the laziness of customers and their expectations

[gabagoo]

I picked up a new customer recently that is in the decal business. They do however get calls for cut vinyl and for some reason, even though they have the equipment to do this, they don't want to and send it to me and they resell it.
I love doing this kind of work as files are provided and the work is dead easy and fast. They pay great and never argue price.

I now have to deal with a group of sales people who have started emailing me their requests.
First off I know when I email someone anything I usually start off with a hello or an introduction of who I am and where I work so the recipient has a good idea of what the message is about and that it is not spam.

These guys do none of that...they simply forward me a conversation that goes back and forth between them and their client and even though I can read everything... There is absolutely no conversation with me as to what they really want . I have neither the time or the patience to figure out just what it is they are asking for. In the end I just send them an email that they need to call me ASAP to discuss the project, and I bump my price to cover their arrogance...lol

Not sure where people learn to simply forward a private conversation with no real information that pertains to me. Then on top of that they email you an hour later wanting to know why you have not responded. WOW

A minor rant I suppose, I just wonder sometimes...is it me or what?

 

[J Hill Designs]

I absolutely hate that. TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT

I have to tell my boss the same thing every once in a while - I don't want to read between the lines and guess about what you and the client finally agreed on....

 

[player]

You are not up on your new world email communication skills. This is how the kids do it today.

 

[HDvinyl]

I'd be happy with the free group of salesman.

 

[Gino]

Have this all the time and it is very frustrating. I just sent a response to a guy last week saying, what is it you want me to do ?? There were so many conversations back & corth and I had nothing to do with any of them, plus, i had no idea who all the people involved were. He got all defensive and said, I was trying to keep you in the loop. Okay, what do you want ?? We haven't decided, yet. Alrightie then, keep me posted.

 

[gabagoo]

Create an editable PDF with all the info that you need (make all fields mandatory) and explain to them that unless they submit this formal RFQ, you won't be responding to their "requests".

Description....
Material......
Use.......
Size.....
Quantity.....
Required date........

If they're too lazy to describe what they need I'd tell them to go somewhere else.

edited to add: If you do get the relationship going, I suggest using something like www.smartsheet.com to keep track of pending quotes, quoted jobs, orders in production...etc. We use it with a current customer that usually has 5-10 projects going with us at all times and it really does a nice job of keeping everyone in the loop. (without long pointless email trails)

I'm not killing the golden goose just yet..... you know they will never fill it out and if they do it would be wrong lol

 

[BannerStandDeals]

I'm not killing the golden goose just yet..... you know they will never fill it out and if they do it would be wrong lol

I would maybe email them back and CC the owner with the information that is needed for you to quote projects. The lack of info is probably because the sales people are new and just don't know how to bundle the info needed to send you with any type of clarity. In a way, you are needing to train your customers sales reps.

 

[reQ]

Haha, get it all the time, specially with wholesale customers for screen printing, kinda used to it now lol

 

[CanuckSigns]

We just had a client order some decals for their cottage owners association, they send me the entire email chain between the members (all 50 emails) for some reason, even though there was no information in any of these emails for me, mostly just gossip. One of the comments made me laugh though, someone wrote "the price doesn't matter we have lots of money in the account to cover this"

Why would you include that in the email you are sending?!?!

 

[reQ]

We just had a client order some decals for their cottage owners association, they send me the entire email chain between the members (all 50 emails) for some reason, even though there was no information in any of these emails for me, mostly just gossip. One of the comments made me laugh though, someone wrote "the price doesn't matter we have lots of money in the account to cover this"

Why would you include that in the email you are sending?!?!

chaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarge!

 

[BannerStandDeals]

We just had a client order some decals for their cottage owners association, they send me the entire email chain between the members (all 50 emails) for some reason, even though there was no information in any of these emails for me, mostly just gossip. One of the comments made me laugh though, someone wrote "the price doesn't matter we have lots of money in the account to cover this"

Why would you include that in the email you are sending?!?!

Ha ha! Talk about showing your cards!

 

[JMPrinting]

I can't stand when customers act like you don't know the business you're in and question the way you do things. I had one of those this week...I don't think she will be back. She was trying to explain what she wanted while I was explains that I can't do that and what her options were. Just like the people who bring me a picture off the internet and want shirts or something of it the next day.

I had a guy bring in a sketch of what he wanted, by sketch he cut pieces and logos out of a magazine and I told him I can make something simalar but will be $65 an hour and I'll need a few days to work it up and $100 upfront. So he tells me "I need this printed and applied to the front of my RV in the next 2 days. Don't you have a program you can just scan what I gave you and it automatically makes the logo for you!?" I just shook my head and laughed

 

[reQ]

Don't you have a program you can just scan what I gave you and it automatically makes the logo for you!?" I just shook my head and laughed

Sure, i am using it every day, makes me loads of cash.

 

[Zac]

I can't stand when customers act like you don't know the business you're in and question the way you do things. I had one of those this week...I don't think she will be back. She was trying to explain what she wanted while I was explains that I can't do that and what her options were. Just like the people who bring me a picture off the internet and want shirts or something of it the next day.

I was at a web design firm the last 2 days installing wall wraps and the contact there was apparently the 'Creative Director'. His job was to make sure the walls looked good and was constantly hanging pictures of their websites, I'm not sure he did anything else. The worst part was him telling me ways other companies he's used hung the wall wraps and blah blah. Just a rant on customers being over your shoulder and acting like you don't know how to do your job even though they're paying you to do it.

The other part of that job was every designer/programmer/sales lady who walked by every 2 seconds saying how "awesome" of a job I was doing. I can tell they've had this word drilled into their head in meetings. I literally installed the word synergy on the wall in their conference room. They are a design company fronting for data mining.