My Maid Really Makes Me Mad When . . . 

Maybe your maid is perfect except for a few things that really bug you so you keep mum. Or, perhaps you have been through enough maid services that you are not interested in buying another ticket to the maid merry-go-round, so you stick with your current service. We get it, relationships are rarely perfect in every way. Check our list to see if you get mad about the same things as other clients.

5. Maid Staffing Changes

No one really wants different maids in their house. If possible, most clients prefer the same maid. When the same maid comes on a regular basis she gets to know you and your home. A relationship develops and the maid develops a routine.

Almost all maid services strive for consistency of staff. Unfortunately, a number of variables (most likely staff turn-over, scheduling conflicts or location issues) make it difficult to get your cleaning staffed let alone by the maid of your choice. These difficulties tend to be more acute when a new client is just getting established or after a day or time change. Once your cleaning gets fitted into a maids schedule it is easy to be consistent.

4. Schedule Changes

Even if you are not home for your cleanings, no one likes a schedule change or cancellation. This becomes more upsetting if you had a party or event planned. I am sure the maid service did not want to change your schedule or cancel your cleaning. It results in lost revenue for that day and creates additional work to reschedule everything.

Sometimes a schedule change is beyond the control of the company. Examples of this would be things like bad weather and a car accident. No one has an acceptable way around a blizzard but good companies will have call-off or back up maids available every day so when a maid calls off for any reason there is staff in place to keep everything on schedule.

One caveat, it is customary that your maid service will charge a cancellation fee if you cancel a scheduled cleaning last minute. This can range from $25 to the full price of the cleaning. Unfortunately, it is rare for a maid service to offer mandatory compensation to the client if the maid service cancels on them.

3. Don’t Disclose

Most clients expect the maid to tell them if something occurs in their home. Unfortunately, some maids prefer to not discuss potential issues in hopes the client won’t know or will not realize until the connection to the maid has been forgotten. An example of this is a vase was accidentally knocked over and it sustained a crack but is still in one piece.

The maid should disclose immediately. Unfortunately, a maid lacking integrity may find it easier to put your vase back with the crack to the wall hoping you don’t know. If you have kids and pets in your home there will always be the possibility they did it. The same holds if the maid scratches your floor. She should disclose immediately but she also could just cover the scratch with an item and pray.

In our company, we require disclosure. Maids are never charged or penalized for damage to as home. If we did, that would provide incentive to not disclose. By eliminating any negative financial consequences we make it easier to do the right thing.

We also emphasize integrity. Our maids know any lapse of integrity is a serious offense and most will result in immediate termination. In our system, it is way better to disclose damage with no consequences than it is to lie or hide and risk losing their job.

 2. Poor Cleanings 

You would think this would be #1 but most clients are surprisingly understanding about a poor cleaning. That might be because they know we have a no questions asked 100% satisfaction guarantee. We send a maid to re-clean whatever they want ASAP. Obviously, poor cleanings is #2 on our list because this is what the client is hoping to gain from the relationship. If you don’t do a good cleaning, little else you did right matters.

1. Billing Errors

Nothing other than outright rude behavior or lying will anger a client faster than a billing error. If the billing error is low the client is upset when they are asked to pay it but if the billing error overcharged  . . . you better watch out. Now the client wonders if we did it intentionally. If we lack integrity. If the client did not get our emailed invoice and receipt and just realized they got the charge when they open the credit card bill it is even worse.

Billing errors should never occur. Unlike cleaning it is not subjective. To fix my problem, I first tried to re-train but ultimately fired my office person. With the new hire, we made sure she had the aptitude to do the job right and we emphasized the importance of accurate, on time billing. Our problems vanished over night.

Comments

Thanks for reading our top 5 things that make a maid customer mad. Please tell us in the comments if you agree with our ranking. If you think we forgot something or messed up the order please correct us.