Who wouldn't you mind refusing business to?

Create a Post
A

artisteric

CGF, Certified Grumble Framer
Joined
Jul 20, 2005
Posts
170
Loc
Michigan
I was just wondering if there is anyone or any type of person you wouldn't mind refusing business to. Or wouldn't mind them not wanting your service for whatever reason

Or are you just in it for the money and put on a happy face when degraded by a potential customer?

As an example, I've had a speech speech impediment my whole life. I'd be okay with losing business from people who look down on me because of it. Maybe the customer interaction can make them feel uncomfortable or what not. If they choose to go to the next frame shop because of this. It wouldn't bother me a bit. I wouldn't want to sell my services to this type of person.

What are your thoughts on this?
 
I'm a pet lover and over the past 17 years I've had my dog and 3 cats at my shop. For the most part, people like animals. But I have two ladies who hate animals and are pretty vocal about it when they come in. I can understand some people have allergies but this isn't the case. They hate animals, period. If they never came back again, it would be fine with me.
smileyshot22.gif
smileyshot22.gif
 
Those few people who are so picky about everything that nothing is ever good enough for them.
1/1000000 of an inch over cut and they want the mats recut, etc.
 
I have had a few people I didn't care to deal with and most of the time I wait till they leave and THEN tell them what I think
shutup.gif
That way I get it out of my system without offending them. There was only one person I told not to come back cause they were way out of line to the point that jail was looking real good just to have the option to pick them up and throw them out the window. Fortunatly for me (and them) it didn't come to that. I just blow most things off these days. One thing I've found by being in business all these years is people will be people and their all different. Just gotta deal with them.
icon45.gif
(and take their money)
Rock
 
I had a couple in the other day and apparently they BOTH got up on the wrong side of the bed. They were arguing from the minute they set their photo down on the counter. Then they started yelling the "f" bomb at each other. No one else was in the store, had there been, I would have asked the "lovebirds" to leave.
 
I work with an artist who is a real people user! Pisses me off just seeing him walk down the walkway!
Once he pays off his bill here, I'd like to cut him off.
 
Originally posted by stshof:
I'm a pet lover and over the past 17 years I've had my dog and 3 cats at my shop. For the most part, people like animals. But I have two ladies who hate animals and are pretty vocal about it when they come in. I can understand some people have allergies but this isn't the case. They hate animals, period. If they never came back again, it would be fine with me.
smileyshot22.gif
smileyshot22.gif
Click to expand...
Anybody who hates animals is not only unwelcome in my business, but also most unwelcome in my life!
 
I suppose this is all just a way to blow off steam about people who bug us but yikes, I can't imagine wanting to refuse biz to anybody. We all have difficult people but, I just find a way around their difficulty. When I worked in the BB's I didn't put too much importance on who was a customer and who wasn't. Now that I have my own business they are my customers and I don't want to send any of them away. I guess sometimes I view these threads as people considering the customers as the enemy. I just don't feel that way. They are few and far between and I am happy to have any of them come through my door, even if I don't like them.

Plus, I know we have discussed animals in the workplace before and as much as I love animals, and you all know that I do, I see no purpose for them in a frameshop. Three cats and a dog gives me the heebee jeebies as a business owner, especially considering we take in peoples belongings. I mean no offense, but it just seems like it would make your business difficult to deal with. I don't want any roadblocks between me and my customers. Maybe a big ol dog laying off to the side somewhere for ambience.........
 
I've had to fire a few customers over the years.
It was never for any particular reason. Sometimes they were just plain too difficult to please all the way to outright abusive.
 
My main issue wrt cats and dogs in the frame shop is the hair and dust they generate. Seems to me that keeping "stuff" off the work product is difficult enough without adding cat and dog hairs, dander, etc. to the mix.
 
I didn't think was all that much of a bad guy. Paul, I'm sure we would make good friends anyway.

I think animals belong two places, outside or on a dinner plate.

There is one freak that isn't allowed back here but I'm trying to forget that incident ever happened.
 
