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No, your sign isn't done yet.

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fresh

New Member
What is with taxi drivers? A person took over a company we've been working with for the past 8 or 9 years. The guy comes in at 3:30 on Thursday with a brand new design is SHOCKED when I tell him its going to be $x amount for us to set up the design and then $x amount for every taxi. He owns the company and is at first annoyed HE has to be the one paying for the setup charge, not his drivers. He's also shocked that I can't stop what i'm doing and spend the next 3 hours working on his project. You know, he needs his car lettered for the weekend!

We were closed for Good Friday and over the holiday weekend. He comes in at 9:04 this morning wondering if we're ready to letter his van. WTF dude. I know this comes as a surprise, but you are not the only customer we have. You're failure to plan isn't an emergency on my part. AND because we do hundreds of taxis a year, we give them all a great rate and quick turnaround (when possible.) I'm not just sitting around waiting for your $200 to show up.

Now i need to get off this rant and actually get some layouts done. Have a great day!
 
S

signpro

Manager
I hear you man!! we all get it!!! you said it perfectly "he thinks he's your only customer!"

or better yet, when we tell customers "i'll call you this afternoon when its done" and the phone rings at 11:30am "are you done with my truck lettering yet?"
i always respond "did i call you already? i don't remember doing that"

hope your day gets better!! now go label those taxis!!!
 
2B

2B

Active Member
Or the customer who wants rush (for free) has to have it, has to have, etc... and once done, the product sits waiting for weeks before they show to get it.
 
F

fresh

New Member
StarSign said:
My favorite is the customer who needs it now, and as soon as it's approved and we hit the print button they call back with changes. When you tell them it's already being produced they get mad that you got it done so fast.
Click to expand...

This has actually been happening a lot to us lately. I need to go into shopvox and change the default message to say CHANGES AFTER APPROVAL WILL RESULT IN ADDITIONAL CHARGES & YOUR APPROVAL MEANS THE SIGN GOES IMMEDIATELY INTO PRODUCTION! I'm working on a project that was ordered by one person, but will be paid by another. The payer emailed me for all the documents they need to get us set up as vendor, and the orderer CLICKED APPROVED so we made the sign. A week later she emails me to say "i can't place the order because I'm not the one paying for it." Grrrr.
 
I

ikarasu

Premium Subscriber
That's when you ring the guy up and tell him there's a storage fee. We held onto one guys 4x8 for 6 months. Not a cheap one either...one of the only real estate guys who use diamond grade for their signs. All paid for already, but still.

I got tired of.always moving it around so we called them up.... Reminded him it was here...that it's been 6 months and generally we don't hold onto signs that long. Asked if he still wanted it,if not we could recycle it for him.

He decided to order two more signs since picking up just one was a waste. So it earned us more business by following up.

It's been 3 months and now we have 3 signs sitting in our shop :rolleyes:

I handle all the printing. I always get rush orders... Usually the paperwork marks rush with a must be completed by time... And our sales rep calls up to let us know it's a rush, and customer has confirmed they'll be in at xx tomorrow to pick it up. So we drop whatever were doing and get it done.... A week later I'm walking by shipping and it's still there. That happens at least a few times a month. We have a $50 rush fee. We wave it for our bigger clients, and only charge it if we're busy and have to rearrange our production or stay overtime.. but the amount of people who pay the rush fee and don't bother to pickup for a week is astounding.
 
rydods

rydods

Member for quite some time.
I have one coming in this morning who does this to me all of the time. It's my fault for not stopping it really but his daughter died in a car crash last year and these little print projects are keeping his mind off of it.
They are these small prints that he applies to bar tops and tables and mostly images that he sends me that are very low quality so I have to go searching for something better to work. He doesn't email much so he texts and calls me at all hours and tells me he'll be up by 6am and if I'm up he'll stop by and show me more images he found and want to know how soon I can get them to him.
Over the winter, I completely welcome this guy but now that we're swamped, it's such a pain unfortunately.
 
