First repeat complainer
Posted: Mon Dec 25, 2017 11:27 pm
So my holiday let has been running since around the 8th of October, and every guest I've had in has loved it and left fantastic written reviews in my guestbook.
I've been pretty much full occupancy since then, but had a four day break where I've managed to get up and just titivate and do some odd jobs.
Last week, I had a family of three in and wow, it was a living nightmare.
First of all, even though it's sign posted several times throughout the house, and in large font in the welcome book, he kept calling the booking agency (a local, brilliant firm) to complain about things in the property. They in turn kept contacting me rather than my property maintenance mob. I resolve that teething issue with them early on however.
The guys complaints were ridiculous, and much of it down to user error.
1. Heating not working
Storage heaters. Due to not knowing his time of arrival, the storage heaters had charged up, but were left to trickle. All he had to do was to open them up. That took three phone calls and a site visit to resolve as he was adamant they were broken
2. No hot water
He'd turned off the 'do not turn off' switch pretty much immediately upon arrival
3. Tumble dryer not working
Didn't read the instructions
4. Extractor fan in master en-suite not working
Fair enough, it burnt out at some point and no-one's noticed. Got a replacement part ordered and fitted two days later
5. Underfloor heating not working
He'd mucked about with the control panels and effectively shut it down, requiring a factory reset and setup again
6. Potato peeler not very good
What the hell?
7. Not enough baking trays
Enough for each tier in the oven, how many does he want?!
8. No oven gloves
In drawer, didn't look
9. Wifi not working
Fair enough, it blinked out whilst he was there but we reset the router and it was fine
and a variety of other niggling complaints.
This guy emailed, left voicemails, and phoned a combined total of fifteen times to both my booking firm and management firm.
The management firm had people out to site no less than eight times during his weeks stay. I even got them to take round three new and each one different, potato peelers, three more trays and two sets of oven gloves just to prove a point.
Every one of my team said that whilst they were there, the temperature was unbearable. Turns out he'd whacked on all the heating (electric only) full pelt - wall panels, storage on max output and log burner chundering away on max. The internal temperature of the house was 29 degrees Celsius!
Ended up I had to speak to him on several occasions to resolve issues.
The bugger left a three page, negative review in my guestbook and claimed it had ruined his holiday of seven nights.
Told my booking mob not to issue any refund or compensation, which they fully agreed with.
So. My first complainer and what a horrible experience. The most annoying thing for me was that he ruined my guestbook with his complaints and all I'd had was really lovely feedback so far.
I was about ten minutes away from getting in the car, driving the three hours to the house and throwing him out.
Anyone else had anyone like this recently?
I've been pretty much full occupancy since then, but had a four day break where I've managed to get up and just titivate and do some odd jobs.
Last week, I had a family of three in and wow, it was a living nightmare.
First of all, even though it's sign posted several times throughout the house, and in large font in the welcome book, he kept calling the booking agency (a local, brilliant firm) to complain about things in the property. They in turn kept contacting me rather than my property maintenance mob. I resolve that teething issue with them early on however.
The guys complaints were ridiculous, and much of it down to user error.
1. Heating not working
Storage heaters. Due to not knowing his time of arrival, the storage heaters had charged up, but were left to trickle. All he had to do was to open them up. That took three phone calls and a site visit to resolve as he was adamant they were broken
2. No hot water
He'd turned off the 'do not turn off' switch pretty much immediately upon arrival
3. Tumble dryer not working
Didn't read the instructions
4. Extractor fan in master en-suite not working
Fair enough, it burnt out at some point and no-one's noticed. Got a replacement part ordered and fitted two days later
5. Underfloor heating not working
He'd mucked about with the control panels and effectively shut it down, requiring a factory reset and setup again
6. Potato peeler not very good
What the hell?
7. Not enough baking trays
Enough for each tier in the oven, how many does he want?!
8. No oven gloves
In drawer, didn't look
9. Wifi not working
Fair enough, it blinked out whilst he was there but we reset the router and it was fine
and a variety of other niggling complaints.
This guy emailed, left voicemails, and phoned a combined total of fifteen times to both my booking firm and management firm.
The management firm had people out to site no less than eight times during his weeks stay. I even got them to take round three new and each one different, potato peelers, three more trays and two sets of oven gloves just to prove a point.
Every one of my team said that whilst they were there, the temperature was unbearable. Turns out he'd whacked on all the heating (electric only) full pelt - wall panels, storage on max output and log burner chundering away on max. The internal temperature of the house was 29 degrees Celsius!
Ended up I had to speak to him on several occasions to resolve issues.
The bugger left a three page, negative review in my guestbook and claimed it had ruined his holiday of seven nights.
Told my booking mob not to issue any refund or compensation, which they fully agreed with.
So. My first complainer and what a horrible experience. The most annoying thing for me was that he ruined my guestbook with his complaints and all I'd had was really lovely feedback so far.
I was about ten minutes away from getting in the car, driving the three hours to the house and throwing him out.
Anyone else had anyone like this recently?