Originally posted by Emibub:
Three cats and a dog gives me the heebee jeebies as a business owner, especially considering we take in peoples belongings. I mean no offense, but it just seems like it would make your business difficult to deal with. I don't want any roadblocks between me and my customers. Maybe a big ol dog laying off to the side somewhere for ambience.........
Click to expand...
I said 3 cats and a dog over a 17 year period. This is a frame shop and gallery - not an animal shelter!
faintthud.gif
My dog, Sadie, a dachshund/rat terrier mix has been my helper for the last 10 years!
thumbsup.gif
(The cats were before she came into my life!)
 
I wouldn’t mind refusing to frame cross stitch that has four pounds of loose floss on the reverse and that has been used for a towel on a wet, dirty cat.

… not that I’ve got anything against cats, y’unerstand!
 
I try to work with everyone who comes in but there is a point where I just don't need the abuse nor should I have to take the abuse just to earn a living. Over 12 or so years, I have had to ask a couple of people to leave and never come back with one who I had to stand right in his face and back him out the door. What an idiot!! I can't imagine why someone would go into a store and act borderline insane and then expect to have their work done and be upset when I tell them to leave.

It's my place and I seriously don't need them to succeed. Not having a couple of nut cases in my store will not break the bank.

And, Kathy... no the customers aren't the enemy, but then again neither are we "punching bags" for the insane.

They will take advantage of you only as long as you allow them.
 
Yes Framah, I totally agree with you. I haven't had a customer I don't like or would call "an Enemy" as Kathy put it. But I know there are those people out there and it's just a matter of time before one comes my way.
 
Everyone I've ever thrown out has come back. I must not be very intimidating. Well, except for the realtor who came in demaning to buy gift certificates "on sale" and started screaming when I refused. If I would have known she was a realtor wanting to give them to new home owners I would have been okay with it, but she chose to withhold that info until she called my other store to try and get me fired, ha!

Artists who keep asking to put artwork on the walls on consignment then, when I relent, tell me I can keep the artwork in lieu of paying their bill can go elsewhere. As a matter of fact, that's the reason I lost a customer a few months ago.
 
whaddya you guys do about dog/cat hair in the projects? One of my competitors keeps parrots in the store and they fly AROUND in the store. Ya gotta know some customes see that and leave.

O forgot to add: we won't throw out ANYONE, including the guy a coupla years ago that wanted his grandfathers KuKluxKlan certfications framed complete with his pictures of the old guy in his sheets burning crosses. Frankly, my dear I don't give a .....O someone already said that.

To me, it was all history and treated as such.
 
Well, yeah, I don't care what they frame objectwise. I even framed the placenta stain. Unforunately, I've been pushed to the point of pointing at the door and yelling "Get the **** out of my store" 3 times in the past 15 years. A personal fault, yeah, but it worked. The employees would have been freaked if it wasn't totally understandable. And if you're saying "It can never be understandable" well, ya didn't get these gems.
 
I've told this story before, but not in the past 24 hours.

When Dogzilla was a shop dog, he spent his days in the doorway of the workshop, where he could watch the front door and anyone who was interested could go back and visit with him. He was trained to stay out of the retail area and could not be persuaded to enter it.

Man, he was a GOOD dog!

One day, a woman came in and was browsing through the print bin when she noticed the large dog watching her from ten feet away. She became quite agitated and I assured her that the dog was not going to get up from that spot to bother her.

She told me about a really bad dog experience when she was a kid and concluded her story by saying, "And don't try to tell me your dog won't bite, 'cause I won't believe you!"

I told her that any dog will bite if provoked, but I didn't believe she planned to provoke him and that there was far more likelihood that I would bite her myself.

She stepped back a few more feet from me and left rather hastily.

I wasn't trying to insult her or scare her - just make a point.

The only customer I ever really fired was a woman who went on and on about how I should fire a particular employee for making a (fixable) mistake on a photofinishing order. I finally told her that HE was more valuable to me as an employee than SHE was as a customer.

In retrospect, that sounds a bit harsh.

There were a few thousand people that I didn't notify when I moved my shop into a home-based business.
 
WE've thrown one guy out in 10 years. He was very rude and having himself a fit which was totally uncalled for.

I didn't get much of a chance to do anything before my business partner came out and defended my virtue to the point of throwing him out!

It felt awful after and we still feel bad about it.

