Response from Anderson Floor Co
We are very sorry that the customers experience was not as he expected. But he did not read or fully understand his contract. He was given the written contract over 1 month prior to the start of work. Plenty of time to look it over and question its contents and details. The confusion came from the stairs and what was agreed to on our contract or agreed to be done. The customer made assumptions about work that was not on the contract. He didn't even have time to go over the job with the crew on day 1, let them in and left. The crew was going by the contract so they didn't know to ask otherwise. This issue could have been cleared up on day 1, not on a final day when applying the last coat of finish. The customer also was not present any time during the work being done, his mother was left in charge. We also offered to do the stair risers a few times for our normal charge despite the fact that now that the treads are done, it makes sanding and finishing the risers very difficult and more time consuming because we are sanding up against finished surfaces rather than being done all at once. The first call came on a Saturday morning on a holiday weekend. I didn't return the call because I spoke with our son and he thought maybe it was just some confusion about stair parts when talking with the customers mother. I figured no big deal, he could handle that conversation. The second call came from the customer at 11:24 am. Since I was entertaining a house full of people from out-of-town, I didn't get to the phone right away. I saw who called again, called the crew for brief feedback and then I returned the second call. I was already well versed on what transpired from the crew before that call to the customer at 11:27 am per my phone records. I didn't need to rehash the details with the owner since things were already getting tense with the crew. It was during that phone conversation, when told that he was explained the difference of the various stair parts at the bid and they were not included in the contract, that we were then given an ultimatum, either do the additional work at no charge because this is what he assumed would be done or we would be getting negative reviews. I keep detailed notes on each bid written while at the customers house for accuracy during the bidding/contract process. I have been bidding for 30 years and do not profess to remember all the details of the jobs I visit because I average 15-20 bids a week. Thus I have to keep detailed notes. I have provided these notes to the customer indicating I was told that we were not doing stair risers, only stair treads. I fully understand that customers do not understand the difference of the components of the stair parts and why I have to discuss them at each bid where the customer is thinking of refinishing stairs. I then ask them which parts of the stairs to bid. Granted from my memory of our discussion was brief about the stairs and the decision was made right away to not bid the risers per my notes. The stairs were covered with old linoleum so we didn't even know if there was something to refinish under there anyways. So I can see how the customer may have forgotten that part of the bid, it was pretty brief, but I do remember the stair discussion. Everyone is different, some customers will have the risers done, some will paint them, some leave them alone. So I have to ask about them, there is no getting around it. Secondly, the customer was told when he scheduled the job that if we filled in our schedule the day before, the start time would change. I was able to fill in the week and yes, the owner should have been notified the day before. We dropped the ball on that and I texted him as soon as I realized our mistake. Thirdly, nail holes. The crew spent over 4 hours setting and filling literally hundreds of nail holes. Not all holes will hold the filler and if the machines keep sucking the filler out of the holes, we do not re-fill them. Our filler has to be applied at a critical part of the process to allow ample time to dry. If not dried, then it will "cloud" our stain and finishing products. So we do no keep filling the holes if the filler doesn't hold after the second round of sanding. A color putty can be used instead that you can get from any big box or hardware store. So yes there probably some holes left unfilled despite the attempts of the crew to fill them twice. Finally, stair work is all work by hand scraping and hand sanding. There is no dust containment used on stairs, so one will experience some dust with the hand work of stairs. It cannot be avoided. This is outlined in our contract. The customer originally gave us an outstanding review on facebook and then changed his review to a negative one. We receive a text each time a review is posted, so I have a trail of the first, positive, review and of the second, negative, review. So we are assuming that the work that we were contracted to do was satisfactory. I have offered in two different emails to view anything that he is not satisfied with on the job. We stand 100% behind our workmanship and will provide service to him if anything needs to be fixed despite what has transgressed between the parties.