The customer is always right.
And sometimes they're going to try to make you prove that.
And we're going to talk about that today.
Hi there, I'm Angela Brown and this is Ask a House Cleaner.
This is a show where you get to ask a house cleaning question and I get to help you find an answer.
Now today's show is brought to us by MyCleaningConnection.com
which has a whole list of resources.
And in those resources, you're going to find a series of books.
In that book collection that I've hand-picked for you, there's a series of books on boundaries
and those are the boundaries you create with your customers so that you can have a really
happy, long-lasting, thriving business because it's based on boundaries.
Once you understand boundaries, you can use them with your teenagers and your spouses.
Yay! Everyone wins.
All right, MyCleaningConnection.com
Okay, so onto today's show, which is from a house cleaner who goes inside a customer's house.
The customer has a knack for arguing and so her husband or her son is at home occasionally
when the house cleaner gets there and this particular woman gets in fights with her family.
And then she turns to the house cleaner and she wants the house cleaner to take her side
because the customer is always right, right?
She wants validation from the house cleaner and the house cleaner is like, "Man, I'm getting
sucked into all this drama that I don't want to be in.
I just showed up to clean.
How am I supposed to honor my customer and stay out of her household fights?"
Well, that is an excellent question and I want to honor the house cleaners observations
that she's trying to do the right thing and at the same time she's well aware that it's
causing a lot of problems inside the customer's home when she gets involved in the family fights.
All righty.
From day one you have to take an oath that no matter what happens inside a customer's
home you are not taking sides.
And I'm really serious about this because you will run into couples that are getting
divorced, you will run into parents that have parenting issues with their kids, and you
might even know the kids so the kids are like, "Are you on my side or are you on my mom's side?"
Okay, well your mom is paying me so I want to be on her side but you might actually side
with the kid.
There are times you're going to be torn and you have to take an oath of I'm not taking sides.
What you might say is, "I'm here to clean.
I'm not here to take sides and I'm not at liberty to have an opinion here.
As a house cleaner, my job is just to clean.
I'm not a licensed therapist.
I don't get to take sides.
I don't have the luxury of doing that."
Now they might say, "What do you think?"
"I'm not at liberty to give my opinion.
I appreciate the situation that you're in but I don't get to have a voice.
This is not my household.
Not my situation.
I don't get to have a voice."
And back out of it and be really clear about no comments.
Because no matter what happens, if you take someone's side you are going to build an enemy
and then when you come back to clean again, now you have an enemy inside that household.
Whether it's the other spouse or whether it's one of their kids or whether it's the person
that hired you.
You don't get to take sides and you got to be crystal clear about that.
Because it is easy to get sucked into other people's drama.
Now, when you're cleaning and you're inside someone's home and you hear people,
it's easy to have an opinion.
Even if it's something you know a whole lot about and it would be
easy to try to build rapport with your customer and say, "Hey, you know what, I overheard
you talking and my teenager is doing some of the same shenanigans."
Don't do that.
Your personal life is your personal life.
Their personal life is their personal life.
And while it's easy to build rapport, we build a rapport on the initial walk through.
And then when we get to the customer's house, we don't chat.
You got 60 seconds coming in the door to say, "Hello," and, "How are you doing," and say
hi to the animals and then get to work.
You don't get to get into their family problems and you don't get to have an opinion.
As you go into a customer's house, if you will take an oath of no comment it will make
your life a whole lot easier and then you won't get sucked into the customer's drama
and you won't have to take sides and you don't have to prove that the customer is always
right because sometimes they're not.
Now, having said that, there are times when you're going to have to get the Social Services
involved and it's not a lot.
In the 25 years I've been in the house cleaning business I've had to call the Social Services twice.
It's not a big thing but it might happen to you and that's going to be when a family member
or a child or a pet, someone is in danger.
If you go into a house and there is danger and this family is not able to take care of
themselves somehow you may need to get the authorities involved.
And I don't say this lightly because when you get the authorities involved you mess
up people's lives.
You now have people that come in that do in home inspections and they do interviews and
they're now spying on this family.
But if somebody's life is in danger it is your responsibility to go get help.
Okay, so that is the only time you're going to get involved and you don't bring it up
directly to the family.
You bring it up with the Social Services.
Just say, "I'm a house cleaner.
I'm inside this family's house.
There are some things I need you to be aware of," and then let them take it from there.
Don't follow up with the family.
Don't let them know you called the Social Services.
Don't get involved any more than you absolutely have to.
But if you suspect that there's some kind of abuse going on, whether it's mental, physical,
emotional, whatever it is, then you do need to get involved.
If someone's life is in danger and you know that there's a problem, then you need to get involved.
Other than that, no comment, because you're there to clean.
You're not there to solve their family problems.
And if they have family problems, they can go hire a therapist.
All right, that's my two cents for today and until we meet again,
leave the world a cleaner place than when you found it.
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