So if you remember I left off yesterday with an appointment with Fix it Today. I was going to use my own platform and have someone come change a ceiling fan that I was completely capable of doing myself. That went good and bad. I learned a lot today though.
So the electrician charged me $300 to change a ceiling fan. His service call was $150 on Fix it Today and I figured it would be around that price to change it out. Was I wrong. So the appointment setting process went well. Got a phone call after they confirmed the appointment with a couple questions. They came to the house the next morning (which is when I scheduled it). They were a little late which is nothing to write home about but I was overall happy…until the $300 bill. This provider is the first provider I have ever met that says the service call amount (to come out) is NOT part of the total job. Normally they say its $150 to come out to your house but if you use their service to do whatever the job is, the $150 is credited towards the job total. This is where things went south.
So the electrician tells me its $150 for the service call and $150 for the fan change. I ask why the service call price is being charged. They came out to my house ONE time, did the job. They didnt make 2 trips. He then tried to say it was because the appointment was from Fix it Today. Thats when I had to tell him that I own the company and thats not a Fix it Today problem. We are still doing FREE appointments so it didnt cost him a dime. He backwalked the blame Fix it Today thing but still said it was $300. I told him if thats how he runs his business, we are going to remove him off the platform. I can’t afford for his company to piss off Fix it Today people then have him say its our fault. If he had to pay us it was $20, not $150 but it was FREE!
Being upset, I had to calm down and take a step back. Technically Fix it Today did a great job. We had a provider who could come out. I booked an appointment online and easily. The contractor showed up. Things were great till he said it was $300 and tried to blame Fix it Today. FYI, I paid him the $300 but still not happy. That not happy part made me realize we need a protocol and a way to handle upset customers. What is Fix it Today’s responsibility if something like this happens? We don’t service providers how to run their business. So we eventually will need a customer service team for homeowners. I think our responsibility is to acknowledge they are upset, tell them to leave a provider review. We need to follow up with the provider in hopes they will try and resolve it with the customer and build a points system (and a full tracking system) of these complaints and figure out when its time for a provider to be kicked off the platform.
We also learned people dont follow what I would consider “industry standards” and need to write code to make sure customers understand companies like his basically double dip on a job. I emailed them (I think they didnt believe I was the owner of the company) and confirmed their practice. Told them we are going to suspend their account until we can build some code to make sure homeowners are aware that this business charges differently than most would expect, then they would be welcome back to the platform. Again, Fix it Today did a great job, the problem was the billing, which has nothing to do with Fix it Today.
After all of this frustration, we got our first REAL appointment. Some random guy out of Desoto needing HVAC maintenance. I was super excited and felt a lot more positive. I called the provider to make sure they saw it and that the system worked as planned for them. Gotta love it… the guy who manages the place was out at lunch, hadn’t applied their business credit card to the account and therefore could not accept the appointment 😅 I texted him back saying if he can do the job, I’ll put my credit card on file so he can accept it. He said he would be back to the office in 30 min or so…but the jobs cancel out in 30 minutes if you don’t respond 🤪. He said he will get it taken care of and he did. We got our first outside appointment booked and it felt great. How did it go? Was the job completed? Was the customer happy? I don’t know…we havent written that code yet 🤣