petepaz

petepaz

New Member
"all you do is hit the print button"...haha
i posted about this a week or so ago. everyone is in a hurry and they think you are sitting around waiting for their order. crazy the way things have gotten but you do what you gotta do to pay the bills. we are pretty busy right now. the shop was closed good friday but i worked and did an install, worked saturday and lettered a van on sunday because the customer needed to get it on the road (we also do their whole fleet so they get a little more attention) i will complain about it but i work when there is work because you don't know when it will be gone and in like another 50 yrs i should be able to retire...hahahaha
 
Christian @ Visual Graphx

Christian @ Visual Graphx

Active Member
iPrintStuff said:
I’ve had some “urgent” signs sitting in my shop for eight months now. Paid for too.
Click to expand...
I have had 75 urgent completely printed ROLLS sitting in my shop since November 27th 2017. Mind you they paid in full and needed them no later than December 7th 2017. Got to love international billion dollar companies.
 
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Stacey K

Stacey K

I like making signs
I get this all time, drives me nuts some days! I had a guy come in on a Friday morning expecting me to stop what I was doing to put decals on his ATV cover. I laughed at him on accident.
 
TheSnowman

TheSnowman

New Member
This happens to me LITERALLY EVERY SINGLE TIME. EVERY TIME! I told my wife on the last one last week that we did for the city that it was going to happen, and sure enough, they wanted an exclamation point removed after we had printed them soon as we got approval. They decided just to live with it.

I locked my door to "walk-ins" two years ago and haven't ever looked back. So far, the only people that "force" their way into me meeting with them at my store front are the ones that just want a quote and never, ever, place an order. It's a $5 job to them and they're outraged I have a $50 minimum.

StarSign said:
My favorite is the customer who needs it now, and as soon as it's approved and we hit the print button they call back with changes. When you tell them it's already being produced they get mad that you got it done so fast.
Click to expand...
 
Stacey K

Stacey K

I like making signs
TheSnowman said:
This happens to me LITERALLY EVERY SINGLE TIME. EVERY TIME! I told my wife on the last one last week that we did for the city that it was going to happen, and sure enough, they wanted an exclamation point removed after we had printed them soon as we got approval. They decided just to live with it.

I locked my door to "walk-ins" two years ago and haven't ever looked back. So far, the only people that "force" their way into me meeting with them at my store front are the ones that just want a quote and never, ever, place an order. It's a $5 job to them and they're outraged I have a $50 minimum.
Click to expand...

I also have a storefront and it's so darn hard to maintain hours since it's just me. I feel like I'm constantly "closed for an install" or "opening late for an estimate". It's not reasonable to assume I can hire someone just to sit here in case I need to leave. I'm not sure how to handle this, do I reduce hours? Only have it open a couple days a week? Take my hours off the door completely? I feel like I'm in jail sometimes not being able to leave to get a burger in case I miss someone. How did you go about this?
 
C

CanuckSigns

Active Member
Stacey K said:
I also have a storefront and it's so darn hard to maintain hours since it's just me. I feel like I'm constantly "closed for an install" or "opening late for an estimate". It's not reasonable to assume I can hire someone just to sit here in case I need to leave. I'm not sure how to handle this, do I reduce hours? Only have it open a couple days a week? Take my hours off the door completely? I feel like I'm in jail sometimes not being able to leave to get a burger in case I miss someone. How did you go about this?
Click to expand...

I would change your hours to "Open by appointment or by chance" I have done this for a few clients and it seems to work for them.
 
I

iPrintStuff

Prints stuff
2CT Media said:
I have had 75 urgent completely printed ROLLS sitting in my shop since November 27th 2017. Mind you they paid in full and needed them no later than December 7th 2017. Got to love international billion dollar companies.
Click to expand...

At least 75 full rolls are easy to hide/store. These signs are getting in my way ;)
 
2B

2B

Active Member
2CT Media said:
I have had 75 urgent completely printed ROLLS sitting in my shop since November 27th 2017. Mind you they paid in full and needed them no later than December 7th 2017. Got to love international billion dollar companies.
Click to expand...

how long do you store material before trashing?
can you ship or deliver, if nothing more than to free up space?
at this point is the print job even relevant?
 
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