A decorator finishes a house and is paid. Six weeks later the customer calls about three marks in the hallway, a chip on a door frame and a patch that looks slightly different in certain light.
One of those is his. Two are from moving furniture back, and one is a coat that dried in a cold room. There is no written guarantee, so the conversation is about goodwill rather than about terms.
1. Put the guarantee in writing at quotation stage
What is covered, for how long and what is excluded. A guarantee mentioned verbally becomes whatever the customer remembers.
2. Distinguish workmanship from damage
Flaking, peeling, poor coverage and runs are yours. Scuffs from furniture, knocks from a hoover and marks from children are not. Say so plainly.
3. Set a snagging window
A defined period after completion for raising anything. Short enough that marks can be attributed, long enough to be fair.
4. Do a walk round together at the end
With the customer, in daylight, before final payment. Ten minutes at the end prevents most callbacks entirely.
5. Explain the curing period
Paint is touch dry long before it is hard, and a customer putting furniture back immediately will mark fresh work. This one paragraph prevents a large share of complaints.
6. Leave labelled touch up paint
Brand, line, colour and finish, in a labelled container. It costs almost nothing and it is the single most appreciated thing a decorator does.
7. Show them how to touch up properly
Feathered, not dabbed, with the right tool. A customer who does it badly will call you to fix their repair.
8. Be clear about substrate failures
Where paint fails because of damp, movement or a surface you warned about, that is not a workmanship failure. Warn in writing at the time and you are covered.
9. Handle the colour variation question
Sheen differences in raking light and patches that flash on touch up are genuine phenomena. Explaining them beforehand is far better than defending them afterwards.
10. Return promptly for genuine defects
Quickly, without argument, for anything that is yours. The customers who tell people about a decorator are the ones who saw a problem fixed without a fuss.
11. Say what a return visit costs when it is not yours
Politely, in the terms, so that a call about furniture marks has an answer that does not require a negotiation.
12. Keep the guarantee proportionate to the preparation
Where a customer declined full preparation, the guarantee on that surface should reflect it, which follows from the arithmetic in how long will the job take questions.
13. Connect it to the living arrangements
Occupied houses produce more marks, which is the reality described in living in a house during decorating questions.
14. Borrow from trades with clear warranty terms
The same distinction between defect and damage is handled in guarantee and repair questions on furniture purchases.
15. Send it all after completion
A summary of the work, the products used, the guarantee terms, the snagging window and the touch up instructions, in one message. That follow up is exactly what the follow up email after a chat describes.
16. What clear terms produce
A callback conversation that takes two minutes instead of two weeks. See pricing, run the numbers on the chatbot ROI calculator, and the sector view sits under contractors.