Jodi Wallace

Monarch Solid Surface Designs

We recently installed new countertops with a full height backsplash in an older 1970s home for Patty. She is one of those customers we all wish there were more of. She was quick and decisive when making her decisions and signing a contract, didn’t haggle over pricing, and was very excited about getting rid of the ugly tile she had been living with for the past 10 years.

To ensure the tightest fit possible for a full height backsplash, I prefer to install the countertops, make the full height template, and then come back to install the backsplash. I know it’s more work this way, but I like the cleaner, tighter fit it provides around cabinetry. We usually schedule one trip to install the tops and template the backsplash and one trip back to install the splash. Unfortunately, we had a problem with a piece of equipment, so her splash was actually installed over two days.

Patty works during the day, so she would leave the key under the mat and then text me in the evening when she returned home and saw the progress. She left a very excited message the night the countertops were installed, saying how much she loved them and how it had changed the whole look of the room. The second evening’s message she gushed about how amazing the full height splash on the stove side (which was its own separate area) looked. But the voicemail she left on the evening after the sink splash went in only said, “Please call me.” That is never a good sign.

When I called her the next day she was concerned because the backsplash on the sink side did not match the splash on the stove side. I didn’t quite understand the issue she was trying to explain, so she texted over a couple of pictures of each area. The problem with looking at pictures is that something very small usually ends up looking like a huge and catastrophic problem.

I admit I cringed when I saw the pictures. I could see the white silicone line (which matched the white material), where the area between the bottom of the cabinets and the top of the backsplash looked “fat” and hadn’t been cleaned up to what I consider acceptable quality. I go through this with my guys all the time – outside of the fact they have thicker fingers – which means silicone ends up in places it shouldn’t – they don’t understand that a broken laminate sample chip is not always the best way to clean up silicone. As Patty pointed out, the stove side looked so amazing that it made the sink side look sloppy, and since her sink faces the wall, she would see the fat silicone line anytime she went to use the sink.

According to my installer, everything had come out looking great, and he wasn’t sure why Patty wasn’t happy. I sent him by to do a little “clean up.” When I received a message from Patty the next day asking if anyone was going to come by, I realized I needed to go to the jobsite and see what was going on for myself.  

 When I arrived the next morning, I could see exactly what she was talking about. I wasn’t happy with my installer.

I called and told him to meet me on site. While I was waiting for him to arrive I poked around the silicone and realized I was able to clean off most of the excess fairly easily, since it had “set.” 

What I couldn’t figure out was why there was such a thick silicone line next to the cabinet. It looked pretty ragged and I was fuming, waiting for Bryan to arrive. 

He had hardly walked in when I dragged him into the kitchen and gave him a “what for!” After trying several times to make me understand why he couldn’t get the full height splash piece to sit properly in the wall he grabbed a knife and started pulling out the silicone. When he had removed a couple of inches of silicon, he stepped back.

To my surprise, the trim piece, part of the side of the cabinet, was not attached flat to the cabinet wall like it should have been. It stuck out instead. Because it extended into the backsplash area, the full height splash piece was not able to lay flush against the back wall. This was only on the right side cabinet – the left side was fine, so of course they looked different!

Unfortunately, the trim ran from the top of the cabinet all the way down to the bottom. To compensate, Bryan had trimmed the splash to fit flat where he could and then was left with a big gap that he filled in with silicone. If the gap had only been a couple of inches, I would have had him try and trim it. But because it ran the entire height of the cabinet, it wasn’t going to be a quick or easy fix, and we just didn’t have that kind of time.

What he did and why he did it made sense, now. His mistake was that he never called me to let me know there was a problem, so I was not able to discuss options with the customer. 

Knowing why he was meeting me at Patty’s, Bryan spent time cutting and polishing three trim pieces, each one inch wide and mitered at the top of each piece. Assembled and fixed in place with silicon, it would look like an upside down “U,” and would cover the gap problem. 

Bryan had spent an hour preparing these pieces, but when he held them up to show me, I just said “yuck.” Unless we were going to add the trim pieces everywhere, it just didn’t look right.  The pieces looked clunky and out of place next to the new tops and splash, which were so beautiful.

We left the trim pieces on the counter and I called Patty, sending my own picture of the problem and asking her to call me when she got home. 

She called several hours later I explained what the problem was and the purpose of the trim pieces that Bryan had cut.
She said she didn’t like them and asked what I thought. I agreed they just didn’t quite fit. I suggested she take a couple days, give it some thought and let me know what she would like to do. Maybe she could find someone to help her trim the cabinet piece. 

Two days later I received an email. She had spoken to friends and gotten their advice. She decided it would work if we could cut the pieces to one third of the size Bryan had originally made them.

I called Bryan and asked how long it would take to cut them down, polish, install and then re-silicone. He figured it would take two hours, in addition to the original hour he already had spent working up the sample trim. I wasn’t trying to make any money off this, but at least wanted to cover part of the time spent fixing it. I texted Patty that the charge for the additional work would be $65. That didn’t cover my full payroll cost for the travel time and labor, but it would help offset it. I penciled in a time to return on the calendar. 

I was surprised when I received a text back from Patty saying she didn’t want to spend any additional money. I could tell by the way her response was worded that she thought I should do it as a freebie, and in past months I might have. But we had been dealing with multiple job go-backs (some due to customers, a couple due to my guys), and having to recut a couple jobs. Money and time were tight right then, and I just couldn’t do this one for free. 

I really like Patty, and I tried as nicely as possibly to explain that although we always strive to have things as perfect as possible we cannot guarantee perfection, because the cabinets we have to work around are often imperfect. She texted me back saying she would drop a check in the mail. I wasn’t going to leave the area where we removed the silicone open and looking ugly, so I asked her to leave the key for us one last time, so we could go by and replace the silicone that Bryan had removed. 

I admit that I felt bad telling her no, we couldn’t do this for free, because that is not how I am used to doing things.  If we had caused the problem, I would have absolutely handled it without questions or hesitation. 

Customers love getting “free” add-ons, which translates to time we spend on things that are not part of our jobs. These side projects are not in the project contracts  they have signed off on, acknowledging what we are not responsible for.  But we get stuck with doing them in order to work a job – like moving refrigerators or stoves, going back to drill another hole after the job is completed because they “forgot,” and it will “just take you a minute to do,” and unhooking plumbing so we can remove a sink to remove the countertops. What customers don’t realize is that our employees have to be paid, even when the customer is not being charged for the additional work. The time it takes to do “freebies” can add up pretty quickly. 

My new goal is to try and rein some of our “above and beyond” freebies, especially when correcting an unforeseen problem that wasn’t our fault. Not that we won’t do extra little things, but I need to learn that it’s alright to ask a customer to pay for something that is clearly beyond the scope of the contracted work. That is what a change order is for, after all. I am learning that when customers see you are willing to offer a compromise that is fair to both parties, you can leave them satisfied, and preserve your reputation for going above and beyond for customers.

Jodi Wallace is the owner of Monarch Solid Surface Designs in San Jose, California. She volunteers as a Disaster Responder for the American Red Cross.