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Iron Duck Designs

Iron Duck Designs

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Worst Customer I have ever had...

So had a referral customer from one of our best commercial customers. This referral came in to our shop wanting a partial wrap for 2 trucks, budget at about $2500...he pretty much restricted me to his idea, which was to make his website basically his wrap. Told him to get started we would need a deposit. So he sent $200 to us, less than I generally get, but I figured he is a referral. So, I designed 2 different layouts on his trucks. Took about a hour, emailed them out. He looks at them, wants to change the layout. Asks if he can see a different layout. Ok, 2 more layouts designed up and sent out. He says he is happy with one of them and asks to come into meet up so he can iron out some ideas. We meet with him for a hour and he leaves with an approved proof that he is happy with. (I stayed late to meet with him as well 8 pm)

He calls the next morning. He and his wife don't like it. So now, he still isn't happy with the layout. I make some suggestions, and do 2 more layouts. Still not happy. At this stage we call him and tell him the reason he isn't falling in love with this wrap is because it is not a good idea to start with. He needs to trust us to be the professionals and let us design a wrap based on his ideas but better, and he needs to not micro manage. We also inform him at this stage that he is burning through his $200 deposit and only has about 45 mins of art time left. He says why is his art time almost up? Well because we have designed the same concept for you 8 different ways, that takes time. He doesn't seem happy, nor does he seem to understand...so we try to explain that time is money. He says fine whatever water under the bridge. We tell him we'd be happy to show him concepts for the next year, but we will charge him for it.

So to prove that he can have a great wrap if he'd just stop micro managing me, I decided to take his ideas and put them into a full wrap my way to show him how much better I can make it. I design up a wrap on my own time to show him. He says he loves it. We offer him this wrap concept for his budget of $2500 because it is such a good looking wrap for one of his trucks and offer to do a simple one color fleet lettering job on the other truck. (this wrap that I designed looks awesome)

Now he says he doesn't think he can afford a wrap anymore anyway (grrr) so will I design him up some fleet graphics, lettering for his trucks. Yep, he'd says he would like to stay under the $700 range. No problem, I show him 2 layouts and he picks one. This is Saturday. He calls on Monday yelling at me that I should have stayed later to finish his proofs and sometimes a business owner needs to stay late to finish taking care of customers. This guy is a lawn mower...seasonal worker...and he is telling me about working hours....omg....

Monday: He now also wants an update of his logo. So I show him 5 different upgrades to his logo, he doesn't like any of them so after a couple wasted hours decides he is just gonna keep the logo the same. At this stage I am so tired of working with him I go over to talk to the customer who referred him to me. I tell him what has gone on thus far. My customer cannot believe this guy and tells me I have his permission to drop him. So I think about it, and out of principle decide to finish the job.

I do a final layout on the fleet truck and he approves it. We quote him the price. And it is a go. It has been 3 weeks basically since he first came in our shop. So we bring him in and install the fleet lettering. I give him a invoice and he pays asks when he can get the second truck in. So next week comes, and we start removing the old graphics. Old graphics suck to take off, horrible horrible, we end up taking 2 hours to remove all the adhesive and buff the sides of the truck before we install his fleet lettering.

So we get done, give him a call. He comes to pick it up. Show him his invoice, and he says okay why doesn't this price show the $200 I already paid? I said because you came in originally to get a wrap, I spent hours designing different layouts and different concepts for you both on the wrap and logo update, he spent his $200 paying me to design a wrap he ended up not wanting. He says, but deposits are deposits toward an eventual bill. He says it isn't fair that $200 just went to art. So he gets upset, I try in vain to explain that art time isn't free. That we told him early on that he was using his art time up and had almost burnt through his $200 by asking to see different layouts. So then he says that the customer that referred him only paid so much for their fleet lettering, why is his higher. I tell him that he has almost twice the vinyl that they do. He doesn't agree. At this stage, I am done with him. He isn't even listening to us at all. Then he tells me that his lettering is too much on his trucks and the amount we charged him is too much for what he got yadda yadda yadda.

It is late at this stage and he says we are trying to screw him, which I cannot believe because we busted our asses for this guy, and did the extra removal of the old graphics for free. So we tell him he can either pay his bill or we will pull his truck back in and when he can afford it he can come get it. He writes me a check says that we should have explained things to him better (I talked to him on 3 different occassions about art time and design fees) and he is not happy blah blah blah.

Worst customer ever. Horrible. This experience has made me change policy about our designing. I just got done with a 3 page contract regarding wrap designs, etc to have our future customers sign. I have never had any issues with anyone telling me that designing should be free. 6 years doing this biz and I had 4 years in another similar biz and never ever had a customer assume I was screwing them because I charged them for design time. Wow. Just Wow. I hate having to change policies because one guy was an idiot but I guess I really had no idea that someone could argue that design time shouldn't be charge.

Did I win TD? yay!

that was an epic tale...sorry I tried to condense it, but to fully understand my frustration couldn't leave much out...lol

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tint123

tint123

Posted
Posted

Have the personwho referred this guy to get ahold of him just to touch base on his experience r wth you.

In the future spell it all out in writing first, that your $200 buys X hours of time for layout, additional hours will X $ per hour.

Removal of old graphics will be either a flat rate, or hourly rate, here is what the total cost will be.

Sorry to hear it was such a bad experience !

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Iron Duck Designs

Iron Duck Designs

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We did talk about the cost of art, and it was written down in his estimate. What threw me off was going from a 2500 budget to almost a third of it...he thought that since he choose not to got with the wrap then all the designing I did for the wrap was no longer a charge...so when I told him he had used up the $200 the customer thought I was screwing them...and the removal of the graphics was included in the 2500 quote...I thought I would be nice and do it for free...spent the last day adding all the most common sense facts into our contracts. I hate small print, but it is the only way I am doing it from now on.

And I did tell the referral customer about the entire event, he is aware and feels like %&$# for referring him to us. He said that we were the last shop in the area that would even deal with him. He has gone through 7 shops in the last 3 years...

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