Meeting Expectations

The first clue something had gone wrong was the call from the real estate agent. She was looking for the report first thing in the morning even though the client had been told it would be available in the afternoon. Then she asked if the inspector had been with us very long and wondered how many complaints we'd had about him.

I told her that he'd been with us for a good while and that we'd never had any negative comments about him at all. In fact, many of the people he inspected for have phoned in to tell us how wonderful, and detailed he is and to let us know how much they appreciated his easy-to-understand explanations. So I was surprised by her charge that he didn't explain anything to her client and that he'd been rude and argumentative with her client.

This just didn't sound right. We called him to find out what happened. Turns out the agent wasn't even at the inspection. She was basing her charges on information obtained from the client. We also determined that everything seemed to be going well, (at least as far as he could tell) until the client wanted to add something to the work order. His version of the event was that she seemed put-out that he had to call the office first. She thought he should just do it and call the office later. But he was following our procedures, not hers.

We thought it would be a good idea to speak directly with the client. We phoned her and she seemed quite pleasant, but as she talked she seemed to get agitated. By the time she finished, she had insulted the inspector, as well as our back-office staff. And the turning point did seem to be the fact that he called the office to add the additional service she wanted - her point was that "my realtor said he has to do it" so there should have been no need to call the "little office manager". All I can say is that her agent is not well-versed on the Texas Standards of Practice for Inspectors.

But seriously, I believe this is what it came down to - hidden in what was probably intended to be an offhand remark: She thought that since she was buying a half-million dollar property that she would be treated differently than when she bought a $150K property.

I just don't know what else to say.