PITAs

[Bob Doyle]

Has anyone actually kicked a customer out of their shop? For good?

I have one PITA that just infuriates me, but the bastard does drop ~$5K a year.

When does the cash in outweigh the headache out?

[Ron Eggers]

Only you can decide that, Bob.

Early on, when mine was a photo shop that did some framing, I had a customer go on and on about how I just HAD to fire an employee for an alleged insult. (I believe my employee had suggested that Kodak had not made her slides go out-of-focus.) After several minutes of ranting, I told her that Greg was more valuable to me as an employee than she was as a customer.

In retrospect, I probably could have handled that better.

[Val]

What's the PITA doing that makes them such a PITA?

[JbNormandog]

Instead of giving the pita the boot, why don't you just charge them the pita (20% more) rate when they come in.

If they don't come back you got your way. If they do, you can cry into that pile of money they left behind.

[Jerry Ervin]

In 14 years I have 'fired' only one customer. He was a wholesale account and I made very little margin on the work I did for him. The profit I made was just not worth the #### I had to put up with.

My first warning should have been when the guy came in and ranted for 20 minutes on how bad his framer was and how bad the framer treated him. I guess that framer had 'fired' this guy too.

Of that 5k per year, is it normal margin work or low margin work? If it is low margin work, tell him to not let the door hit him on the way out.

[Val]

I have one like that who bad-mouthed every framer in the area, and is now mad at me, because her husband yelled at her for "paying up front", and wanted me to give half of it back until the framing is finished. (I talked her out of that!) I'm framing a christening gown for her right and finishing it today. She came in the other day and literally yelled at me while a customer was here, said she doesn't like being yelled at at home, and that was embarrassing!
I'm her last framer in town, and like you Jerry, I think the others "fired" her too. Now I know why! After me, she's out of framers around here!

[Val]

P.S. I won't "fire" her, but I do like that PITA charge! If she comes back, that is.

[Bob Doyle]

Originally posted by Val:
What's the PITA doing that makes them such a PITA? He's breathing.

OK now I'm gonna whine to you folks. Sorry!

Well, it's a long story but the jist is that he and I work out a price for a quantity of pieces then he comes in and the sizes change. He asks for things to be done tomorrow, yet comes in a week later to pick it up. If I wait a day to do his work then he's there waiting for it.

Jerry, he's a low profit margin customer. He got a price for me doing work in quantities of 100 yet drops off work in groups of 1s and 5s.

He dropped off a print on day, called me up and hour later and asked if it was done yet. In a huff he asked if it could be done in an hour, then huffed how about in 3? then said fine I'll be there in two hours. After hanging up I realized that he was playing me in front of a customer!

Needless to say he showed up 4 days later to pick up the work. He gave some lame apology and stayed clear of my shop for 5 months.

He is ordering direct from my distributors (I suspect he got their catalogs from my shop) He brings in their frames for me to put my mats into. Everytime the frame comes in they are bigger than the previous batch (he uses the outside dimensions of one order and orders based on that. ie a 24X30 is now 26 1/8 X 32 1/8 then 28 1/4 X 34 1/4).

Thanks Jerry. You're right, I had the decision already, just had to whine and see it in writing!

[Bill Henry-]

Just once. It was a first timer.

A woman came in and wanted a double mat with four openings for a ready-made frame she brought in. Because of the varying sizes of the photos, I suggested a slightly different arrangement.

She replied angrily, “Look, just do it this way!”

I tried to explain to her that the mat separating two of the photos was too narrow for me to cut it for a double mat, but she insisted.

Fine, I told her that I would be able to have it by the next afternoon.

“No, do it now! I need it for this afternoon. I took the day off from work, and I can’t come back again.”

I explained to her that four openings would require me to sit down and lay out the design.

“So, go ahead, I’ll wait. Just do it now, but hurry up, I’ve got other things to do.”

I simply returned her photos and suggested that we would both be happier if she found another framer.

[Sister]

Originally posted by Val:
She came in the other day and literally yelled at me while a customer was here, ... and that was embarrassing!
The one time that happened to me, I stayed calm because the customers were waiting for my reaction. After they left, I had a major comeapart on her, locked the doors, and spent the rest of the day doing breathing exercises. graemlins/fire.gif She came back a couple of months later and is now one of my top $$$ customers. Go figure! graemlins/shrug.gif

[JbNormandog]

I had an older woman come in and demand her money back. (it was a franchise shop that I was at then).

I asked what was wrong because I genuinely wanted to make things right. She said there were spots all over her photo and she wasn't happy.

