In not removing review

[onanothertrain]

Contacted a tradesperson for urgent repair, was told no problem, they would check the diary and phone me back within an hour. 4 hours later, no phone call so I sent a text. Another 4 hours later still nothing. I will admit to being annoyed so I left a Google review stating the above. An hour later I got a text asking me to remove the review as they hadn't actually done any work for me and they were working hard to maintain their business. I didnt respond and have now had 2 more texts asking me to remove the review. Im now considering either ignoring the texts and blocking, removing my review but leaving another one explaining why or just removing it all together. Although my stubborn side is not leaning towards the third option. So Aibu not to remove it?

I think he should have called back when he said he would- yes, we all forget sometimes but OP did contact him again and he still didn’t get back to her. For all we know, OP was hanging around waiting for him to call back as she thought it was important not to miss his call. Poor customer service is poor customer service, whatever the reason. Leaving a review regarding that is probably not something I would have done, but it is not factually incorrect.

What would really irritate me is that he cannot get back to you as he promised, nor could he reply to a reminder, but he can remember to contact you several times to remove the review.

I actually don't think YABU but I still think you should take it down now you've been asked.

I own a holiday let. I use Holiday Lettings, who are owned by TripAdvisor, so guests can review it using TA.

The property is in a small block of flats, a mix of holiday lets and long term lettings.

Most of my reviews have been good, but one person left me 2 stars and a heading ''TERRIBLE''.

Apparently one of the long term tenants had been smoking in her flat, and the guest was not impressed.

I replied on the site saying as the property is a private block, it is not covered by the smoking ban, and I'm not going to ask a woman in her 70s not to have a fag in her own home while watching Coronation St. I felt the review was unfair as there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.

If she'd said ''nice clean property, parking space useful etc but I'm knocking one point off for the smoking which I know the owner can't do anything about''-fine, but she harped on and on about it and barely touched on the positives.

I didn't ask her to remove it though....1) TA is known for some people being stupid and picky 2) It was the only negative review in a load of positives, which others can see and 3) it proves it's not only my friends and family reviewing!

YABU.

You haven't done one tiny bit of business with them yet.

An unexplained four hour, 8 hour or 1 week delay in a phone call back from a business you don't know, that you're not doing business with doesnt necessarily mean anything in itself. Phone somebody else if you're unhappy.

It does mean something. It means they're unreliable.

Or it could mean they've been hit by a train, they are closing down, the job is completely inappropriate for them to take and/or they're waiting to hear back from someone more fitting they might recommend before calling you back, the person you would talk to is at a conference, camping, burying their dad...

...you know any of the hundred things that could come up in a subsequent conversation that would be a perfectly reasonable explanation.

There's a reason it's not customary to imply to the world someone is bad at their job when they haven't worked for you, or sought to work for you.

You're missing the point, which is that he promised to get back within the hour and then didn't. No-one forced him to make that promise, he could simply have said "sorry no can do" or "I'm busy, might take a day or two to get back to you".

What a horrible and vindictive thing to do, trademen's livelihoods are made and broken by internet reviews. All because you did not get a response in the allocated timescales you relish the power of slating him.

The timescale that HE gave, not that the OP decided out of nowhere she wanted.

When you work for yourself…you can't meet every expectation. The expectation that HE gave the OP, not that the OP decided out of nowhere was hers.

It is basic politeness and professionalism, if you say you'll respond to someone within x time, to actually, you know, do so.

Reading this thread I feel I understand better why so many tradespeople treat customers and potential customers with utter lack of respect; because people let them get away with it.

"Reading this thread I feel I understand better why so many tradespeople treat customers and potential customers with utter lack of respect; because people let them get away with it."

I really agree with that.

The amount of people condemning OP for writing the truth & making up excuses for poor little tradesperson.

Who when they did finally get in touch, it wasn't to apologise, but just demand that a truthful review was taken down.

Bunnyboiler?

Who when they did finally get in touch, it wasn't to apologise, but just demand that a truthful review was taken down.

Yes, that's the worst part. I'd have just ADDED that to my review!

I would leave it OP.

How is she a bunnyboiler just by telling the truth? I think more people should be leaving honest reviews then bad tradespeople would get what they rightly deserve. A lot of tradespeople deserve to get no work ever in my experience.

Reading this thread I feel I understand better why so many tradespeople treat customers and potential customers with utter lack of respect; because people let them get away with it
My conclusion as well.

If he was that busy he wouldn’t have said he would call back within the hour.
If he then became busy he surely had 5seconds for a quick text to say it would be longer.
OP, leave your review, it is a review of the pre-sales service, and shows the company is not always reliable.

It's amazing how many businesses are not up to scratch. I met a landscape gardener who had driven over a 100 kms from a city with a million inhabitants to the other side of a city with over 9 million because there was only one company that could repair his motorised lawn-movers properly.

Same with trade-people. I live right beside a plumbers' market, every second person is a plumber, but the only plumber I will use, after loads of bad experiences, lives on the other side of town.

Little wonder customer service in the UK generally is so woeful when you read all the pathetic excuses trotted out and hyperbole employed in defending tradesmen on this thread.

