Help PIA Customer

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Garnetta

Garnetta

CGF II, Certified Grumble Framer Level 2
Joined
May 31, 2004
Posts
225
Loc
Missouri
I know this has been discussed before, but I can't find the thread in the archives.

I have a PIA customer who can't make a decision. She's a nice lady, but I've already spent three hours with her at the design counter over two days. She brought in ready-made frames, her own purchased prints and wants them put in her existing frame. All I will get out of this is a couple of mats, a filet and an ulcer. She has spent quite a bit of money with me in the past, but it was just as difficult time-wise with her.

We'll work up the design and she'll call back all worried it's the wrong decision and comes back in. We agreed to the original design the second time around. She just called back again and wants to come back in on Tuesday. She just can't decide if she's making the right decision.

The original prints in this existing frame package have faded to blue. Now she's worried about the mat colors we've selected still matching if the new prints fade to blue! But....she won't purchase UV glass for these. FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE!!!!

What in the world can I say to this woman? How do you handle people who can't make a decision? Should I calmly explain that I need to start charging for my design time?

Ugh!!!! :icon9:
 
What in the world can I say to this woman?
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Have you thought about trying Micheal's?

I had a woman in Saturday that had bought her readymades somewhere else, bought her art somewhere else, bought cloth somewhere else and wanted me to use her cloth to cover mat or foamboard.

I really didn't even want the job. I was busy and had other irons in the fire. After 30 minutes I gave her a quote for $70 and she thought I was out of my mind.

I guess I should have cut her off sooner. It really is my fault the she wasted my time.

At this point, there is no way you can build enough into the price to cover your 3 hours already spent on this job.

You need to be polite and apologetic that your can't help her.
 
Garnetta said:
She has spent quite a bit of money with me in the past, but it was just as difficult time-wise with her.
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This to me is a very interesting part in the whole story. Do you think she will ever spent more money again? Is she buying ready made because of price issues? What did you sell her in the past and will it go back to that at some point. In that case, you might want to be more careful, unless you don't want this customer at all.

I think only you can tell what to do. You either do all you can to keep the customer because you would want to keep her, or you cut her loose because you don't want to keep her. So there are different responds to this.

You will always have PIA customers... comes with the territory. But then you always have those very nice customers that spend a lot of money without whining too much....

Good luck!;)
 
She has spent several thousand with me...

She has spent several thousand dollars with me.....and some of it was total frame jobs. She hooked up with an interior designer who would take her to market to purchase cheap frame packages before she discovered my frame shop. That has come to an end though as the interior designer has sold her business and retired.

She is worth retaining as a customer. I just need the big red "EASY" button to slap for her when she walks in the door, I guess. She told me last week her husband gets totally frustrated with her when they go out to eat because she can't decide what to order.

Grumble, grumble, grumble. : )
 
Garnetta said:
She is worth retaining as a customer. I just need the big red "EASY" button to slap for her when she walks in the door, I guess. She told me last week her husband gets totally frustrated with her when they go out to eat because she can't decide what to order.
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It basically answers your own question then. You want to keep her, so it probably means you'll have to put up with this to a certain extend.
It seems she is very aware of being a PIA person though (comment from husband). Maybe you just need to be a bit stricter with her, dose it with some humor and you'll probably keep her for life. (and build in the lost time in your next quote to her....)
 
Jerry Ervin said:
If this is a customer you want to keep, and it sounds like it is then close the sale.

Tell her what she wants to hear, and 'close the sale'.
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...or just maybe she is the kind of customer that needs to be told what she wants. Indecisive people often are looking for someone to take authority.

Something I would do is tell her that when she brings in a RM frame and you have to design around it the design process is much more difficult and the resultant product is going to be a series of compromises and ultimately more expensive. Quote your work for her commiserate with the time involved. She'll either walk or blossom into a good customer.
 
As long as you are confident in the design, just guarantee it. I do this all the time, and have only had one customer change the mat color. This "guarantee" has closed a lot of deals for me a lot quicker then just letting the customer vacillate. Also I let them take samples home if it is a "i want to match something issue". I have gained a lot of valuable customers form much more well know shops with this small bit of customer service.
 
Thousand dollar customers are hard to find.

Maybe it makes sense to let her suffer alone at the design table, checking every combination in the store.

You can excuse yourself in a subtle way by telling her your running behind and if you don't finish a particular job in the next hour another customer is going to kill you.

Doug
 
Bogframe said:
There comes a time where you have to stop asking what the customer wants and start telling them what they want. Try it, it works.
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My point exactly, Seth.
 
And once the order is placed, order the materials and start the job, before she can call back with her doubts. Or rather, tell her you've ordered the materials and started the job. I don't care if she calls you back from her car 5 minutes after leaving the store, you've placed that order for materials.
 
Like most of us, I've got a few highly indecisive customers.

One in particular often borrows mat and moulding samples to ponder after spending an hour or two looking at them here. On her last order she told me she woke up in the middle of the night thinking about the design, got up and played around with the samples for two hours!

Some framers swear by the visualization systems to help with decisions but to me those seem like they're more trouble than they're worth. The low-tech solution of loaning samples can often help as well.

