Robert, I am sorry you have reacted so strongly to us resigning you as a client.
It is true that we provided a home assessment in June of 2014 and then started our bi-weekly service a few weeks later. We agreed to a 9 hour cleaning time which your wife shortened after just four visits and then a few months later tried to shorten again. During the last 11 months of service you and Margaret sent notes of appreciation for our fine work in your home. We had several crew changes during this time as you knew would happen as discussed in our initial meeting and as per our custom cleaning plan document (all of our regular weekly clients who have written complimentary reviews here on Homestars have experienced similar changes of cleaning teams). As you know there are many reasons why we change teams from time to time. Because of thorough and detailed training and excellent team leadership in the home, we are able to achieve our goal of high consistency between cleanings.
A couple of weeks ago, you sent an extremely aggressive e-mail to us complaining that your stereo had been damaged due to the power cords being pulled out of the wall socket (resulting in a damaged power cord), this was a full 2 weeks after we had been in your home. You had expected us to pay for the repair to the cord of which you estimated would cost less than $1000. You also complained of some missed areas of cleaning at that time.
I set up a meeting with you at your home and we discussed the power cord. You mentioned that you use your stereo every day, and could not explain why you delayed informing of us about the damage for two weeks. We agreed that due to the thorough training our staff receives regarding cleaning electronics (many of our clients have extremely valuable audio systems) and the time that had elapsed as well the many variables that could occur over the two week period that we could not be certain how the damage was done.
We then discussed some of the missed areas and we looked at the dining room that had not been cleaned. I explained that the dining room was to be cleaned every second visit due to the time restrictions set up at the start of the service and as documented in our custom cleaning plan. Since you had a birthday party between cleanings, it was more obvious than usual that this room had been skipped.
At that time, you agreed to add time to future cleanings so that we did not have to skip areas of your home every second cleaning and also because I explained that every team that came to your home did their best but could barely meet our standards in the time we had available. I also let you know during our meeting that I had come to your home twice to help the team managers better cope with cleaning your home. In your review here you mentioned that your wife “had the opportunity to speak with the crew leader on many occasions”. However, our teams are led by top trained professionals that never complain to clients about their home as their focus is to please our clients and do what they can in the time we have. This is something they leave for the owners of LUX to deal with and one of the reasons why clients hire a service instead of an individual.
From time to time, we do ask for additional cleaning time as circumstances change in the home or expectations change from the homeowner. This would hardly be described as a “cash grab” because we ask for more time to ensure our reputation for the highest quality cleaning service available is maintained. Also, if it was “so absolutely transparent it was a cash grab” why would I position the ask as either we have more time in the home or we need to part ways?
The only other thing you mentioned during our meeting and you mentioned again in this review is that we failed to empty 1 or 2 garbage cans. Based on these minor misses, I feel the wording used in your review may be overly dramatic and is only written to damage our reputation as much as possible.
We regret that we are parting with such bad feelings on your part. We are a small family run business trying to do our best every day to clean our client’s homes and make them happy. We wish you the very best .
Sincerely, Al and Lisa.
Reply created 25 Jun 2015