Question upset customer making me anxious...

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VictorianFramer

VictorianFramer

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Joined
Apr 7, 2012
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26
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Chicago
Hello everyone. I've been sitting on an issue for the past few days and hope to get your advice. I had a customer come in with four paintings on canvas boards to be framed. He said he wanted to do a white "border" around them and then a frame. I showed him a wide Larson frame and a linen liner which he liked, but when I priced it up it was over $700 (they were smaller pieces, about 8x8).

He was shocked by the price so I told him that it is also common to frame canvases without a liner and just have a frame. We looked at them without the liner and he liked it (he liked the price too).

Took the order, made the frames, cut to the day after he picked them up and he is calling asking where the liner is. This is after he had seen them at pick up! I tried to remind him of our conversation at the time of sale about price, but he got very upset that I was bringing up money. I told him that he could bring them back in and we could maybe try to do something with a fillet to dress up the frames, in my mind thinking that worst case scenario would be me taking the paintings out and taking back the frames/refund. However, he didn't even let me get to the point of expounding on a resolution before he said he'd have to take them somewhere else to get them re-done and hanging up on me.

Now I feel all anxious that there's a customer this unhappy with us out there, I'm also thinking about ways to be clearer at the time of sale (although this is the first time a customer has forgotten everything about the order process). Should I do anything further? Or just chalk it up to one confused customer and be glad I didn't have to refund anything?
 
Of course you have a written work order that was signed by the customer to perform the work that specifies exactly what is being done? Right?

If you do, then there is no reason for the customer to be upset. If you don't, then perhaps you need to institute written work orders that the customer signs.
 
This is when my Wizard Vizualization more than pays for its self...
I do 95% of my jobs with it now. I may not use it to design everytime. but once I we pick out the moulding & mats i hit with the Camera and it only takes about 1 minute since all the info is in there. Then when I print it out on the POs it gives the customer a thumb nail of what it looks like on there sales order.

Some times there is just no solution just use it as a learning situation mauch as you are doing now..
 
Sounds like you did what you could to rectify the situation, though it does seem that the customer is the one that created it. If they say no to your saying yes, I really don't see where you can hold yourself to blame. Perhaps you are better off without a customer as flighty as this one appears to be.
 
I have a written work order that he has a copy of (unless he threw it out). We are still doing handwritten invoices, but visualize sounds like it would be amazing... one day. We don't have the customer sign the order, however that is now sounding like a good idea in the future. I do feel that the mistake was his, and perhaps he was quick to hang up because he remembered our prior conversation at that point, but I do like to try and make situations like this into something good. In the past when there's been a customer who is unhappy with their order I've done everything I could to rectify it. It does me no good to have unhappy customers out there, and I'd rather eat the cost of a redo rather than the cost of a bad review online that perhaps hundreds could see. I just hate that I didn't get a chance to fix this one, I think it would be a little strange to now, a week later, call to inquire about it. Maybe by this point he's got used to them?
 
Customer probably had buyer's remorse. Wanted the liner for free.

I gotta ask, it sounds like you don't give a price quote at the time of the designing? If you do then how could he have been surprised by the cost? Did he think the individual cost of $175 was for all?

If you don't do a quote at the time of drop off then you can expect more customer to flip out when they come in to pick up.
 
Yeah, forget it.

We had a similar (though less costly) situation last week. Customer has us per her art in her frame. We didn't note if there was any customer glass on it (which we normally do), nor did we sell her any for it. Customer picked up the work and took it home. Customer the called us back upset saying she paid for non-glare glass and we put regular glass on it, and that we must be cheating her. We asked her to bring it back in, because noone in my shop thinks there is any glass on it at all. If there is actually glass on it, we didn't sell it to her, nor did she pay us for any. *shrug* If she does come in, she's welcome to look at our work order charges, line by line, and what she paid.
 
Bob it was designed and when the price was disclosed right there the customer wanted to pay less. The OP removed the liner from the design and price and it became an acceptable price point. Now the customer is rethinking the decision to go with the less expensive design.
 
I do give a price at the beginning. He paid a (small) deposit. He knew what the price was going to be. He came to pick them up, saw the frames, paid with a check and left, seemingly fine. The next day he called and asked about the liner. I'm not sure if he was trying to say that he thought that the price included the liner or not, but the invoice he left with when placing the order only has the frame on it, and the whole conversation we had at the design stage was about them being much less without liners and him agreeing to the order based on that fact. It's an odd one.
 
If the frame remained the same and only the price changed there was no confusion he was choosing to eliminate the liner to reduce the cost.
 
