Better Life Maids

"Thank you so much for taking the time to give us a report on Angie's List. We are very proud of the exceptional young women who clean our clients homes and are glad you liked them as well. Please let us know if there is anything else we can do to make your next visit with us great. Sincerely, Angela Ricketts Co-Founder/Vice President of Client Experience Better Life Maids"

"Hi member, Thank you so much for reviewing us. We definitely appreciate it. I hope we were clear that your price for ongoing service was $85 plus a $15 loft charge, to cover parking and other issues involved with working in the loft district. The $160 price was only for the first cleaning. If you have found someone you like with lower pricing that is great, and as always we appreciate the opportunity to serve you. We know we aren't the least expensive provider in town, but we are one of the best. If your future needs change, please give us your highest consideration. Sincerely, Angela Ricketts Vice President of Client Experience"

"Hi member, Thank you so much for your great review. I am glad that by honoring your coupon we helped make your experience great. We look forward to being of service in the future. Sincerely, Angela Ricketts Vice President of Client Experience"

"Hi Member, Your cleaning was nearly 6 months ago on 11/05/2010 from the time that you decided to post this, on April 27th 2011. As was stated at the time of your visit, we would have been happy to have come back out and correct those items. I am not sure of the exact reason those items were missed, but mistakes can and will happen as we are human, and we would have gladly corrected them as we stated in numerous correspondence with you, by email and phone. In my mind that speaks more of professionalism, than claiming we are 100% perfect. I can't claim that we have exceptionally highly trained and screened staff that you can feel safe to have in your home, I can claim that while we are not 100% perfect we are pretty good and this was an isolated incident, I can claim that we would have come back and fixed the cleaning to your satisfaction 100%, but you insisted that you would not want us to come back out. Having a house cleaning service is about the relationship and the customer service, it is not about 100% perfect cleaning. Great cleaning is important, but so many other factors make a service a professional cleaning service. It is about having open and honest lines of communication, so that when problems do arise we can offer a solution to fix it. I am sorry that you felt compelled to put a negative review as to the quality of your service, when you did not even give us an honest opportunity to correct the problems on the first visit. As for cost concerns, we are not the cheapest provider out there. I think in most things people want great quality, great service, and a great price. I think we are there when you factor in all the intangibles of a great service. There is no way to be the cheapest as an honest an reputable company that employs great people and follows all then highest tax, employment, and insurance practices. We are in fact pretty commutatively priced (between $32 to $35 per hour) when you consider that we are insured (workman's com, liability, etc...), bonded, follow all the regulatory and tax codes to protect our clients, and screen and train our staff to the highest standards in the home services industry. Again Member, best of luck moving forward, it was our sincere wish to have made this acceptable to you 6 months ago at the time of service. I hope that putting up your review brings you some amount of closure on the issue as it must be of some concern to you all this time later. Please feel free to let me know how we could have fixed this situation to your satisfaction as that is always are ultimate goal to provide a great experience to our clients. Sincerely, Angela Ricketts Vice President of Client Experience"

"Thank you for your feedback- We strive to provide excellent service to our customers and we are happy you enjoyed your experience."

"Thank you for your feedback. We appreciate being able to help you. Please let us know if we can help in the future."

"Wow. Thank you so much for filling out a report. We love to hear when we are doing a great job. We strive to be a professional cleaning service, and extend that professionalism in all aspects of our service. We look forward to meeting any future house cleaning needs you may have."

"Thanks for the report. As you were using the Angie's List Big Deal Coupon, even though you paid for some additional time, when all that was used the team probably thought that is all you wanted as that was the case with many of the Big Deal Coupon Users. That was a communication mistake on our part, and we will make sure that these areas receive attention during your future visits. They were told to focus on kitchens, bathrooms, floors, and then spend time with dusting and baseboards if time allowed with the coupon. I apologize if that left you with a let down. We will see you in a couple of weeks for your monthly visit, and we will put work order notes to catch those items up. Again thank you for your business, and the review here. Sincerely, Matthew Ricketts COO"

"Thank you so much for your report. We strive to make the entire experience enjoyable. Picking a cleaning service is so much more than the actual cleaning and I appreciate that you pointed out some of those details, such as booking and follow up tools. Thank you for your business. Sincerely, Angela Ricketts Vice President of Client Experience"

"Thank you to Angie's List for providing this forum that allows the marketplace to work for consumers and business. As for the report by the member, I think that communication broke down and that it was a two way communication failure. When the member signed up for service she received a new client handbook that spelled out the terms of service. It included our guarantee. We guarantee each visit for the items that are included on our website. After her visit the member filled out a survey, it did not include specifics only that she was extremely unsatisfied with the visit. The terms of service spell out that we need to be called or emailed at [email protected] so that we can provide a prompt response and execute our guarantee. When we did try to follow up by phone with her, the number we had on file was disconnected. This could have been either of our faults, but that is where it ended on our part as we were unable to reach her. The member wrote us an email on 10/10 nearly 2 months after her visit. I called on Monday to try and reconcile the matter, and get her side of the story. Her specific complaints were that they did not hand wash the chandelier and other light fixtures, that they did not get up on ladders to clean, and that she did not see how our systems could have been effective. She also thought she paid too much for the services provided. I explained that her initial bid was for $175 and that only included a set time of service, and in fact the day of service her initial bid was exceeded by two labor hours and I approved that because she was a referral from one of our Cleaning for a Reason cancer clients, and wanted her to have an excellent experience. Again all of the items she thought would be cleaned, are not included as typical tasks. I can definitely appreciate her frustration in this matter that we were not able to follow up in a timely manner. This is not a typical representation of how we do business. In 2009 we have cleaned over 2000 properties. We have a 78.9% excellent rating on our internal surveys, with 98.6% rating our services as good or better. We have grown from 0 to over 60 regularly scheduled clients in one year, and we value every client and the input they provide. We are taking this as a learning experience. We are streamlining our sales process to include two fields in our software for contact information and both fields much match. This should help eliminate this situation in the future, and make sure that the contact information provided is valid. Because more than a typical time had passed to do a follow up visit using our guarantee, I initially offered to clean the member's residence at cost for labor only to try to rectify the situation. This only aggravated the situation, as she was very frustrated by the entire cleaning. I emailed the member to ask her what would be an acceptable way to resolve this matter on her behalf and am awaiting response."