Someone recently asked a local Facebook group to recommend a reliable gardener to maintain an overgrown property which they couldn’t keep on top of because of their age and health. Requests like this fill social media groups around the world because people want word-of-mouth recommendations and the replies fly in pretty quickly.

But, in this case, the householder didn’t want any of the six that had previously been recommended, because he had been let down by all of them. Two arranged to give a quote but never showed up, two more went to the house, gave a quote but didn’t return calls afterwards and the final two were never heard from again after each of them was offered the job.

In the latest post, the householder hit the nail on the head with an invaluable warning to businesses. He said he would prefer them to be honest and say it was too big or small a job to undertake, rather than leaving him in limbo.

Not interested

We had a similar experience when the track broke on a large patio door. We contacted a reputable windows and doors company (in fact, the firm that fitted it many moons ago) and someone appeared a couple of hours later to see what could be done. I was impressed because it was not a salesman or rep, but the tradesmen who actually do the fitting and know exactly what can or can’t be done.

They said the track could be replaced if an exact match was found. Sounds promising. But, and this is perhaps where they gave the game away, this was followed with “these days, people just replace the whole thing”. They said they would try to find the parts and get back to me. That was five weeks ago. I might be doing them a disservice and it is taking a particularly long time to find the right track, but I suspect that they would rather fit a new unit which costs thousands than go through the hassle of replacing the track for a couple of hundred.

And I get it. But, as with the householder with the overgrown garden, I would much rather they were up front about it. If they said it would be difficult to repair or find the right track and the best option was to replace the entire door, I would have chosen them to do it. Now, I wouldn’t hire them to wash the windows.

Research shows that every disgruntled customer will tell another 10 to 15 people, who will each tell five to eight more, and so on. So, I will no doubt tell friends and family of my experience and, with family in the process of moving house, if they ask for recommendations, I know exactly who they should steer clear of.

Statistics show that 96 per cent of unhappy customers don’t complain to a business, but 91 per cent of those will simply leave and never come back. And these days, whether it is cowboy builders, dodgy car dealers, delivery delays or a T-shirt in the wrong colour or size, disgruntled customers will head straight to social media and tell the world how a particular business has ruined their lives.

And remember, once the furore from that experience has died down, when the next request for recommendations appears, the first replies are usually “don’t go with such-and-such . . . they ruined my life”.

For the sake of your reputation, sanity and to avoid dealing with the social media fallout, if you can’t or don’t want to do a particular job, just say so. People will understand and respect you for it. You might even get business from them further down the line because you have been honest and said no.