On the “A Fresh Outlook” website, they state that they “take pride in serving [their] customers to a level beyond their expectation”. Unfortunately, Dwight has been unsuccessful at doing this with my wife and me. Our expectations are fair and reasonable, which you will soon read about, and his professionalism in dealing with us is severely lacking; it is well below, in my opinion, society’s expectation.
My wife and I have been looking to replace our blinds with some form of black-out blinds. She did some research and found Dwight and his company.
My wife communicated with him and set up an appointment at our home to look at installing blinds on March 14, 2015. My wife and I had planned our day around this appointment, with plans to go out in the late afternoon, a few hours later. Surprisingly, there was no confirmation to the appointment the day before, which was a bit unexpected; however, we didn’t think too much of this. On the morning of March 14, my wife decided to call Dwight, just to confirm his arrival in a few hours. He admitted that he had forgotten about the conversation and meeting. This was the first sign of unprofessionalism, and an unfortunate lack of respect for our time.
My wife and Dwight then briefly tried to consider re-scheduling a few hours later, but of course, this was cutting into our late afternoon plans and wasn’t ideal; we did however, consider adjusting our plans a bit. In the process of this conversation, Dwight mentioned that this consultation would cost $125 if we had him come and if we decided not to use his services. This information was never previously disclosed to us – it is also not mentioned on his website (as far as I can see with a relatively detailed search). I don’t think that having such a fee is necessarily unreasonable, but it should be something that is disclosed. As a side note, we have had two other consultations with other people, none of whom charged us to come for an initial assessment.
It was at this point that I asked Dwight about providing a rough estimate based on what we were looking for. I approached it in a way that I didn’t want to waste his time or ours if it wasn’t something in which we were interested. Dwight asked me to send him some of our measurements and that he would get back to us with a quote. I think I am a fairly reasonable person; even though he forgot our appointment, I am generally accepting of people making mistakes, and so, I was willing to give him a second chance to set up another appointment.
I sent him a message on March 15, 2015, 1 day later, with our measurements and kindly asked for a base price; I also mentioned that I was hopeful for a quick response, given the fact that we had already anticipated meeting with him and getting the process started on the previous day.
I received a reply on March 18, 2015, 3 days later, stating that he would work on this ASAP. I feel as though three days is already a sufficient amount of time to come up with a rough estimate, especially when one has previously forgotten about an appointment with a client. I feel as though when making such a mistake with a client, one would want to do everything in his or her power to rectify the situation with the client.
I still hadn’t heard back from him by March 24, 2015, 6 days later, so I sent him another message asking if he had any idea when I might expect a quote from him.
It is now April 1, 2015, 17 days from the initial missed appointment and subsequent message, and I still have not received a rough estimate or any explanation as to why there is a delay. Our phone conversations and text messages were all quite cordial (I have them all saved), so I don’t understand why I am still waiting. If there is a reason for the delay, I feel as though he should have informed me, as opposed to the complete lack of response, which is what I have received.
I’m sure that Dwight has done incredible work in the past. However, my review is an accurate and factual account of our timeline and interactions. I cannot recommend someone who is this disrespectful to his clients. I feel like waiting over 2 weeks for a rough estimate in price given his admitted scheduling error is unacceptable and unprofessional. Suffice it to say that we will hire one of his competitors, as they confirmed their appointments with us, gave us friendly consultations/assessments without charge, and followed through with points from our conversations.
A fresh outlook is certainly something to be desired. My wife and I are just getting it from somewhere else.