Ah, I misread the OP. Thought that you had made the frames, then chopped it down to the new specs (and were eating the cost of the job at this point)

I read faster than I can comprehend sometimes,,,,
 
This happened to me once.... it was about a triple mat....... the customer opted to just do a single mat... after coming back a day later ....

She was upset when she called and had had the picture for a week.....
after telling her I would fix it...... she would bring it in with her hubby.....
He lingered a little on his way out he said that his wife had deminitia (sp?) and he would pay whatever difference.

Maybe that happened with your customer? maybe he's embarassed now!?
I wouldnt sweat it! Good Luck~
 
Sounds like Alzheimer's.

I'm not being glib here,...... there are people out there (some not so old) that will totaly forget a conservation and agreement. Same disease causes a person to react with a mini temper tantrum.

Most have good days and bad days. Maybe try calling and sooth over hoping for a good day.

Good Luck
Doug
 
You can't save or control the world....

I feel like you most of the time and would never want a stupid misunderstanding to cost me jobs in the future by way of a negative post...what I might be compelled to do would be to send him a copy of the work order to remind him that the liner was not included when it was finalized and maybe send him a token gift certificate in a sincere effort not to lose his future business. But please don't sweat it...:o
 
Thanks for the advice everyone. I think I'm just going to drop it and hope nothing bad comes of it. You can't please everyone. Luckily I've had a few pick ups today that went the opposite way, very pleased customers. That always brightens the mood!
 
The pricing for framing very small pieces can seem expensive because there is a footage minimum for moulding, plus the labor and time involved is about the same as for medium and moderately larger framing. So small pieces don't "seem" like a very good value comparatively. It is what it is, but it's one of the things that makes our job a little more challenging sometimes.

That said, you did what the order called for and did it well. It doesn't sound like the customer is in a mood to sort out his own misconceptions, so move on, relax, and enjoy your weekend.
:kaffeetrinker_2: Rick
 
When you have a customer that blows up, and says they are going to take their business to someone else, just remember:

Everyone who knows this person, also knows their temper. They will know that every complaint coming out of their mouth must have another story, and they most likely won't believe that you did anything wrong.

We once had a customer blow up in our store, the woman was yelling at the top of her lungs, and saying that we were racest, and liers. Two days later, a woman we had never seen before came into our store, and introduced herself as the first woman's sister. She appologised to us, and told us that her sister's husband was abusive, and had just put their son in the hospital. She was having a bad day, and took it out on us. She was afraid that she would never come to our store again. (We were the largest Arts and Crafts store in Maryland at the time. No chain stores yet.) A few weeks later, the sister brought the first lady back in to our store... she became one of our best customers.

Then again, sometimes you need to fire a customer. Some people just like to complain.
 
Susan May said:
Everyone who knows this person, also knows their temper. They will know that every complaint coming out of their mouth must have another story, and they most likely won't believe that you did anything wrong.
Click to expand...

That's an excellent point, Sue, and one we would all benefit from remembering since we all get a situation like this every now and then. (Hopefully, few and far between.)
:kaffeetrinker_2: Rick
 
I agree about just letting it go, and hope for the best. Sometimes I think that if we give customers an incentive to revisit us at a later time, it may be sending the wrong message that we were in the wrong (when we weren't). I think the OP handled it properly.
 
Hi, Victoria. A belated welcome to the Grumble! :smiley:

It's not a bad thing that this bothers you, because it shows you have
a decent heart. I've been the same way and have had to learn when
I really do need to fix a problem or when it's fine and the other person
is just being difficult.

The Alzheimer's thing occurred to me, too. We had a guy once who
brought his framed art back in and told me it was driving him crazy
being off so much. I measured and at the very most, it was 1/64"
off in one place. He said he'd sit at home looking at it and it just
drove him batty that it wasn't 'right'. I finally told him that we really
did want to keep him happy, but that there was a range of acceptability
in this sort of work and a sixty fourth of an inch was well within that.
This answer seemed to satisfy him and off he went. He died a few
years later of Alzheimers, and it lent some clarity to that situation.

What Susan said is spot on. I once had a woman, apropo of nothing,
screech (for reals) that if a frame (which she hadn't even ordered yet)
didn't match, she would make me eat it. Her exact words. Another man
once came in for something and raged at me that if I hadn't done what
he asked for (provide him a phone number), he'd make sure I never
worked in this town again. It left me shaky and near tears, but I knew
that the problem was with him. Neither of them had dementia, they
were just being awful, but it was good practice for me to learn when
to stick by my guns. LOL...and I seem to still have my job.

I'll hush up now, but thanks for posting about this. From the sounds
of it, you communicated well and he just waffled after the fact. That
doesn't mean you have to change things pro bono.
 
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