Don’t call me, it’s too much money

Jeff
Posted on

I usually get over 20 phone calls per day to move pool tables.

Most of them won’t book their job with us.   The simple fact is that people are always looking for the cheapest price.  When you put that together with the fact that most people operating in our industry are either frauds or horrible at running businesses I don’t have to tell anyone with any level of intelligence that it often ends in a terrible experience.

cheap pool table moverJust because I take 20 phone calls a day and deal with pool table movers every day…. geez you know what?  That’s a lot of jobs to price isn’t it.  Let’s see 20 x roughly 360 days per year.  (I take a few days off a year.) That’s about hmm…. Yea like 7,200 phone calls per year for pool table moves and installations.  Well don’t take my word for it anyway, I know my industry and going cheap is not the way to go.

I just had another call today.  I had my pool table installed and the slates are all out of wack now.  Hmmm.  OK so why is it out of wack?  Did you move it?  No,  the guy that did it must have done a bad installation, now I can’t get in contact with him.  Well after you paid that cheap price do you expect us to come out for free and fix it?

He won’t be having us come out, he’ll find another cheap option and roll the dice agian.  I’m sure of it. 

Do you use professionals or amateurs for your services?

I Learned a long time ago that if you do business with cheap people you’re going to have a cheap experience, well some people live in that type of world so it’s good for them to surround themselves with cheap people.  If you were being tried for a crime that you didn’t commit would you want to hire the cheapest attorney?  They guy that says “Just hire me dog, I need to pay my rent!”

I don’t think so. 

How about having a surgery or having a baby?  Would you go to the hospital and say, hey listen people I don’t want to pay too much so can you find me the cheapest doctor you can and then ask him if he can do it any cheaper.

Dude come on and get real.

I try to be as honest as I can with these people.  For example a guy called me today and I have him our professional pricing and introduced him to our 12 month service guarantee.  He told me he had found a much cheaper price from a guy and he just couldn’t get a hold of him now.

Dude get a clue, if you can’t even get in touch with him to give him your business what do you think is going to happen if your table isn’t installed correctly.  You think you’re having a hard time talking to him now?  If that isn’t a red flag I don’t know what is.

We have a few professionals in our industry, use em man!

 

 

happy pool table moving customer

Customer wanted to pay less, but we’ll be doing his pool table move now

Jeff
Posted on

The cheap pool table mover turned out to be a disaster.

You might remember a post I put up the other day about paying the cheapest price,  The customer I referred to in that post called me today and said that unfortunately his worries had come to be true.

The cheap pool table mover caused problems, he said the pool table mover was over an hour late and I don’t remember the rest of the story so to make it a short version he called me back to make his appointment today.

I hope I was professional with him, I try and be this way with all of my customers and I really am concerned with putting out the best work we can for a fair price.

You see what many people don’t understand is that cheap anything is almost a disaster waiting to happen in many cases.  Missed appointments shotty work, no return phone calls can cost you more in the long run than saving you money.

Dealing with professionals from the start can be not only a better pool table moving experience but can actually save you money, time and peace of mind for your job.  Look we all spend more than we want to whenever we buy something, that’s the nature of everything we have to deal with in the market place but when a person does not charge for their pool table moving services this takes their ability to properly service the customer right out of the equation.

Our employers will never pay us what we want to earn and our goods and services will always cost more than we want to pay.   There are some things we shouldn’t skimp on though.  Pool table services are  one of them.

 

 

Pool table mover screamingi into phone

I would tell them but they wouldn’t listen, pool table guys

Jeff
Posted on

Some days I just throw my hands up

When I started working with pool table movers it was my intention to find quality pool table movers for my customers.  I am very patient with them but some times my work is such a headache.

Most of the people I work with are very professional and have a good idea about pricing, knowledge of pool tables etc.  Every once and a while I reach out to a real dandy.  You see I have been working on tables all of my life, I know what they need to know in order to make a good decision on price for the customer and the scope of the job so I do the best I can to let them know what they are getting into.

Boy was I in for it today! These pool table movers were the cream of the crop!

Most pool table movers only need to know a little information.

  • Is the table a 3 piece slate
  • How old is the pool table
  • What size is the pool table
  • Where the pool table is being moved to and from
  • What type of pockets does the table have

This will give a seasoned guy plenty of information, well I forgot to mention they do like to know if there are stairs or not as well.

So I was calling around for some pricing today and besides the fact that it took these two pool table repair / movers over an hour to call me back.  (I get really pi55ed about having to wait for my information and when they do call back I have taken so many calls I don’t even remember what I called them about.) They also wanted to school me for a half hour on the phone about how many years they have been doing this type of work and all of the information they needed on the pool table.

Listen I’m about business and making things easier on my customer is my main objective.  I try to tell them my family has been in the billiard table moving industry for 40 years but they don’t listen, they are too busy yapping their chops about this and that and this and that.

 If I let them go on I’ll be wrapped up in a hundred dollars of my time, missed phone calls and my phone battery will be dead!

And don’t even think I’m sending this guy into a customer situation!  He’ll talk to me longer than it takes him to do the job and god help anyone in the area while he’s working, he’ll be there for 7 hours telling everyone his stories.  People don’t want to hear all of someone’s garbage they want in and out,  my customers want information and they want their jobs taken care of professionally and efficiently.

I just don’t even bother with these guys, my experience is that after you let them gab your ears off for an hour they give you a price then after the job is half way done they decide “oh here’s something you didn’t tell me I’m gonna have to tack on an extra 50 bucks.”   No pal that’s not the way it works, you ask the questions and price the job, you don’t change things because you think I withheld information.  You can save the sucka stuff for another guy.

Drives me batty, like I said I’d tell them I know every aspect of their jobs but they wouldn’t listen.  I just wanna give my customers the best service as quickly as possible so they can get onto the important things in their lives.