Rant Customers

[Geneva Olson]

Yea. I got my prices down. Now I have my share of crazy in the customer department.
Dude comes in wanting a decal for a motorcycle. It's a nude sketch of his wife. He came in June. Picked the blue for the outline off of a pantone color chart I have on my wall. I printed it on a black background so we could wrap his canam ferings (or whatever they are). I fretted and worked over the damn thing. He approved the proof. Then I print it. I even gave him a couple of extra decals. He tells me the blue on the black background is purple. He approved EVERY STEP of the way. AND then proceeded to walk out the door with them in hand.
He comes in yesterday 3 months later and tells me he has ripped them off of his vehicle. He doesn't want replacements. He wants a whole bunch more OTHER decals. So I did offer to reprint in a lighter blue on the black background. He says, "naa, I'm not gonna worry about it." So then he tells me about all the decals he wants now. 2 of this in 8 inch, 2 of that in 6 inch....etc. A total of 10 decals, different sizes. I tell him the price for all of them is $200. He's like, "well I have a credit". SAY WHAT? I don't even know if you took the stuff off of your motorcycle. I'm new to customers. I mean my parents owned an office supply when I was a kid and I worked in it and I saw some doozies of customers. But I've never dealt with something like this.
But I do have experience with people. This man thinks I'm nice and he can run all over me. Guess what, I taught 7th graders for 14 years. I can handle him. I was a drug counselor in a methadone clinic when I was in my 20s. I had to tell a professional killer he couldn't have his methadone. I can handle this guy.

JUST A RANT TODAY!

 

[iPrintStuff]

A few things you need to do here, one is notify customers that any complaints etc need to be made within 1 week or so of picking up their product. Any timeline suits but don’t make it too long.

We had a customer that had a very large order of decals come to us 7 MONTHS later and try say they were the wrong size, then sent us the spec he apparently sent us initially and he’d changed the size. (Good job I trolled through the metadata and he’d created that original document 10 mins before emailing me) that and I had the original spec saved in his folder.

Secondly, also need something that says “if you use these decals/signs etc then they cannot be returned/replaced/refunded.”God knows how many idiots think it’s super easy to throw decals anywhere they like. If there was a problem, you don’t stuck it on your truck for three months then change your mind. You rectify it right away.

And obviously any replacements of faulty goods/anything that’s your fault has to be replaced as-is to their spec. In other words, I’ll replace your decals to the right colour but I’m not swapping them for different artworks.

 

[Notarealsignguy]

There are people like that. They go around taking advantage of people anywhere that they can and will continue doing it until you run them off. I know that it isn't an option for everyone but if you can avoid personal projects and stick with business only then you will have fewer of these headaches.

 

[CanuckSigns]

Tell him your booked up for the next 12 months and let him find someone else, this guy will never be happy, so don't worry about it, move on.

 

[TammieH]

He probably took the decals off his bike, because the Boss said NO WAY!
You can sleep with the bike buster!

 

[John Miller]

We made a sign many years ago. Our first smalt sign. I ordered sand smalt rather than glass, not knowing any better. The sign came out beautiful. The client was very happy. About a year later I got a call, "the black background is getting very faded" knowing smalt is supposed to last about forever, I did some research. To my total dismay, I learned sand smalt is not an exterior product. I called the client, apologized, and told him I'd be happy to fix it with glass smalt. His answer was, "great, thanks, I'm going to get a few more years out of it before I have you repair it" My answer it's now or never sir. I can't remember, but I think I never heard from him again. Bill, do you remember the job?

 

[Billct2]

I remember the job but not the client. I did a little smalt sign at the same time as a gift for my girlfriends parents B&B (used one of Clyde's blanks) , same result. I painted it with black one shot to rescue it.

 

[Gino]

You need a policy sign on your wall. It'll state your rules on checks, deposits and NO REFUNDS once said item(s) leaves the shop. You can put other policies on there too, like minimums and whatnot. Ours even says, if you do not wash your vehicle before bringing it in, highly skilled people will wash it at $125. an hour. Minimum -- 2 hours. Once you point to that, they'll either get outta your life or just pay up.

 

[Geneva Olson]

You need a policy sign on your wall. It'll state your rules on checks, deposits and NO REFUNDS once said item(s) leaves the shop. You can put other policies on there too, like minimums and whatnot. Ours even says, if you do not wash your vehicle before bringing it in, highly skilled people will wash it at $125. an hour. Minimum -- 2 hours. Once you point to that, they'll either get outta your life or just pay up.

We have several signs on the wall. One is "we warranty our work, no refunds" . I think I will change it to, "we warranty our work for an immediate correction. No refunds" . We also have one that says we charge $85 an hour for removal of graphics. We had one plumbing company try to slip a van in with BAKED on FULL wrap. I had him sign the paper and told him it was $85 an hour. When I saw the van I knew it was going to take a VERY LONG time. The OWNER called and told me I quoted him a price of $400 (LIE). My partner called him back and told him to get the POS van out of our parking long. We never touched it.

 

[Gino]

Here's how ours goes at the moment. Those are hand cut outta gatorboard, before we had cnc capabilities.

 

[Geneva Olson]

Here's how ours goes at the moment. Those are hand cut outta gatorboard, before we had cnc capabilities.

View attachment 149084 View attachment 149085

I'm totally taking this and modifying it for me! Thank you.

 

[Geneva Olson]

He probably took the decals off his bike, because the Boss said NO WAY!
You can sleep with the bike buster!

He even said when he was ordering them that his wife kept saying, "people are going to know it's me, I don't want it on there". Then, when he came back a couple of days ago he said, "yea, I took those decals and put one on my mirror in my bathroom. It looked good".

 

[shoresigns]

Best advice I ever got about printing the colour blue:

Blue shifts to purple very easily, and is a common problem across digital printing. Always make sure there's a good amount less magenta than cyan in your formula. "CMYK Blue" often refers to a 100-100-0-0 mix, but that formula is asking for trouble. Set your magenta to 80% or less and then make adjustments from there.

 

[Geneva Olson]

Best advice I ever got about printing the colour blue:

Blue shifts to purple very easily, and is a common problem across digital printing. Always make sure there's a good amount less magenta than cyan in your formula. "CMYK Blue" often refers to a 100-100-0-0 mix, but that formula is asking for trouble. Set your magenta to 80% or less and then make adjustments from there.

I've had my share of blue issues. I had a plumbing van that I spent probably a week making sure we got the right blue where it wasn't purple.
The key to this one was that I discussed with this airhead customer that the blue was going to look dark on the black background. I made him approve the blue that I gave him. He acted like I had agreed that it was the wrong blue. I don't agree to anything because it's not my blue. I make them select the blue and make them approve it. I am out of the mix. If they are asking for which blue looks better, I will give my opinion. But this wipey butt had to tell me the code for the parts on his motorcycle that was powder coated. I told him it didn't equate in vinyl.