I also get annoyed by couples that argue. If i can I just say "would you two like some time alone to talk this over? I can leave if you like"

THen there are the people who come in with their own measuring tape and measure it down to the smallest unit they can find....

there are a lot of people who annoy me - but I will serve them because our business is probably 20% annoying people.

HAndy
 
I can think of a couple of times I would have thrown a customer out, had I been there.

I had a black employee and a black customer both given a hard time by white customers. Different incidents, years apart, and they were given a hard time only because they were black. Makes me very angry.

I actually did throw out were those people who came in selling stuff, ignoring the "no soliciting" sign. I had a few who actually interrupted me at the sales counter. VERY stupid thing to do.
 
I've only thrown one person out in my 39 years, and he was an obnoxious male chavanist pig with a very bad toupe and he knows who he is and to this day, I'm sure he is proud that it took me 4 runs at it to get him to finally stop coming back in.

The only customer that I tried to cut off, was an obnoxious shrewish armenian woman who would pound and pound untill she got enough % off.

Finally I quoted her three times retail thinking that it would be so high that she would get made and storm out.....

Not so much...

"Well," she sighed "you finally understand how this haggling works" she smiled real big.

She still ended up paying double retail, and she didn't care.... she got 30% off. Then she started bringing me baklava....fresh. Oy!
faintthud.gif
 
MMMMMM.... Fresh Baklava!!!
thumbsup.gif
thumbsup.gif
I remember a girl I was going with in College who was Greek and her Grandmother couldn't speak any English but, MAN, could she make Baklava!!

Shoulda married her!!

Yes, maybe even the Grandmother!!
 
I'm so glad to see that the general feel here is that MOST of you fellow framers have some level of Dignity and won't let yourselves get pushed around. I think once you open that door you're in for a flood of the degenerate.
 
I have a customer who is VERY indecisive. When he has something to frame, he comes in with the art and spends about an hour looking at options, leaves, comes back in a couple days, looks again, goes away. It may take 5 or 6 trips but eventually, he leaves the art for framing. When he picks it up, he studies it closely, says it's fine, then he sighs and goes away until he finds another piece of art. I understand him after all these years but to be honest, I dread it when I see him coming in the door! :D
 
Originally posted by artisteric:
I think once you open that door you're in for a flood of the degenerate.
Click to expand...
Some might think that degenerates get their framing done at Hanna's, but those are just open minded and spirited people....

If you are using the term degenerate in its true meaning; then I truly don't think they get framing done. So you would be safe.

but to paraphrase JRB's favorite saying, "the other guy is the degenerate". :D
 
I've thrown out shoplifters many times.

Once, a long time ago, as a teenager, I was waiting on a woman who complained that we had two different prices on a product. I explained that the last shipment had a price increase and we didn't raise the stock already on hand and suggested she buy the lower priced item as it was identical. She continued to make a scene and swore she would never come back. My dad, overhearing everything, asked her to make that a promise and said "...don't let the door hit you in the *&% on your way out!".

Come to think of it...I remember this same woman coming in one time and she was shopping for drawing pads. One pad had a figure drawing class illustration on the front cover with a female nude model at the head of the class. She exclaimed that she thought the illustration "disgusting". Being a young man not far past puberty I was speechless and didn't know what to say. She then exclaimed that she "had a much better body than that!". :eek:

My mom always said, "Everybody's crazy but me and thee and sometimes I worry about thee."

The world is made up of many varieties of crazies...some people, I'm sure, even think I'm one of them! I'm one up on them though...I know I'm crazy, just the good kind of crazy. ;)

Dave Makielski
 
Just the other day ....... I am giving suggestions to a new customer about his work of "art". He basicly told me I didn't know what I was talking about because he had talked to the artist about how to frame this piece. I knew it was a lost case. He had me pulling over 30 samples. He told me how difficult he was to work with. After one particular ugly sample, I told him, "I was am glad you didn't like that one because it was ugly on this particular piece, but I didn't want to say that after you just told me how difficult you are to with." He really was very rude from the git go.
 
In twenty years I’ve only fired two customers. The last one (which I described in a post a few months ago) because she ruined another customers art by dropping her handbag on a glazed poster.