I looked at it and saw the spots she talked about were christmas lights on an ornamental bush that the couple were standing in front of. She said they were not lights. I took the piece apart and showed her they were in the photo. Still she said I did something to it and she wanted money for the framing and money for the photo then called me a rip off artist and a hack.

I put it back together, left the store lable off the new backing handed her back the thing and told her there is nothing wrong with it.

She goes off on me about what a crappy thing I did (I didn't even have anything to do with the job AT ALL) and starts yelling about the store, me, how senior citicens are treated and everything else.

I asked her do you really want me to treat you like everyone else? Her reply YES.

I said,"good, get the **** out of here and take your christmas lighted bush with you"!

No phone call to the owner or anything, just went away.

[Jerry Ervin]

Bob

It sounds like my 'fired' customer is driving all the way to Maine to get his framing done. I would think that there is a huge number of shops between here and there.

I guess it truly is a small world.

That guy was they only 'customer' I ever lost my temper with.

[Jerry Ervin]

Originally posted by JbNormandog:
I asked her do you really want me to treat you like everyone else? Her reply YES.

I said,"good, get the **** out of here and take your Christmas lighted bush with you"!
Now that is thinking fast on your feet.

Thanks for a good laugh Jb!

[Paul N]

That was really funny JB!! LOL

[HannaFate]

PITA who refused to believe I could not put a mat in her front-loading euro frame- "I demand to speak to the owner!"

"That would be me."

"Well, you don't have any idea how to treat a customer! I am never coming back here!"

"Promise?"

[LeighAnn]

There have been a couple of customers over the last eight years who have treated me badly (bad?). I then hand them back their artwork and calmly suggest that they would be happier with different framer.

One left and never came back. The other comes back regularly and asks for me specifically (he spends some big bucks and is nice as can be now graemlins/shrug.gif :confused: )

Go figure.

Life is toooo short for that kind of nonsence. Life is for living, laughing and loving.

[Val]

I just had one leave that I wanted to tear my hair out. He brought with him his 6-YR OLD DAUGHTER, and couldn't make up his mind about anything (family portrait for his parents) without consulting Claire...."Which one do like Claire? What do you think of this one, Claire?" She kept going to the pink frames. "I LIKE THIS ONE DADDY!"

I honestly thought he might do the pink frames!!! I snuck over and turned off the air conditioner, then gave Claire some pink crayons and pink mat scraps to color on, and convinced Dad otherwise. ARGH!!

[Paul N]

Originally posted by Val:
I snuck over and turned off the air conditioner,Hmmm, the air conditioning torture!

Very sneaky Val. I like that approach... graemlins/thumbsup.gif

[Val]

graemlins/fire.gif It's only 102* here today!...heh-heh

[Paul N]

102*? But its dry heat....(don't you love it when people say that??). Heck, it is 4000 on the surface of the sun, but hey, it is dry heat!

Once I was in Scottsdale AZ on vacation and it was 112; and on the radio this weather guy was saying: Tonight, we'll get some relief as it will drop to 108.....

And I go: Yesssesss! Now that's what I call a major cool down!!

[Mike LeCompte CPF]

I'm sure we all have PITAS. To me, tho, it's what makes retail so challenging and intersting, altho I WILL draw the line at being yelled or cursed at. Then I trhow them out or call the security guard--and we have one that patrols the center. But usually they listen to me since I'm 6'2, rather well constructed and carry the weight well. In other words, they know I'll physically remove them from the premise.

And Iwould think it was the smart-mouthed kids that are the problem usually, as has been stated, it's the older generation who think they're owed something because they're retired.

O PLEEEEZE

[Rick Granick]

Bob- wow, I see your point. Fire away. Life is too short to put up with that kind of disrespect. Removing that stress from your situation will make you more effective with your real customers.
Val, it sounds like your customer needs to consult a marriage counselor on the way to her framer.
graemlins/kaffeetrinker_2.gif Rick
If you have too many PITAs I suggest purchasing some hummus and baba ganouj.

[Handy]

Boy - I can relate to ALL of these -and I'm especially bugged also by the ones who bring in the kids and keep asking thier opinion and then you have to listen to the kid endlessly making bad choices and then the parent has to discuss with them why they aren't picking those choices because they wouldn't want to injure thier ego's.

Good grief - save us all some trouble and just make up your own mind to begin with!!

Anyways, recently I had a good one.

We have an artist who comes in regularly. He's eccentric and a chauvenist. Sometimes he's very friendly to us gals, sometimes not.