She's a peach though. Often I will leave her alone at the design counter and she's happy as can be to play with the design.

Gotta love em!
 
Indecisiveness doesn't always have to do with "cant make up their mind".

If she was seriously scatterbrained before, you would have seen her as the black hole that she was, but she wasn't. If I'm reading this right, she waffled a bit but still came to the party. But with a decorators guidance.

Try a little guidance about "this will match your current colors, but this will be the right framing for the picture, and still will blend nicely with your current as well as future design tastes."

If that doesn't solve the problem, "as a friend" quietly and compassionately suggest that "this may have nothing to do with the framing, and maybe something else is going on in her life. When she takes care of that, you will still be here to help her get the framing just right."

We did that a few years ago and she finally went to the doc. Bi-Lateral mastectomy and some chemo later, she was in and decided in under 15 minutes.
Until we put her on notice that her being troubled was manifesting physically how she dealt with her day, she didn't have the courage to see the doctor.

Show this woman some compassion by scooting her out the door to take care of herself first, and she may just come back as a better customer, and a friend for life.
 
PaulSF said:
And once the order is placed, order the materials and start the job, before she can call back with her doubts. Or rather, tell her you've ordered the materials and started the job. I don't care if she calls you back from her car 5 minutes after leaving the store, you've placed that order for materials.
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I've definitely told her what the mat colors should be. Then she leaves and just keeps thinking about it.

Tomorrow I will leave her at the design table for a bit, then tell her again what the mat colors should be. Nicely but firmly. If she calls back again I will tell her the materials have already been ordered. Nicely but firmly.

I wonder how her husband can stand it? I wonder what she will do without someone to babysit her if something were to happen to her husband?
 
I had a customer who agonized over every decision. She even told me she visited several shops to get all opinions and then she would make the rounds again before she chose the best design. I told her is sounded like a full time job. I was only getting every maybe third job she brought in. One time I sent her home with samples, she told me I was the only one she was working with on this job. When she came back with the corner samples the bad was full of corners from the "Great Indoors". She wasn't even embarassed. I took her off my mailing list 4 years ago and never regretted it even though she was a spendy customer. She used to pop her gum constantly, which I don't miss either..................
 
Baer Charlton said:
Indecisiveness doesn't always have to do with "cant make up their mind".


Show this woman some compassion by scooting her out the door to take care of herself first, and she may just come back as a better customer, and a friend for life.
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WOW! Baer, I hadn't thought of that. It's possible, but the designer said she has dealt with her for many years and this customer drives her nuts, too. The designer told me she still hasn't purchased a dining room table for her new home and it's been over two years. It's simply she can't make a decision for fear it's the wrong decision.

It may be mental.

I may be mental after this. <giggle>

But I'll look at her with different eyes tomorrow after what you shared. There may be something physical going on.
 
Or mental. Usually when it's "fear of making the wrong choice", there is some very deep psychological stuff going on. 2 years...... I'm thinking several years of therapy. And that's no joke.

Sometimes you can tweak meds, sometimes not so much.
 
Emibub said:
...When she came back with the corner samples the bad was full of corners from the "Great Indoors". She wasn't even embarassed. I took her off my mailing list 4 years ago and never regretted it....
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At least you can take some satisfaction in having outlasted The Great Indoors. The one they opened here lasted about a year. I think the framing dept. was leased by BA Framer.
:cool: Rick
 
Rick Granick said:
At least you can take some satisfaction in having outlasted The Great Indoors. The one they opened here lasted about a year. I think the framing dept. was leased by BA Framer.
:cool: Rick
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Our Great Indoors is still here Rick. Frameshop has changed hands more than once though.
 
PIA Customers - Fortunately very few.

Out of ALL my customers, there are only three i absolutely dread to see. I don't seem to often (lucky me), but when i do i hope it is when it is getting close to closing time. If any of the three would come early in the morning, MY WHOLE DAY IS SHOT :smileyshot22: ! (I can't throw them out, because they are always recommending me to people they know.)

(Gas-tank: 1/2 empty or 1/2 full? Drivers: Do you drive fast, fast or half-fast?)
 
I had one a couple of weeks ago who only took a little more time than she should then when she got home phoned to say she wasn't sure whether the portrait of her son in his military uniform should have a mat as we decided. She wanted to bring her 16 yr old daughter in to help decide.
I knew this woman fairly well so I asked her how many years experience her daughter had in designing frames and told her that I had 23 years experience and not one failure yet! ;o))

She and the 'expert' daughter came in a couple of days later and viewed the designs I had worked on in the Visualisation software and the daughter agreed with me immediately that the matted one was best and said it in a way that implied her mother was an idiot.
 
Garnetta said:
I've definitely told her what the mat colors should be. Then she leaves and just keeps thinking about it.
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Please know that I'm certainly not criticizing a choice that you've made without even seeing it. But usually (and its happened here, too) when a customer can't make up their mind and just randomly picks a design to be picking one is when they get indecisive.

Whatever has been chosen already isn't the choice for this customer.

Rework it again. She wants something different than what you've done already. It's not grabbing her.

