on Friday. And again, this is a great cleaning tech. I know she’s got a lot of stuff going on in her personal life. Doesn’t excuse this. And this is simply a written warning situation of just this is the email that we got. Here are the photos. Let’s talk through them. What? What do you have to say for yourself? What was confusing that we need to do better in the office, of understanding going into this, is, there’s clearly room for improvement on communication on our part, in some way, whether that just being hey, you sent us this priority list day before, and we’re, you know, super busy right now. So I can understand why this would get, you know, just just attach it, right?

Identifying Communication Gaps

But then looking, really analyzing this compared to our cleaning checklist, these things are not matching up, right? Of understanding exactly what is the cleaner supposed to do? Are you supposed to follow our checklist? You’re supposed to only do what she says on her checklist, which, if we only followed her checklist, she would have so much more to complain about, right? Because our checklist actually covers a lot more than her checklist, and her checklist says wipe down appliances, but not interior you know what I mean. So, again, this is why verbiage and details are so specific to the point we literally list out, the nuance of what we’re doing on a cleaning checklist.

Because we don’t want any room for misinterpretation. This is exactly the perfect reason why we have written checklists, why we provide that with for the client and then they must review it, right? Because then there is no room for misinterpretation. If they misunderstand something, they can ask, we can explain. But this is why it’s so important to have that, that checklist to fall back on, because especially if they just verbally said, oh, clean these things, oh my gosh, we would have nothing to go off of, right? Of what did the cleaner do? He said, she said, kind of situation.

But either way, again, coming back to the smoking thing, that is unacceptable, it’s not okay. It is blatantly against policy. And so this cleaner will be getting a written warning, it’s the first written warning for this, but that’s, that is how we’re going to handle it. I’m sure that they are going to be quite upset about this and very apologetic, and it’s all good, again, great, great person, great cleaning tech. They fucked up, right? It happens.

Timing the Employee Conversation

And so when it came to how we handled that’s, that’s what we’re going to do with the cleaner, and the reason we are waiting so long is because I’ll talk about this, and then we’ll go back to how we handled it with the client. So the reason why we are waiting so long to take this to the cleaner that is not ideal. This is the situation. So previously, what we used to do is when we would get a bad complaint, we would just immediately send that to the cleaner during work hours, while they’re on the job, because we’re thinking, we need to get this to them fast, so that they they are aware, and that they can provide their feedback, defend themselves, whatever they need to do. They can do it and we can, we can understand in a timely manner, as fast as possible.

So previous, okay, we got that complaint on, you know, Tuesday night, Wednesday, we would have sent it on Wednesday to the cleaner, and we got feedback from employees previously that that literally will throw them off their entire work day then, and they will fuck up other appointments because they are so upset about the complaint, they are distracted. They can’t focus on their job.

So what we have started doing now is, when we have gotten complaints this, we will bring it, you know, and if it’s minor, then we’ll send it. But when it’s something this, this will just that. Cleaner is going to have a hard time emotionally grappling with it, and we need to provide them the space and time that they are not physically expected to be cleaning on the clock, you know, getting it done and throwing this emotional shit storm at them, right? Be cognizant of you are dealing with, a person and human emotions, and it’s going to be disappointing to get this feedback for them again, she fucked up. And still, that doesn’t mean we were trying to, you know, we aren’t trying. We’re trying to have her learn and be aware and not let it negatively affect her day or her life, you know, just or not, at least long term, right? We know it’s going to, but we’re not trying to then let that tumble out of control onto other cleaning so because of just the time of the you know, when this happened, versus the schedule, and things are just so crazy for us right now. It’s gonna wait till Monday, because that is when she is actually going to be available in the office. Has time to pull from other things and be able to have that conversation.

Creating Solutions for the Client

So that is how we are handling it there. And again, it’s just about, you know, balancing getting information to your team member in a timely manner, but also not destroying the rest of the cleanings that day, because they’re really distraught. So again, just if it’s minor, no big deal. Go ahead and send it, but I would suggest a in person conversation as much as possible. When it’s it’s something this bad, and then you can gage your reaction as well. And it’s not just over taxed, right? Because that’s just, it just comes across very cold both ways on text. So this is a good thing to have in person. So she will sign the written warning acknowledging that. So that’s very important for a documentation purpose. When you either give a verbal or a written warning, you need to have them sign and acknowledge that that occurred, right? So we’re not just saying on our end that we did that. So very, very important. Again, she’ll take the feedback well, I’m sure. And just, you know, we all make mistakes, right? And don’t smoke on the job. That’s a big one.