The first one was obnoxious from the get-go. She had a large poster (maybe 39 x 25) and grabbed a 1/2” fruitwood sample from the wall. I tried to tell her that it would not be strong enough to hold the weight of the glass. I offered a similar finish with a wider profile. After she looked at it with some disdain, she said, “I want one that’s lighter.”

I placed a one inch natural oak corner on her art. She picked it up and flicked it across the counter, “I said, ‘lighter’! <u> LIGHTER </U> means … NOT … SO … HEAVY!”

If I suffered from hypertension, I probably would have stroked out at this point. As calmly as I could manage through a clenched jaw, I replied, “Lighter also means not so dark.”

With as much dignity as I could muster, I continued, “Madam [with an inflection that bordered on a sneer], I have been as helpful as I know how, but you have been rude ever since you came in.”

“I have NOT!”

“Yes, you have! I think we’d both be happier if you went somewhere else.”

With that she stormed out in a huff.

I felt both upset and elated at the same time.
 
Bill- It gives me the willies (no pun intended) just reading your description of that scenario. Hope you had a nice relaxing beverage of your choice when you got home that day. Don't take it personally- I'm sure she treats everyone that way.
kaffeetrinker_2.gif
Rick
 
Another Jackism (dad):

"This business would be a helluva lot of fun if it wasn't for the customers!".

You had to understand and appreciate his humor.

icon21.gif


Dave Makielski
 
Once a lady brought in a large oil for cleaning. It looked like it was a night harbor scene. It cleaned up beautifully...so much so that a buoy appeared in the water which was indistinguishable before the cleaning and re-varnishing made it bright as day.

When the customer came in to pick it up she pointed at the buoy and said "what's that?". My dad replied "Oh, the boys in back were having a slow day and decided the painting would look nice with a buoy in the water, so...they painted it in."

She then shrieked :eek: "My husband is an attorney and we're going to sue you...you'll hear from him!"

Needless to say, we did hear from him with an apology for his wife's behavior.

Jack, ya had to love his sense of humor even if his timing was sometimes not the best.

Dave Makielski
 
Originally posted by Steven6095:
Those few people who are so picky about everything that nothing is ever good enough for them.
1/1000000 of an inch over cut and they want the mats recut, etc.
Click to expand...
I had a couple of Martha Stewart's lackeys come into the shop I was working in a few years back. They had some leaf prints that they wanted single matted. I was told that if la Stewart liked my work, there would be "lots more". Well, I cut 15 of these things and they picked them up. A week later, the lackeys came back and informed me that "Martha saw that there was a 1/32 overcut on some of the mats, and that simply won't do."
Who would I refuse, you ask? I surely won't do Martha Stewart again!
smileyshot22.gif
 
I've never thrown anybody out; and the only time I've seen it done was a previous boss who had a difficult customer who accused him of trying to cheat her. With him being Jewish, he took great offense at that (I don't think she knew, at least I hoped so) and he pretty much lost it and yelled at her to take her picture and get out.

I have great patience with people (to the point where customers commended me for it), but I don't suffer fools gladly. I cut off conversations very short after some customers who refused my explanations as to the expense we undertake in the framing business that would explain the price of framing. I've had a few people who would argue that it was "just four sticks of wood and some paper" and said they could do it themselves for cheaper than the $50 for an 8x10 I was quoting them. I send them on their way very quickly because it's not worth continuing if they didn't want the free education. I always wondered if they go to grocery stores and argue with the produce staff that they could grow their own vegetables cheaper than that.
 
I'd never do Martha Stewart either... :eek:


Sorry about that...

Dave Makielski
 
Well I just had to refuse to do work for this one gentleman (using the term loosely). He was not only rude to me, but to one of my good clients. Long story short I told him he should probably find another frame shop to do his work, he tried to tell me of all the work he needs to have done. I said then he shouldn't have a problem finding some other frame shop to help him. Life is too short to put up with clients like that. I feel bad for the framer that ends up with him.
 
I once had a customer who questioned my bill. I went over it item by item explaining each charge. When I came to the total I was $l.00 off. She immediately wanted to know what that one dollar charge was for. I very calmly stated that that was the charge for my labor. She never came back after that.
 
Create a Post
Back
Top