Well, he always brings in old carpy frames and wants tiny mats cut, or for us to re-glue wood or some other little job. That's fine - we can do that. We always bend over backwards and try to get his stuff done "right away" even though it's piddly most of the time and we have lots of other things we could be doing.

On top of all this - we often give him miscuts or old frames that we take off of other people's stuff for free just because he comes in often and we just want them out of our way.

So a few weeks ago he actually ordered a nice frame for one of his pieces. He said nothing at all about time limits, etc.

A week later he comes in and wants it. I explained to him that it had been back ordered by our supplier and how we are hoping that it will be in our next week's order. Well, he just had himself a snooty fit about it so I told him (just to make him happy) that I would phone them right while he was there and ask about the status of the frame.

Well, I was informed that not only had it been bakcordered the first time, but NOW it had been shipped and the train that it was shipped on had been derailed and that it was going to probably take another week for THEM to get it, then a day for it to get to us!!!

Well, I told the guy this and he acted like an ***. He didn't yell or insult me but he was just a jerk and rolling his eyes and telling me in his snooty way that I should be phoning them and leaning on them because he needs it for some event this weekend! Well, thanks for telling us sooner! Then he says "well, if I dont' have it by tomorrow I want something else" so I told him "well, we CAN order something else for you - but it's going to take a week for it to get here anyways so you're not saving much time, plus - it took you a long time to decide which one was the right frame so if you pick something else you probably won't like it as much."


So he left in a huff and that was that. I was fuming - it's not like I went out of my way to take a little trip and throw a walnut on the **&@@&& track to make it crash!!!

A week later it arrived so we finished the job and called him. Well, when he came to pick it up, our Male business partner was there and it was a whole different story. He waited until neither of us girls was around and apologized "I must apologize for the way I treated the girls. I wasn't very nice to them..... etc."

so after he left the message was passed on and I just thought that the apology would have gone farther had he actually said it to me, but at least he must have felt some regret about it.

It just made me mad because we always come through for him and this one time we had a glitch and he was rude about it, but maybe he was just having a bad day, and I'm sure he will be back again.

[EllenAtHowards]

The other thing I try to remember is that although we have to tolerate the PITAs for an hour more or less, others who love them have them much more than that, and the poor b******ds have themselves 24 hours a day... How sad to have to go through the only earthly life you have so full of vitriol.

[pollyann]

In the 13yrs I have been framing I have only had to ask one person to actually leave the store.

To make a long story short he thought our prices to cut a mat were too high, demanded I do it for what he wanted, said the retail industry was a scam, and proceeded to take his frustrations out on me. I told him that I did not ask him to come to us to have a mat cut and if he was unhappy with our prices he was free to check out the many other shops in town. When he wouldn't stop I told him that he had no right to treat me like he was and that I was obvious not the right person to be helping him out and that I would call our store manager to see if there was anything else we could do for him. Before our store manager could get to the counter he had left and 3 other customers within listening range came up to me to commend me on how I handle him and said I had the patience of a saint.

Now here's the best part of it all, the old frame he had wanted to use had some old cardboard in it, and I had removed it so we could see how the frame would look with his print and a mat. I had returned his print and frame to him but still had the backing, when I went to throw it away I opened the pieces of cardboard up to find this poem in it. To this day we still have this poem framed up (triple mat's even) hanging in our frame shop. TRUE STORY
Pauline

Anyway

People are often unreasonable,
illogical and self-centered;
Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind,
People may accuse you
of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be Kind anyway.

If you are successful,
you will win some false friends and
some true enemies;
Succeed anyway. People may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building,
someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway

If you find serenity and happiness,
they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.

The good you do today,
people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have,
and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you've got anyway.

You see, in the final analysis.
it is between you and God;
It is never between you and them anyway

[Val]

Wow, Pauline, that gave me goose bumps! What a story, especially with the poem, what a message from ...Whomever!

My parents taught us to be kind, no matter what, but sometimes that's so difficult when they're in-your-face-mean. Mom said just keep your Kind Face on, breathe deeply, and think whatever you want to, and be grateful they can't read your mind!! And then wonder what happened to them in their lives that made them that way.

I have a little "prayer" that I used to say on my way in to work at M's..."Please God, keep one arm around my shoulder and one hand over my mouth." Sometimes it even worked!

[Tim Hayes.]

I just don't get the mindset of those who refer to ANY of their customers as "pain in the a**". What message does that send to friends and staff. This is retail - DON'T YOU GET THAT!

[Val]

I love 99.999% of my customers. They are what has kept me a framer for years, they are who keeps a roof over my head. Most of them are my friends.