These examples really sum it up:

An unexplained four hour, 8 hour or 1 week delay in a phone call back from a business you don't know, that you're not doing business with doesnt necessarily mean anything in itself.

Or it could mean they've been hit by a train, they are closing down, the job is completely inappropriate for them to take and/or they're waiting to hear back from someone more fitting they might recommend before calling you back, the person you would talk to is at a conference, camping, burying their dad...

You've agreed times for them to do a job and they haven't showed up but you didn't leave a bad review? Why the hell not!? That's very bad customer service.

You know, it really never actually occurred to me to leave a review in that situation. I don't typically leave reviews at all, unless I'm very pleased. It will definitely be on my radar in the future, though.

May I ask the line of work many posters are in please?

The reason I ask is I am wondering if you are comparing customer service levels, how good 'pre sales care' is and the general running of a business, what makes a professional trustworthy and reliable to the areas you work in.

I have worked in may industries for reasonable periods of time, the above is important to all of them but how they work in reality can vary with in the industries. The whole dynamic can be very different depending on if you work in trade, corporate, emergency service etc. Often what proves how good the service is can depend on what you want and where your getting it from.

Due to me working in the above mentioned areas I can see how customer service levels can present themselves in very different ways, with the trades its the end product, fair price and aftercare. Corporate it seems to be the whole package, emergency services the outcome and end result is what matters.

I have learnt not to compare different types of industry, not to judge industries I have know knowledge or working experience as I just dont know how theyre run.

I do judge the ones I do have knowledge and experience of and do question bad practises as I have the working knowledge to do so.

All I can say with this post is the some of the suggestions made as to how he could have handled it better are bollocks, they wouldnt fit the trade environment it often just doesnt work like that. That happens where I have worked for the last 10 years and my husband the last 30.
To some posters on here we would deserve all the reviews you would all post, be unreliable, untrust worthy etc. However we hava a large customer base, diary booked a month ahead, days we cant come up for air and many excellent customer reviews with people prepared to wait for us, why? because we are good at what we do.

We do turn customers away, we over quote them etc why?

Because they go on like some of the above posters and we are overwhelmed by lovely ones and work hard to keep them happy. The ones we turn away fond it hard getting in any where because they are well known for being unreasonable, never happy and always finding fault and many neighbouring trades are also inundated with good customers and they wont touch these customers with a barge pole either.

Most of us arent cowboys who rip you off, we struggle to keep up with demand where we mainly concentrate on what is going on in front of us, dont need to advertise, find work etc as the word of mouth brings them in the door.

And breathe...................

No Knowledge not know knowledge!!

I have learnt not to compare different types of industry, not to judge industries I have know knowledge or working experience as I just dont know how theyre run.

Why would businesses bother asking for feedback/ reviews if they were only prepared to accept it from people who had an intimate understanding of how their business was run? The point is that the customer’s opinion is everything and it doesn’t matter a jot if you have a valid operational reason for not meeting their expectations.

And why do you over-quote annoying customers to get rid of them? Why not just say “sorry, can’t fit you in?”. If those people tell others about the quote the others will think you are more expensive than you are.

Have you not realised he was most likely on another job, for another client? You are massively unreasonable.

*All of you still condemning her don't you realise when she left the review he had 3 options:-

1. Respond professionally on the review site apologising and saying why he fucked up by not replying when he said he would.
2. Ring OP oppologise for not replying when he said he would and offering to come over right away and do the job = good review without even asking
3. Behave like a dick, ignore her emergency and hassle her about the review

1 and 2 would have saved damage to his business*

This. All of this.

Have you not realised he was most likely on another job, for another client?

Then maybe a better course of action would have been to either a) not answer the phone to her in the first place or b) advise he was away from his diary currently and would contact her as soon as he could, rather than specifically stating "within the hour".

@Ilovecolinjackson would you seriously not review a sofa, a kitchen utensil, a meal, an online purchase, any trade other than yours because you don’t know how the businesses work?

ilovecolinjackson I have absolutely no issue with being turned away or given a high quote. In fact I would much rather be told that they can't take on my job from the start. I completely understand why you want to keep your regular customers too but surely there comes a time when your customer pool gets smaller?

onanothertrain - My Husband as had the business for 30 yrs, our customer pool as only grown, it has never even stayed the same let alone got smaller.
ArgumentativeAardvaark - you are reviewing a product you have used for the purposes it has been intended, the review in question was about not having had contact regarding booking the tradesman for a service, under them circumstances, other than stating the obvious..... no understanding why, not considering other reviews. I have had similar negative comments but because it has bee for a very good reason I would have been narked at a review like that too. If I had to explain any delay and keep potential clients in the loop when I couldnt respond when promised I wouldnt get any thing done, the work that day would reduce in service and over all quality of work for the people booked in that day would suffer.

I ended up serving 12 customers whilst opening up one day as i wanted them to return again and to provide a good service, but com opening time not everything was as it should be and a few customers complained one even asking if id slept in, little did they know Id bent over backwards for previous customers, which could have easily been them on a different day, but it didnt stop them complaining it was also to busy to fully explain the circumstances so I had to just take it. This is could how it could have been for the tradesman in question an when you are not qualified to leave a bad review.