Pat Whatley
New Member
Had a customer who needed a trailer wrapped, some vehicle magnetics, yard signs and assorted other stuff done. All pretty standard stuff with the exception of a set of fold-over business cards. I don't do business cards anymore but due to the size of this order I told her I'd do them and gave her a good price on them as an incentive to get her to order everything at one time...which she did.
So...I take her deposit and her folder FULL of bad artwork, vectorize her pencil sketch of a dog, digitize her hand rendered type & get her to sign off on everything. Because of the time I knew it would take to get the artwork together she waits a week for me to get the layouts to her. She picks out PMS colors for everything, I explain we can't do an exact match but we can get reasonably close. She's pretty understanding about that.
So I order vinyl, order the prints, and get the artwork for the cards in-line for production....and that's when the wheels fall off.
She drops off the trailer, I get to work. About halfway through cutting the first color I realize something is off. Grab the PMS book and realize I ordered the wrong color and it's not close enough to just go with it.
Call her and she's understanding. Fellers has to ship the vinyl out of Oklahoma so it's another three days to get the vinyl in. She also decides to add a digital print to each side so I order the prints.
She brings the trailer back two days later.
For some reason the vinyl was adhering far more aggressively than usual. I mean as soon as the transfer tape hit it the tape itself bonded to the trailer. Even using Rapid Tac for the entire thing what should have been a two hour job took six hours. I finally got to the point where I could install the digital prints (came in that day) I'd ordered in...opened the tube and discovered the printer had sent me somebody elses order.
She picked up the trailer, I got the right prints in a couple of days later, drive an hour to her house to install them.
She calls me the following Monday complaining that the colors are WAY off. Create a color chart, send it to the printer, get it in and we picked new colors directly from the color chart so we'll know what we're getting. Printer tells me that's the best way to know what I'm getting.
Order reprints....the colors on the reprints are way off the colors on the color chart. Printer tells me "tough shit, I don't guarantee color matching." I remind the printer that I haven't paid him yet.
So I find a new printer. Meanwhile I get the business cards together. The company I normally use doesn't do fold over cards so I try a different company that I've used sporatically over the years. Well they've got a one week turn-around on fold over cards...no problem. That is until they send me an email a week after I'd sent in the order to tell me that I sent the artwork in RGB, they need CMYK. My fault, no problem, I send it back. A week later I get an email telling me that the artwork is set up as 3.675" wide...they require are at 3.66" I send the artwork back in, being anally careful to match every print spec they've got. Apparently everytime there's a problem the resubmitted art goes back in at the end of the line. A week later I call them to get a tracking number.....they tell me their slitter is down there will be a delay of a couple of days. Then I get the call that the slitter was no repaired correctly and 300 of my cards got cut in half. Tell them to overnight the remaining cards to me ($127.00) for Saturday delivery because the customer is getting pissed that it's been 7 weeks and her order still isn't complete.
Saturday morning I've got the vinyl ready, got new prints ready, and I'm sitting at FedEx waiting for them to open so I can pick up the cards. Fed Ex opens, no cards. Of course the printer is closed so I can't call them. Call the customer to let her know I'll be there to letter the trailer but the cards still hadn't come in. She went nuts and told me not to bother, she was so pissed off she didn't want us at her house that day.
Called the printers this morning, they told me there were problems but "some" of the cards will go out today for overnight delivery....almost a month after this order was first put in.
Called the customer to tell her the cards still weren't in...she very bluntly told me that if everything wasn't finished by 10:00 tomorrow when she leaves town just to cancel the whole thing.
Since I'm supposed to be the only person in the shop tomorrow that means to salvage this job I've got to be sitting at Fed Ex tomorrow morning hoping the cards are there waiting on me. Then I've got to take the cards and the trailer lettering, drive them 45 minutes to her office, finish the lettering and deliver the cards.
I'm sitting here right now debating on whether I'm better off just cutting my losses, canceling the card order, and forgetting finishing the trailer lettering. As pissed off as the woman is right now she's gonna nit-pick the snot out of the cards and the trailer, and I haven't even bothered to try and figure out what to charge her at this point.