Whether its in bad taste or just in one thats totally different from what you would normally do, do it for her. She's not happy with what she's seen.

When she comes in next, introduce her to another designer who may have more compatible ideas.
 
"Oh for the love of God!, we're not discussing world peace here or how to bring the astronauts from Apollo 13 home!!"
I haven't yet said those words but have thought them many a time.
Bring it back into perspective and tell her you will help her out by making up her mind for her and that if it was yours, this is what you would do.
I think Baer has hit the nail on the head. Something is going on with her mentally and much like dealing with a small child,, you have to take the bull by the horns and tell them what they want!
 
janetj1968 said:
Rework it again. She wants something different than what you've done already. It's not grabbing her.

Whether its in bad taste or just in one thats totally different from what you would normally do, do it for her. She's not happy with what she's seen.
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She is like this on every design anyone has done for her whether it's a framing job or her interior designer's work for a room. She will like something and then worry about everything. I really don't believe it's my design. What she is doing is straining at a gnat while she swallows a camel! I don't have the mat numbers here at my home office, but she's simply worrying whether the bottom mat that shows ¼" should be a very light green (almost white) or a light cream. The prints are floral. It definitely is ridiculous.

Oh....and I'm a one-woman shop. I read people pretty well on their design tastes and I know this lady likes very little color because I've done other jobs for her. She still talks about how she loves the previous designs, too.

Oh well. :faintthud:
 
Garnetta said:
I really don't believe it's my design. :
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I don't think its so much your design either, but her taste. I'm just saying keep flipping it around until you exclaim "oh my gosh, look how beautiful the design is that YOU picked out!"

It happens.
 
janetj1968 said:
I don't think its so much your design either, but her taste. I'm just saying keep flipping it around until you exclaim "oh my gosh, look how beautiful the design is that YOU picked out!"

It happens.
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That's for sure....I've been there twice with her on this one. Hahahahaha!

She is a Mrs. Monk. I bet her underwear drawer has all the same underwear....same color, same style....no decisions to be made. <giggle>
 
Garnetta said:
That's for sure....I've been there twice with her on this one. Hahahahaha!

She is a Mrs. Monk. I bet her underwear drawer has all the same underwear....same color, same style....no decisions to be made. <giggle>
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Yeah, but she probably still can't decide.
 
We have some customers who simply struggle with every decision they face. I feel sorry for them as life is so tough for them. We just try to reassure them their decision is a good one, get money down, and hope for the best. Customers are too hard to come by now days so we need to pamper the ones we already have. (Thank God there aren't a lot of the PIA customers out there.)
 
Garnetta said:
I know this has been discussed before, but I can't find the thread in the archives.

I have a PIA customer who can't make a decision. She's a nice lady, but I've already spent three hours with her at the design counter over two days. She brought in ready-made frames, her own purchased prints and wants them put in her existing frame. All I will get out of this is a couple of mats, a filet and an ulcer. She has spent quite a bit of money with me in the past, but it was just as difficult time-wise with her.

We'll work up the design and she'll call back all worried it's the wrong decision and comes back in. We agreed to the original design the second time around. She just called back again and wants to come back in on Tuesday. She just can't decide if she's making the right decision.

The original prints in this existing frame package have faded to blue. Now she's worried about the mat colors we've selected still matching if the new prints fade to blue! But....she won't purchase UV glass for these. FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE!!!!

What in the world can I say to this woman? How do you handle people who can't make a decision? Should I calmly explain that I need to start charging for my design time?

Ugh!!!! :icon9:
Click to expand...

Time to make a house call...just to make sure everything is "perfect". She may really appreciate he extra effort. AND you'll probably end up with more jobs to do.
 
I've read all this and my first reaction is "the girl ain't right". The inability to make a decision allows her to manipulate the situation and gain control of your time. It's like the kid that misbehaves because they crave attention...good or bad.

I had one of these recently..admitted that she was unable to make a commitment. 3 one hour sessions and we got a decision that she is probably second guessing to this day.

Good news is..these folks are few and far between. I'm willing to take this <1% for the rest. Now if I could just get more of the 99%ers in the shop!
 
as long as they are paying for your shop time(& they *&^% sure should ) even if it comes to writing this down on a scrap of paper for FUTURE reference addition to the bill, what do you care how much time they absorb???????

seems to me you cannot have your cake & get to eat it also----either loose them as customers or point out that they are stealing(YES, stealing !!!) your invaluable resource===time! obviously you cannot help this person anymore then you already have(to NO avail)...I'd be very directed to point out the corner samples, the mat samples, you glass displays and inform them that I will be working on 'actual' jobs in the back room should they have anymore questions and to come fetch me if a descision is ever reached and let them play to their hearts content....this is a game people play and you've been sucked into it.

OR, refine your sales acumen to the point where you have a good desing or 2, & pull the 'presumptive' close such as "this design wont ever be any better, etc etc, and how would you wish to pay for this magnificent piece of art work today???????????" takes to angst of doing that pesky descision making totally away from someone who either CANT or WONT, establishes that the process is over and that you now wish payment(UP front). Just make sure YOU can deliver on it.
 
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