How to be an annoying customer....

[Pat Whatley]

Customer calls. Asks me if I've got a price for them yet. Ask them what they are talking about. Customer says he sent me a facebook message about a sign. Log into facebook, customer has sent me a message asking about a sign and tells me he will email me the art. Check email, no email. Call the customer. Customer says he will email it right then. Customer then proceeds to take a photo of the layout on his computer and send it to me via text message. I can deal with that since he's just looking for a price except I have no idea what material or size. Call the customer, leave him a voice mail. 20 minutes later I get a text telling me he sent it all in the facebook message (that apparently he sent after sending me the text message). Get the specs, write up a quote, email it to the guy. Next day, phone rings, "hey man, I really need that quote. They want to order that this morning" Tell him I email it like he asked. His response? "Oh, you sent it to the wrong address, I'll text it to you"

 

[flyplainsdrifta]

yeahh. had a customer work for weeks on a job in design and proofing process. finally approves last night. tells us he needs them in nyc friday morn. man people are the worst sometimes. 40+ boards. on the holiday. so pumped.

 

[Texas_Signmaker]

Tell him to fuck off and suck a turkey leg.

 

[2B]

A customer walks in 3 minutes before closing, has an angled and out of focus photo of a ROUGH sketch.
Wants it converted and cleaned up so it can be used for 1 color plotter decals. He is a 1st-time customer so details and steps are explained, they are all good, and verbally go over pricing and time-frames (his words, no rush this is a side project I have been playing with)
Calls the next morning about 45 mins after opening, annoyed that no proof has been sent and why are we so slow? He wants them later that day.......
Story quickly changed once the RUSH costs were added.

 

[flyplainsdrifta]

A customer walks in 3 minutes before closing, has an angled and out of focus photo of a ROUGH sketch.
Wants it converted and cleaned up so it can be used for 1 color plotter decals. He is a 1st-time customer so details and steps are explained, they are all good, and verbally go over pricing and time-frames (his words, no rush this is a side project I have been playing with)
Calls the next morning about 45 mins after opening, annoyed that no proof has been sent and why are we so slow? He wants them later that day.......
Story quickly changed once the RUSH costs were added.

story of my lifeeee! not excited to come in for a few hours tomorrow morning. i know having alot of work is nothing to b**** about but damn dude, id like to have my holidays you know?

 

[bannertime]

I am beyond tired of the price game. Show estimate to customer, without hesitation, "can you do it cheaper?" I've about had it. I've started asking "why?" Typically they'll respond with something like "we're good customer," "come on friend," "I want to use you for more orders," "I'll send everyone here." Almost always first time customers or someone we see once every few years. Never a legitimate reason. One guy said he was reselling the sign. But I still had to take the order, do the artwork, redo artwork after he had mistakes in his original sketch. Then asked for a trade discount. I'm seriously tempted to pay someone just to talk to customers for me. Loosing my mind!

 

[Z SIGNS]

I always said that this would be a really great job if I did not have to deal with people

 

[CanuckSigns]

How about long term clients who ask for a quote before they send every job? We have a few clients we do engraved industrial tags for, without fail they ask us to quote every job, some of them have placed 40 + orders with us in the last year, yet they still can't figure out that the cost of their tags have more or less stayed the same.

 

[iPrintStuff]

How about long term clients who ask for a quote before they send every job? We have a few clients we do engraved industrial tags for, without fail they ask us to quote every job, some of them have placed 40 + orders with us in the last year, yet they still can't figure out that the cost of their tags have more or less stayed the same.

We have a few customers like this. Though one of them basically told us that even though we have given them a price list for everything standard, they still need to ask for a quote for audit purposes. They only come to us too so it’s not like they’re comparing quotes or anything, just essentially need to show that they tried. Weird

back to annoying customers, had one today that wouldn’t tell me where his sign (or banner) was going, how long it would be there for, or how big he needed it but wanted a quote and a recommendation on materials.. then got confused when I asked for said info

 

[TimToad]

How about long term clients who ask for a quote before they send every job? We have a few clients we do engraved industrial tags for, without fail they ask us to quote every job, some of them have placed 40 + orders with us in the last year, yet they still can't figure out that the cost of their tags have more or less stayed the same.

In addition to a quote for EVERY job, I especially dislike the ones like a now former client (as of last week) who provide their own full size, print ready artwork but insist on a getting a PROOF in addition to a written quote.

We've done several trucks and a few other signs for this premium sheep's milk ice cream producer..... Yeah, I know it sounds awful but it's actually pretty good and very original flavors.

Maybe a couple grand worth of work over 5 years time.

She needed two large decals for the front of several ice cream display cases and sends me the artwork and is in a major rush to get them both produced AND installed. We're running a couple week backlog, but toild her we could squeeze them in in a week. She emailed about the "proof" the next day and I respond that if I have to stop what we're doing on other jobs to generate a proof from her own artwork, that the one week timeline gets abandoned and she gets in line with everyone else. She's exasperated that we would dare not cower in fear of losing her as a client and states that ALL of her sign vendors provide proofs for everything she orders. Knowing now that we haven't earned any loyalty from her, we wished her well and moved on.

I know I could have simply copied and pasted her artwork onto a proof sheet and rolled with it, but it's the principle that she is doing this to multiple local sign shops on EVERY order and only choosing the one will drop everything and make her the queen for a day that rubs us the wrong way.

So, we lose a client whose volume isn't that as big as the PITA she is and she loses customers who like her product and used to bring people to her shop for dessert. Seems only fair.

