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Favorite Quote from a Customer Today

signgal

signgal

New Member
Customer: Do you guys sell those wire things for the signs?
Me: yes... *blinks, pleasantly awaiting the question*
Customer: How much are they?
Me: (insert inflated price here, just cuz she rubbed me the wrong way)
Customer: EACH?!?!
Me: yep... How many do you need?
Customer: I'm having a yard sale and .... (insert "I picked up some signs from the side of the road to make my own" here for customer)
Me: Well, they sell them at Home Depot. I'm sure they have them pretty reasonable.
Customer: Do you have anything cheaper?
Me: *blinks* um... No... *busies self with the daily operation of a professional sign company to give her a hint*
Customer: How 'bout a wood stake?
Me: *shuffles, nods, tidies and types while thinking "to stab you in the heart with, maybe"* nope...
Customer: Well can I see what we're talking about? *points to wire stake in lobby* I only need like 10. Can't you give me a better price?!
<<Why do customers think that a small order is a good argument and entitles them to a better price>>
Me: That's the price ma'am. This is a business. That's how business' are run or they go out of business.
Customer: *storms out and gets in her Mercedes as I mumble some uncomplimentary adjectives for her, returning to real work*

This rant has been brought to you today, by signgal... We return you now to previously scheduled programming. Thank you!
 
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rgaskins

New Member
Here is one...Made up a sweet logo for a customer...He said "can you print this out for the other two partners to look at"? I decided to do it....He calls me back several days later and said "we decided to do something else"...I said well thats ok...A few weeks pass and I drive by their shop and notice my logo on there box truck...Good part about this...He is my brother-in-law...
 
P

petrosgraphics

New Member
i had a customer a while back come in looking to order a carved gold leaf sign...
wanted to know the cost, and asked if he could wait for it.... never gave him a price
on the sign, he would never understand the $300.00 cost...sent him to the hardware
store to get himself some cast letters and gold paint to make his own sign......
 
Bradster941

Bradster941

New Member
rgaskins said:
Here is one...Made up a sweet logo for a customer...He said "can you print this out for the other two partners to look at"? I decided to do it....He calls me back several days later and said "we decided to do something else"...I said well thats ok...A few weeks pass and I drive by their shop and notice my logo on there box truck...Good part about this...He is my brother-in-law...
Click to expand...


South Carolina huh?

Well, like they say in that neck of the woods, keep the screwing in the family.

Send him a $500 invoice... :clapping:
 
TheSnowman

TheSnowman

New Member
signmeup said:
Twice this week already...... "How much is a sign?"
Click to expand...
I gave up on that a long time ago. I can almost always tell that every single person is a cheap skate that walks in the door, but sometimes I give them a chance. I've now started asking "what is your budget" when I feel like they are just wanting something "cheap" and they have no real business reason for the sign.

Usually if it's anything worth good money, they just call on the phone and say do it, instead of wasting 30 minutes of my time telling me about their $50 project that they end up ordering online or doing themselves with mailbox numbers and a sharpie.
 
JasperST

JasperST

New Member
These would be funnier if they weren't true.

My favorite has been mentioned similarly..."How much are your signs?"

me... "We don't have any in stock."
me in a bad mood..."I'm sorry, we just sold our last one."

Or how about..."I'm getting a new truck, can I reuse those vinyl letters?"

Or... "Did you do that?"
me..."Oh no, it was done by professionals."
 
R08

R08

New Member
signmeup said:
Twice this week already...... "How much is a sign?"
Click to expand...

You have to laugh and roll with it.

I usually answer according to the customers own business like:

To a butcher: "Well ... how much is a slab of meat."

I keep it light and we ususally laugh and I gain PR points.
 
SignManiac

SignManiac

New Member
How long is a piece of rope? or how many Mexicans can Mosh fit in a tiny circus clown car?
 
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JasperST

JasperST

New Member
SignRite said:
I usually answer according to the customers own business like:
Click to expand...
The problem is that's often the first thing that they say. I usually say something like "how much is a car".... But I don't believe that I've ever done a job for anyone that starts out that way.
 
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Slamdunkpro

New Member
From today. Met with a Charity organization at their office about a project. Spec'd it out and and told them that I'd give them a quote. Right on cue......

"We're hoping to get this for the lowest possible price since we're a charity and don't have a lot of money, maybe you could even donate some of it..."

<Looks around at the $300,000 worth of Herman Miller office furniture, the marble paneling, and the extremely fancy conference table in their 20,000 sq ft 10th floor downtown hi-rise with a view suit of offices>

"Let me see what I can do" <not>
 
Flame

Flame

New Member
Lady comes in to order a banner.

lady: Can you put our logo on there? (shows a 2" x 2" piece of B/W clipart).

me: Sure m'am. Do you have it in a digital file such as a vector, pdf or anything of that sort?

lady: oh no, this was made before digital, probably 25 years ago. I have the original though (produces a 1" x 1" cutout piece of paper).

me: oh well perhaps I can find something close but unless we have it in a digital format we can't really take what you have and blow it up to 3' tall and make it look good.

lady: well can't you just scan it?

me: scratching head... trying to figure out how to explain. Well not exactly m'am. It simply won't look good when blown up that large, we mostly deal in vector art and require you to provide us with that artwork or there will be a art fee to recreate it for you.

lady: well that's silly. You can't just scan it? Well I'll go down to the newspaper office. They made us the logo in the first place and they have a scanner...

lady walks out the door

comes back 20 minutes later with a proud look on her face.

lady: yep! They had a scanner and the art professional there said it would be no problem to scan it to a vector. You should look into getting a scanner sometime young man!

lady walks out

30 minutes later a .eps file arrives from the newspaper.

Open file....... it's an auto scan blob that I'm not sure if it's a grove of trees, a blob of paint or a burning arrow.

Sigh.... this was yesterday.
 
GoodPeopleFlags

GoodPeopleFlags

New Member
Email from a regular customer today:

Her: I need 2 banners of the attached file. How much will they be?
Me: Well, your file is setup at 14"x48". Is that the size you want?
Her: Whatever size is best.
Me: I don't know what you're doing with it so I can't tell you what size would be best. Just let me know the height *or* width you want it to be and I can scale it to that size.
Her: It's going on a building, sometimes a stage, and other events that we'll be sponsoring.
Me: Unfortunately, I can't tell you what size will be best. I can tell you that the file scales to 28" x 96" (as well as various other sizes) and in the past we've done banners for you that are 36"x96". Will one of these sizes work or would you like something larger?
Her: That will be fine.

(Me beating my head on my keyboard)
 
JasperST

JasperST

New Member
"How much for these signs with our logo on it."

"Well, we need to see the logo first."

"OK." (they fax over a very crude outline pencil drawing)... then after my call..."What do you mean the logo would be extra?"
 
Dice

Dice

New Member
Got this one yesterday.

"If we order this sign, get it then don't like it, can we return it"

Get this from time to time, Have to explain that the sign has no value to anyone but them and we can't resell it to anyone else, we would have to throw it away, this is why they need to get their design the way they like it so they won't have to reorder. They normally say "Oh, ok"

People some how think we are CostCo.
 
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