Somedays I'd much rather be cutting grass for a living.
So...I take her deposit and her folder FULL of bad artwork, vectorize her pencil sketch of a dog, digitize her hand rendered type & get her to sign off on everything. Because of the time I knew it would take to get the artwork together she waits a week for me to get the layouts to her. She picks out PMS colors for everything, I explain we can't do an exact match but we can get reasonably close. She's pretty understanding about that.
So I order vinyl, order the prints, and get the artwork for the cards in-line for production....and that's when the wheels fall off.
She drops off the trailer, I get to work. About halfway through cutting the first color I realize something is off. Grab the PMS book and realize I ordered the wrong color and it's not close enough to just go with it.
Call her and she's understanding. Fellers has to ship the vinyl out of Oklahoma so it's another three days to get the vinyl in. She also decides to add a digital print to each side so I order the prints.
She brings the trailer back two days later.
For some reason the vinyl was adhering far more aggressively than usual. I mean as soon as the transfer tape hit it the tape itself bonded to the trailer. Even using Rapid Tac for the entire thing what should have been a two hour job took six hours. I finally got to the point where I could install the digital prints (came in that day) I'd ordered in...opened the tube and discovered the printer had sent me somebody elses order.
She picked up the trailer, I got the right prints in a couple of days later, drive an hour to her house to install them.
She calls me the following Monday complaining that the colors are WAY off. Create a color chart, send it to the printer, get it in and we picked new colors directly from the color chart so we'll know what we're getting. Printer tells me that's the best way to know what I'm getting.
Order reprints....the colors on the reprints are way off the colors on the color chart. Printer tells me "tough shit, I don't guarantee color matching." I remind the printer that I haven't paid him yet.
So I find a new printer. Meanwhile I get the business cards together. The company I normally use doesn't do fold over cards so I try a different company that I've used sporatically over the years. Well they've got a one week turn-around on fold over cards...no problem. That is until they send me an email a week after I'd sent in the order to tell me that I sent the artwork in RGB, they need CMYK. My fault, no problem, I send it back. A week later I get an email telling me that the artwork is set up as 3.675" wide...they require are at 3.66" I send the artwork back in, being anally careful to match every print spec they've got. Apparently everytime there's a problem the resubmitted art goes back in at the end of the line. A week later I call them to get a tracking number.....they tell me their slitter is down there will be a delay of a couple of days. Then I get the call that the slitter was no repaired correctly and 300 of my cards got cut in half. Tell them to overnight the remaining cards to me ($127.00) for Saturday delivery because the customer is getting pissed that it's been 7 weeks and her order still isn't complete.
Saturday morning I've got the vinyl ready, got new prints ready, and I'm sitting at FedEx waiting for them to open so I can pick up the cards. Fed Ex opens, no cards. Of course the printer is closed so I can't call them. Call the customer to let her know I'll be there to letter the trailer but the cards still hadn't come in. She went nuts and told me not to bother, she was so pissed off she didn't want us at her house that day.
Called the printers this morning, they told me there were problems but "some" of the cards will go out today for overnight delivery....almost a month after this order was first put in.
Called the customer to tell her the cards still weren't in...she very bluntly told me that if everything wasn't finished by 10:00 tomorrow when she leaves town just to cancel the whole thing.
Since I'm supposed to be the only person in the shop tomorrow that means to salvage this job I've got to be sitting at Fed Ex tomorrow morning hoping the cards are there waiting on me. Then I've got to take the cards and the trailer lettering, drive them 45 minutes to her office, finish the lettering and deliver the cards.
I'm sitting here right now debating on whether I'm better off just cutting my losses, canceling the card order, and forgetting finishing the trailer lettering. As pissed off as the woman is right now she's gonna nit-pick the snot out of the cards and the trailer, and I haven't even bothered to try and figure out what to charge her at this point.
Somedays I'd much rather be cutting grass for a living.
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