But, once in a great while, one will come along that is so mean as to reduce me to tears, or raise my blood pressure to an unhealthy level. I'm talking MEAN! So I keep my mouth shut (I do believe that's important) and vent later, here, where we feel it's safe and others like us understand. We don't name names, we just need to release the steam so we DON'T do it later when it isn't appropriate.

So I guess the message that it sends is that we're human and we have feelings, and being retailers doesn't mean we're numb. I haven't heard anyone yet say most or even many of their customers are a pain-in-the-anything. Just an occasional miserable person who takes their misery out on us because...well, who knows. We deserve as much respect as anyone else, don't ya think?

[pollyann]

Originally posted by Val:
We deserve as much respect as anyone else, don't ya think? That's exactly right Val!
I have been working in the retail industry since I was 16yrs old. I have worked for the private sector and for several large retail chains. I have been in management in clothing, fine jewelry and custom framing and it all boils down to respect. Just because we are in retail and the customer is the life and breath of this industry does not give them the right to treat us with out respect just as it does not give us the right to not treat our customers with respect. I give each and every one of my customers the utmost attention and the best darn service I can.

Unfortunately there are some bitter, angry, rude, and down right nasty people out there. I have had to call the police to have a customer arrested for theft, I have had to ask security from the mall to remove a customer who was drunk and beligerant, and I have personally asked a customer to leave the frame shop. Were the above a PITA? yes, but if any of the above came back to me and wanted customer service from me, I would give them the best darn customer service I could until they prove me otherwise.

The message it sends to that customer is that I will not tolerate theft, bilegerancy and or the possibility of violence in our store. In no way does it mean I don't get what retail is.

I have always said and still believe that every one should have to work in the retail industry at least once in there life time. Perhaps they will understand that we are just like they are and you should treat people like you want to be treated.

And if you have ever worked in the clothing industry you would return and hang up each and every item you take into a fitting room, I know I do!

Pauline

[gemsmom]

I think people who treat people in retail poorly have never worked in retail.

One thing I (hopefully) learned by working in retail (from the age of 15) is how to treat people when I am the customer.

[Bob Carter]

Let's not be so quick to defend how we are all "superior retailers". Tim makes a valid point and if it doesn't apply to you, it doesn't mean that it is any less valid

Just as there are rude Grumblers, rude drivers, rude anything. We spend an inordinate amount of time wringing our hands over the things we have virtually no control.

When I meet with framers, count on (and quickly)discussing two common gripes: Michael's and PITA's. This wonderful opportunity on exchanging ideas on buying or promoting (and others) lost to such topics

Do you think when Bill Gates and Warren Buffet get together they talk about their lousy ... (customers, employees, competitors)

[stshof]

Wow, that story gave me goosey bumbs! :eek: :D

Thanks for sharing! graemlins/thumbsup.gif

[stshof]

Oh,oh! After I posted, I realized there was a page 2 to this thread. Guess maybe I shouldn't be up and walking around by myself... graemlins/smileyshot22.gif graemlins/shrug.gif

[MatFramer]

Just yesterday...........This couple come into the shop with a pile of framing to be done. I am my usual cheerful self and the first thing they ask me is to cut a new hole in an old mat. Now, I usually won't do this, but seeing this whole pile of framing (maybe 15 pieces), I figure I can't mess up so that bad that I can't fix it for someone spending this much. So we move on to the next piece, an original cartoon cel. I start to explain about preservation and why, they tell me this is going into a gallery and they don't care about using preservation mats or framing techniques. So, since it is going into a gallery, I suggest a black and white combination to keep it neutral for selling purposes...........Well, aren't you suppose to frame for the art? Grrrrrrr..............Next piece is out, we look at several combinations of mats, two beautiful combos, he says "It just isn't hitting me?" Of course, he couldn't tell me what would hit him (except me pretty soon).

Well, it finally came out that they usually go to HL and they select their mats and tell the framer how to cut them. They inform me they have been framing 35 years (he sure didn't look old enough) and knew what they were doing. He says, "I think we will have to put this away for now, I am just not comfortable with this." Then adds, "If I am going to do real framing, I go to such and such, I won't do it here." I apologized for not being able to give them the type of service they wanted and kindly suggested that they would be happier with HL. It was just that HL wasn't open on Sunday. I managed to get $5.00 out him for cutting a mat that I nearly miscut and he wasn't happy with it anyway. I was feeling like somedays it just doesn't pay to be nice, but I got him outa there at last.

Thank you for you who have read my vent!!! This man was so truely rude and then today, I had the customer from "Heaven". So, I guess it all works out in the end.