I did two huge sofas for a customer in the recent fall...they were well made, mid century sofas. I enjoyed working on them thoroughly. However I delivered them to the customer and told her the fabric maybe wasn't what she expected. I also gave her the original pieces off the sofa in the event she ever wanted to recover down the road. Well here it is, less than six months later and this is the email I got from her...
Hi Perry,
I hope that you are well since we last saw you in November. You did a wonderful job with our sofas! Unfortunately, the "commercial grade" fabric that we chose has not held up well at all. Since the second week that we had the sofas, there has been a major issue with pilling and threads coming loose. Luckily, x xxx textiles has recognized this as a fabric defect and is giving us a refund and paying for the sofas to be reupholstered again with a different fabric. So, my question to you is, would you be available to do the job for us again? I'm meeting Caroline this week to order the new fabric. How is your schedule looking? Also, we would like to have the other sofa that I showed you in our keeping room done as well when you have the time. I'm going to order fabric for that one too this week. Let me know your thoughts on all of this - I look forward to hearing from you!
Thanks so much,
Maggie L
BTW...this involves the decorator who wanted the kickback last month, so I am anxious to see how this all plays out.
I've "broke it off" with a few decorators before. And I always managed to retain the mutual clients that we had.
But it's certainly possible that Caroline the decorator may try to steer your client over to an upholsterer that she has a more cozy relationship with.
Let us know how it plays out.
I think on this one, I have a good relationship with the customer, so the decorator will have to just suck it up.
I'm curious too, though.
Ya know Cajun I would call the customer and get her on the books. Set up a pick up. Then if she calls back later and cancels you can ask her if the designer talked her into using someone else. If she did this gives you a chance to tell her whats going on. Just sayin.
Good call Ed (Kody dog). Have Maggie commit before Caroline can try to interfere.
I'm surprised that XXXX fabrics inc. is covering the labour. Up here the standard warranty is X yrs. on the fabric,but no compensation for the extra labour.