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Customer has no idea what he wants but wants it now - Rant.

K

Krissy Louderback

New Member
JBurton said:
F*cking ai doesn't understand 'no green', sorry bossman...
OIG1.THsaZyXpQ3bUBBLCGwR5

Tell him you'll throw in the extra S for free too!
Click to expand...
Which AI program did you use to create this?
 
Ron at Forest Litho

Ron at Forest Litho

New Member
HA! This is one of my favorite rants. I did a talk about it just a few weeks ago. As a professional (any professional), there are certain words that mean specific things to US! However, the customer may pick up some jargon along the way and then use these words but he has no idea of what he is actually asking us to make! For example. Mr.C says he needs a big 5x10' rigid sign. Well since 4x8 is the standard for aluminum or coroplast, He unknowingly has just asked me to make an out-of-the-box, difficult-to-move expensive sign. The next thing you say is most important.... You ask "What are you going to use this for?" It turned out he wanted to put a big FOR SALE sign on the side of a big building. Once I thought about it, I ended up suggesting an 18lb heavy vinyl sign with extra grommets. He even said that 4 x 8' was big enough even thos I offered him 4.3'x10'. It shipped all rolled up, he screwed it into the side of the building using a big ladder, he loved it and it cost him 1/10 of what his original request would have cost. Yep! You have to delve into any new job request because what people want is not always aligned with the words they use and sometimes they really need something different than what they think.
 
N

netsol

Active Member
one of our largest clients lets the design guy send us orders. i have been unable to get him to specify a material (substrate or whatever)
FINALLY i got him to at least specify INSIDE or OUTSIDE so i have something to base MY DECISION on
 
Stacey K

Stacey K

I like making signs
:rock-n-roll:UPDATE! I must have gotten my point across, or he knew I was frustrated, because he called me late Friday and said, (in a nutshell), "I'm sorry, I need to think about what I want. I did think of a few ideas if you have time."

and then he proceeded to show me a shutterstock I sent him and added to it with some landscape stuff - OK, now THAT I can live with!
 
B

Bobby H

Arial Sucks.
Around 10 or more years ago one of our customers, a restaurant owner who bought lighted street signs from us, called us. He wanted a vehicle wrap. Just like the scenario Stacey K described, this guy gave us zero direction. His comment was, "come up with some different designs until I see something I like."
:rolleyes:

I think people really believe the phony depictions of computer technology they see in movies and TV shows. They think all we have to do is rattle some gibberish into the keyboard and it instantly generates a finished design (or in this case, a full vehicle wrap).

One policy we have: we don't do full or partial wraps on personal vehicles. It's businesses only. Too many people from the car club crowd want endless design concepts and revisions all for free, and they don't even want to pay enough to cover the cost of material, never mind the labor cost for installation. And then they want to gripe about anything in the wrap install that is not absolutely perfect. It's a P-I-T-A we just prefer to avoid.

With legit wrap customers we don't design anything until the vehicle has been measured and photographed. We want to know up front all the details and verbiage that need to be on the vehicle. The goal is preventing needless revisions up front. Unlike most other conventional sign projects a vehicle wrap design can be pretty time consuming even when everything goes right.
 
Ron at Forest Litho

Ron at Forest Litho

New Member
netsol said:
one of our largest clients lets the design guy send us orders. i have been unable to get him to specify a material (substrate or whatever)
FINALLY i got him to at least specify INSIDE or OUTSIDE so i have something to base MY DECISION on
Click to expand...
Oh Boy, Another pet peeve of mine! Tell the client choose between design A, B or C. The answer I get back is. "Good!" What?
 
Notarealsignguy

Notarealsignguy

Arial - it's almost helvetica
To avoid the yes answer to a multiple choice question, don't give choices until you have their attention. Send 1 option in an email, here it is. After they reply, then send the other options and ask would you prefer this over the first one? That generally gets them to focus for a minute.
 
Signarama Jockey

Signarama Jockey

New Member
I have had a lot of success with the options method. There is a point where too many options leads to dithering, but 2 or 3 has been a good number in my experience. I've done plenty of graphic design work, and I find that people are more likely to make a solid, snap decision when they have three options to choose from than if they just have 1. If they don't like the one, then they want to play graphic designer and that usually ends up with everyone chasing their tails.

"Make it more peach and add a texture in the background, put some lens flare in there and use Comic Sand font, let's see how that looks."

I can only speak from my personal experience, but 3 options (even if 2 of them are just in different fonts or colors) has served me well.
 
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