So coming back to how we handle it on the client side, we did not. When I say we didn’t have availability, I’m saying there was not a minute of availability on Wednesday or Thursday to fix this fucking problem. And by fix this fucking problem, I mean going back and re cleaning. Because for us, that is the number one solution when you have something this, is you go back and re clean. Because, and this was kind of the discussion with my managers is what’s gonna make this right? It’s certainly not just not charging for the cleaning and saying we’re sorry, this situation, it did necessitates us to go reclaim that’s what we’ve done for her in the past, because, again, she’s complained at every single cleaning in in some manner we’ve had to go touch up. This is just by far and above, way worse than anything and before it was just minor things.

Yeah, so we would need several hours to go reclaim this stuff and make it right, regardless of if there was some, some miscommunication, that doesn’t matter. At this point, she has valid reason to be upset. And honestly, because of the cigarette thing, it really doesn’t matter. We need to make, an effort, because it’s not just be neutral. We want to make this right. And so we’re thinking, we don’t have any fucking availability. Everybody’s booked. My managers are already cleaning somewhat, you know? And so basically I just was saying, look, guys, if I was physically there, I would go clean it right now. That is what I would be doing, is I would go clean that house. And so if I know you already are cleaning today. Is there, is there anything that we could do to free up a tech free, two, two hours? Can we get two hours out of somebody?

And so my lovely managers, they rallied, they rearranged. They took a vacation rental off of one cleaning tech and put it on April, and then Katie was also cleaning, and that freed up one of our cleaning texts in the afternoon on Wednesday to go do it. So again next day, as soon as possible, is the goal, right? And so we emailed that over right away, before we even discussed what to do with the cleaner. We’re thinking, let’s get her a solution, because she’s already waited over the evening. Let’s get her an email and suggest what you know this solution, basically.

Our Response Email

So let me read off what that email looked this is what we said versus and then what the client said. “Good morning, client, thank you so much for providing all of this detail, detailed information. We’re so sorry to hear that this was your experience for your most recent cleaning we’re truly, completely shocked by the information and pictures that you have provided. We stand behind our satisfaction guarantee. However, the only time that we have available today to have someone come back is cleaning tech from two to six for a total of four man hours. Might that work for you? We completely understand that is not the full amount of time that you have requested, and she will not be able to get through all areas requested. But unfortunately, with all other technicians and management in the field, cleaning training already, we simply don’t have anything else to offer at this time, you would not see an invoice for yesterday’s cleaning, nor for today, due to the significant inconvenience This has caused for you. Thank you.”

So where it’s just again, don’t get into the semantics. Let’s get into solution mode, right? At least offer something, and you can get a lot done, especially at a reclaim in four hours, right? And the whole point is the effort made. Because if, I if we just said we’re so sorry about that, we’re shocked. You know, no charge for yesterday. Does that? Does that fix that doesn’t fix the problem, it doesn’t fix the problem, and that would leave her with a sour taste in her mouth.

So she messaged back pretty much immediately. Said, “Good morning. Thank you for your quick response and willingness to help the situation. I truly appreciate it today. From two to six would be great, and if there’s a cancelation tomorrow or time available tomorrow, I would make that work.” And so obviously we did not have anything for the next day, so we, we sent the cleaning tech, and we just then went into, okay, the exact priority list? What are the rooms? And can you off of our checklist, highlight what you want? Because I think that’s what was throwing things so much off. Was her separate priority checklist was confusing our tech, so we wanted to be so clear for the next tech to understand what was going on. And they went, all was well, we fixed it.

Gratitude for Team Effort

So I’m just so grateful that my managers, were willing to do that. It was more physical labor for them, and they’ve been cleaning their asses off. That’s why I’m going up. I’m driving up tomorrow because it is time for Stephanie to clean her ass off and give them a break, because they have been working so diligently. We’ve just, we’ve had such crazy turnover, and we had to fire a cleaning tech on Monday for some pretty insane lying. It’s just been, I swear it’s every week, guys, it just in something insane is happening. And so this is the reality of where we’re at right now. And I’m just, we’re just trying to handle it and manage it the best way we can. And I’m actually really looking forward to getting in the field. I think it’ll be fun.

But point being, I’m just really grateful that my managers did that and we were able to turn you know, a really, really negative thing into, you know, maybe not positive, but it was at least not bad, right? We handled it. And you know, honestly, that client, again, she’s never happy at any of our cleanings. This one is an extreme level of unhappiness, and there’s a lot of reasons for that, but we are also is it even possible to please her at any cleanings? And so you know, the schedule might just always be full when she calls again, honestly, it just might, it just might always be full.