 

[Bradley Signs]

Life would be great if it weren't for people.
My wife and I take customer calls, tell them what they want to hear, then do what needs to be done.
Thing is, no one gets anything unless they pay first.
One old chap, who has bought many a sign from us, always took weeks to pay us, and many e-mails to get him to pay.
He called to order again, told him he had to pay first.
Haven't heard a word since.
Problem solved!
Have some Turkey with a shot of Turkey and Soldier On!

 

[Christian @ 2CT Media]

Life would be great if it weren't for people.
My wife and I take customer calls, tell them what they want to hear, then do what needs to be done.
Thing is, no one gets anything unless they pay first.
One old chap, who has bought many a sign from us, always took weeks to pay us, and many e-mails to get him to pay.
He called to order again, told him he had to pay first.
Haven't heard a word since.
Problem solved!
Have some Turkey with a shot of Turkey and Soldier On!

Speaking to this, we just "Lost" a client, their words not ours, for this very reason. We asked them for a deposit by a certain day/time if they wanted their project completed on their requested date. After multiple follow up attempts the cut off came and went, we scheduled another project and the client had a melt down. Threw every excuse (great client, always paid us, never needed a deposit before, etc.) and then every threat they could muster (they won't use us again, our competition will crush us with this mind set, etc) at us. Now they are demanding their art (competition charges twice as much as us) and their vehicle is now 3 weeks past their requested date still unfinished. If they would pay the deposit we could pencil them in immediately.

The funny thing is this clients business requires a deposit before they even write up an order, so it's a do as I say not as I do situation like always.

 

[rossmosh]

My biggest customer complaints are:

1. People refuse to listen to my professional opinion. Measure before ordering. Email your information. Go home and think about exactly what you want it to say. Figure out your budget. I'm not bossing them around. I'm giving them reasonable advice because I know from experience people that make decisions off the cuff often miss something. Then either they get the wrong product or I have to change their order several times which costs me money.

2. The immediate phone call after sending an email to tell me something truly trivial. I spelled a word incorrectly? I forgot to update some sort of information? You want to change everything? Lovely. Just reply to the email telling me that. I don't need to stop everything to talk to you about this. Just email me.

3. Needing to see every option for a small order. At some point you have to realize that your curiosity does not justify me running around showing you all sorts of crap. You told me what you wanted. I've given you that option. We've discussed other things. I don't need to show you every option in the shop.

4. Customers not paying attention to our process. It's not that complicated. Order/Deposit/ -> Proof -> Revisions -> Approval -> Production - > Pickup/Payment. Check your damn emails for the proofs. Check your spam folder a few times a week. Don't make me chase you down for approvals. Pickup your phone. Listen to your voicemails. Have a damn computer if I'm sending you proofs.

5. Long term customers not getting better over time. If anything getting worse. I'm unsure why people want to go through the same problems every year. You come in with no info. We do your proof. You change everything around because it wasn't what you wanted. We have to re-proof. Now we're actually doing the proof process so you notice minor issues/mistakes. Now we're on v3 of the proofing process and potentially still making changes.

I will tell you one thing, I refuse to move to informal means of communication with my customers. You call my business line or email. That's it. We'll send you a very simple text message via a text service. That's it. I refuse to communicate with customers via Facebook or text. I'm relatively young but firmly believe that both methods of communication are simply to informal for business.

 

[Johnny Best]

I have learned from my bad customers on how to be a good customer. If ordering things, I never start bugging the supplier with emails and phone calls. If things start to go south and realize this person is not going to come through for me, start looking for another vendor to get the work accomplished. Try to be as honest to the customer as possible by telling them when you will be ready to deliver. A lot of people have the idea that the squeaky wheel gets the oil or grease theory so you are going to have to deal with that or tell them they need a new wheel. I try not to be my worst customer.

 

[brycesteiner]

I had a "customer" earlier this year who asked for a quote for making a logo. I gave him a price of $300 not counting the cost of the vinyl. A couple months later they sent me a low res jpg and said they wanted that modified for their logo. I go ahead a vector it, and after going back and forth 7 or 8 times with changes we finally got what they approved.
They then said go ahead and make the vinyl for their semi-truck. I print, laminate, cut and finished the job, and ended up charging them less because they provided the idea for the logo.
After they picked it up and said it looked good they start whining about the price. I charged them over $100 less than quoted. I pointed that out in their emails because they tried to say they never approved it even though both people, who were responding to the same email address, gave their approval.
They started saying they gave me the logo and I didn't have to do anything. I pointed out they gave me a low resolution JPG and that they knew it wouldn't work - that wasn't ready to print or cut. I explained the difference of pixels vs vectors and got mad because they knew what vectors were. Obviously they didn't but why not make a bigger ass of yourself by claiming you knew this stuff.
I told them to bring it back. I didn't want to deal with them ever again. It wasn't enough to hire an attorney over but I don't want them ever again. Most people are good and will pay for professional work, but there are people who are just not worth hit.
I've gotten in the habit that I don't send out PDF files anymore for approval. I send out screenshots. The high resolution of the retina displays make the JPG's excellent without them potentially having the artwork. They confirmed why I do this!

 

[LED Signs & Designs Texas]

Life would be great if it weren't for people.
My wife and I take customer calls, tell them what they want to hear, then do what needs to be done.
Thing is, no one gets anything unless they pay first.
One old chap, who has bought many a sign from us, always took weeks to pay us, and many e-mails to get him to pay.
He called to order again, told him he had to pay first.
Haven't heard a word since.
Problem solved!
Have some Turkey with a shot of Turkey and Soldier On!

Amen brother

 

[visual800]

I have learned the more "rabid" and the more "anxious" they are to deal with the chances of you doing anything for them is slim. These folks get an over-inflated BS quote to go away. I dont beg and I dont do legwork like I used to