Trash Talk

July 19, 2012  by in UnCategorized   

By Home Furnishings Business in on July 2012

The neighborhood I live in is private and pretty rural. In fact, it is so rural, we just completed asphalting all the roads last year. They are narrow with barely enough room for two cars to pass when meeting. The county does not provide assistance for any of our road maintenance; it is left up to our landowners€™ association to flip the bill for any maintenance matters.

We who live here like it this way€”no traffic and no reason for others to be here unless they are visiting a resident. It keeps the bad people out.

Based upon our roads, the county does not offer door-to-door pick up of our garbage. The garbage trucks are just too large. So when it comes to this task, I have three options.

The first would be to take my trash to a county dumpster located more than three miles away. Nope, not happening. I think way too much of my vehicles to have them smell like last week€™s dinner and our cat€™s litter box. The second would be taking my trash container to the foot of the mountain 1.3 miles away and then picking it up once it is empty. Hey, call me lazy, but this is not an option; it€™s just not going to happen.

The final method is having a county pick-up truck run by every Tuesday morning and a person will remove the garbage from my trash can as long as it all is in bags. For this service I happily pay a fee of $15 per month. To me it€™s a no-brainer, and I will continue to use this service for as long as live here.
For the last four years when I received my first monthly invoice, I would write a check for the annual amount of $180 and drop it in the mail. I feel good knowing this is handled, and I won€™t receive another invoice for 12 months. It€™s easy for me; and writing a monthly check for $15 can become a pain that is easily overlooked in the big picture. I handled this exactly the same way this year.
Thirty days or so later and much to my surprise, I received another invoice with my check returned stating the county would no longer accept annual prepayments. I called to inquire about the change and was told they mailed a letter (one that I never received) explaining they could no longer take prepayment for this service.
I replied, €œYou€™re kidding me, right?€ and again was told, €œNo, our new system is not set up for annual payments and they no longer could accept payment in advance.€
Who has ever heard of a service provider that would not want to take advance payment for services?
My reply was, €œWell someone must have bought the wrong system!€ I went on explaining the benefits of having me prepay€”no collection issues, no one required to generate an invoice and stuff an envelope, and no postage costs just to name a few. I then asked about direct draft, online payments, credit card payments and each response was no. It almost seemed that the person was so proud of the new system they took benefit in the fact they would/could not help me. I just shook my head in amazement and thought, local government at its finest.
So why am I rambling on about trash collection in Roanoke, Va.? I want each of you to take an honest look at your operations and see what policies or procedures you might have in place that could make it difficult for the customer to do business with you. In most cases, consumers have a choice in where they spend money, so you better make it easy for them or those dollars might walk out your door.
In my particular case I only have two other options, so I guess I will be writing that monthly $15 check. However, I continue to tell my story of being an unhappy customer.