Employee Accountability Policies

And I forgot to mention, but on the cleaning tech side of it, part of our quality guarantee and quality standard policy at Serene Clean that they sign and agree to is if we have to send somebody back to re clean, or if we have to comp an entire cleaning due to, you know, poor quality, the cleaning tech will be taken down to minimum wage for that time, and that’s exactly what’s going to happen. So whatever their current normal hourly rate, they’re getting down to Wisconsin’s minimum wage for the time and again, they all agree to it. And we rarely have to do this, because we rarely have to reclaim anything. We have such great, high quality staff. And this cleaner in particular, she’s a great fucking cleaner. She’s amazing. So just, you know, off days, I know a lot of stuff is going on, doesn’t make it okay that these things happen. We, it’s just a balancing act, guys, we’re dealing with humans. We’re trying to have really high standards. And we the nice thing is, when you have these policies in place, then you can just be yep, this you know. You knew what was going to happen if something like this happened, and we’re going to stick to our policy and stick to our guns. And that is not unkind, it’s not unfair. It’s exactly what we said we’re going to do. And having integrity means doing what you said you were going to do, right, even if it’s in, you know, holding somebody accountable, right, which feels really icky. So we got to do it. And I know the conversation will go fine. And again, by the time this post, it’s, it’s all going to be water under the bridge. Maybe something crazy happens, and update will be coming up.

The Importance of Context

But I thought that this was a perfect opportunity to share with you guys that, you know, there’s behind this perfect facade. There’s a lot of shit that happens, and, you know, this was kind of really bad, and it was stressful, but also it one of the main points I wanted to really knock into here is that context matters. You know, I see this big complaint, and, you know, I’m thinking, holy shit. And then once I get the context and start to dig into the details of why a lot of this happened, some of it inexcusable, right? But a lot of this happens due to misunderstandings on what the expectation is. Clients expecting a deep clean, which is very different than our standard clean meaning, specifically inside of, cabinets and appliances and all of these things. They’re saying, do some windows, but actually don’t. You don’t need to do the window glass, but do the window sills and in just things, confusion, right? Confusion.

So this is a perfect example of we need to have the full context before we just jump and invite at something. And sometimes you can’t get all of the details. Some things will always be a mystery, especially if you’re dealing with anybody lying, that makes it a lot more difficult to fully understand the situation. But just do the best that you can and remember that we’re trying to not just make it neutral. We’re trying to make it right. And that’s a really good way to put it in your mind, is, if, if I was in this situation, even if I’m wrong a little bit, what would make it right in my mind? How can they walk away and still feel positive about Serene Clean, even though we fucked up? And that’s really my goal. Is when we do fuck up, I want them to walk away from us. May trying to make it right, feeling, you know what? They made it right. They made it right. And that’s all we can hope for, because we are human, and occasionally even the most perfect cleaning business in the world makes mistakes. Kidding. Obviously, not about the mistakes part, about the perfect part.

Final Thoughts and Questions

So anyways, that’s what happened this week. Guys, what’s the craziest complaint that you have had? What’s the craziest thing a cleaning tech has done on the job at one of your cleanings? Because this is a first for us. We’ve never had somebody at least get caught smoking, you know, that I’m aware of. So that’s a big no no for me. Big, big no no for me. So let me know in the comments, if you’ve listened the whole time, leave a little strawberry. Leave a strawberry down below, guys to show that you listened the whole way through hit that, hit that. Subscribe. Go join the ZenMaid mastermind as well. Sign up for the maid Summit. It’s coming up. It’s free. I’m doing a whole talk on training, just so many cool things going on. And if you are on Spotify or the Apple podcast player, leave us a review, please, so that other cleaning business owners can discover this fabulous wealth of knowledge that I give to you every week, right? We want our entire industry to be leveling up. Because if the industry levels up, we get to charge more money all of us. That’s a good thing for all of us, because then we’ll become filthy rich. All right, guys, I’ll see you on the next episode. Bye.

If you enjoyed this episode of The Filthy Rich Cleaners podcast, please be sure to leave us a five star review so we can reach more cleaners like you. Until next time, keep your work clean and your business filthy rich.

Note: This transcript has been edited for clarity and readability.

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

• ZenMaid
• The Maid Summit 2025
• ZenMaid Mastermind

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