Disgruntled Customer

[kodydog]

Almost a year ago today a lady calls and asks if I can pick up her chair. I told her we we're getting ready to go away for the weekend but if she could send us a photo to our e-mail we will gladly give her an estimate. This way we can see if we're in the ball park before we start the process.

Oh, no,no, no, You need to pick it up now. I just bought it at an antique store and my husband will kill me if he see's it in the back of my SUV. I'm going to have it recovered, can you at least meet me half way.

I hate picking up a piece before we give an estimate because we're always the one's that get screwed. IDK I guess I felt sorry for her so I agreed.

It's an antique Victorian channel back chair and when I picked it up I pointed out all the extra things it would need to get the job done. Springs needed to be retied, the arm was loose and new seat padding. I also pointed out the brass nail heads and told her if she decided to use those for the trim it would be extra.

So I took the chair back to the shop and worked up an estimate. Rose called her and gave her the price. She was very surprised and said it wasn't worth it, she only paid $35 for the chair. Could we just bring it back. Yeah she really did. Rose told her she could come to the shop and pick it up and she said she would.

So it sat in our shed for 9 months. Last October Rose called her and told her we were moving and she needed to get the chair or we would donate it to Goodwill or we would be willing to buy it from her for $25. Now she decided she wanted the chair recovered after all and she would get her fabric.

So we moved it to our new shop and 3 months later she brought the fabric to us.

She picked a nice Chinell and the chair is almost done so Rose called her to discuss trim. We can do gimp or double welt for free. Or brass nail heads for $35. She flipped, she sent about 20 text messages calling Rose everything but the son of god. She said we have been nickel and diming her and she wasn't paying any extra. The brass nails should have been included in the price and she is going to just come and pick the chair up now.

Yikes! So Rose texted her back and told her the extra cost is clearly stated on the original estimate (over a year ago) but to smooth things over we would do it for free. Okay, but I want them done in either black or brown. Um, but we only have brass.

So Rose went to Lowes and guess what? They have black and brown nail heads. Tonight Rose will call her and tell her if she'll get the nail heads we'll put them on.

Before After

[sofadoc]

I've let myself get roped in to picking something up on the spur of the moment many times.

It usually does come back to bite me in the ass.

When they say something like "My husband can't know about this", it should probably send up a red flag.
She's working on a budget consisting of socked away egg money.

Now, you have to take it in the shorts because her husband is a tightwad.

I used to get a lot of customers like that back in the day before women had their own discretionary income.
Not too much anymore. I don't remember the last time a customer accused me of nickel & diming them (or them nickel & diming me).

[Darren Henry]

Great job Ed. That pattern match must have been tedious. Sorry it was for such a ....

(or them nickel & diming me).

That is more usually the case. It certainly sounds like it with this broad.

[gene]

I have company policies. One policy is that I will not receive any furniture unless I have the fabric and a deposit along with the furniture.

Mr. KodyD, if you have a policy of not receiving any furniture until you have given the customer an estimate, then this entire situation started by you violating your company policy.

It does seem that the times I go out of my way to help a customer by breaking a company rule, it comes back to bite me. However, I do have some good customers who I trust and when there are problems they never look to screw me.

Can you imagine living with that kind of a lady? Wow. You got the good end of that deal, KODYd.

gene

[kodydog]

Can you imagine living with that kind of a lady? Wow. You got the good end of that deal, KODYd.
gene

Thanks Gene, that actually does make me feel better. If you ever met this lady you would know why.

Anyway, when we told her the brass tacks would be free she said that would be fine. We deliver the chair Saturday. I think if she gives us any hassle Rose will tell her to use a little KY and shove it. Oops.

[kodydog]

I have company policies. One policy is that I will not receive any furniture unless I have the fabric and a deposit along with the furniture.
gene

Yep and when we break these policies we screw ourselves. We're getting ready to do a job that is not in our normal service area. We just wrote the decorator explaining that even though we provide the highest standards possible, sometimes problems arise. And if they do she will have to handle the logistics.

[SteveA]

How much extra space do you have - in my case I could not speculate on a proposed job - no room.  I won't take a new job unless the one sitting there is about ready to go out.  My choice is an easy one - one at a time keeps the crazies away -
SA

[kodydog]

I used to have a 10'X16' shed for over flow and pieces we found at garage sales and thrift stores. This piece has been a pain in my butt for the last year because every time I needed something in the back of the shed I had to move it out of the way. Now all I have is the back of my van and a covered trailer to store over flow furniture. Not much room. I think our latest plan, and with helpful recommendations from everyone, we're going to double the size of our garage and nix the commercial property idea.

[gene]

Floor space has a cost to it. How much would it have cost this lady if her chair sat in a rented storage locker? Having someone's furniture in my shop costs me money in floor space and labor/time to move the thing around when I need to.

You can go through you expenses and figure out how much each square foot of space is costing you.

Another way I look at it: I would not want someone's furniture sitting, unused, in my home. My business is for the purpose of making money. Why would I want someone's furniture sitting in my business, unused, and for free?

Thanks for sharing your situation. It helps me to stay on my toes, so to speak.

gene

[sofadoc]

Because I've always had a huge building with ample storage space, I've let a lot of customers take advantage of me by having me store their basically unwanted furniture for months, even years.

There are upsides and downsides. Upside is, I never have any down time waiting for the most recently completed job to leave the shop before I can bring the next job to the "trauma center". Within 5 minutes of driving the final staple, I can have a new "patient" on the exam table.

Downside is, a couple times a year I haul abandoned pieces to the landfill.

My grandmother used to store overflow pieces in her living room. When the phone rang, you had to suck your gut in, turn sideways, and slither between couches to answer it.

We just wrote the decorator explaining that even though we provide the highest standards possible, sometimes problems arise. And if they do she will have to handle the logistics.

I guess logistics is the main reason why I don't work with decorators much anymore. I run a brick and mortar business in a retail district. So pick-up and deliveries have to be done at MY convenience, not THEIRS. I'm not Time Warner Cable. I can't give them a 10 minute appointment window. I don't have a crew. If they want me to hire a crew, it will cost extra (a LOT extra).

[kodydog]

We worked for a designer that was not in our service area once before. She was in Jacksonville (1-1/2 hour away). She was referred by her sister, one of our best customers. The job was two club chairs for a large house on a pristine golf course. The designer picked a light colored linen.

The chairs looked great when we delivered them but a week later the designer called and complained that when the heavy weight grandson sat on them the back cushion wrinkled. I made the 1-1/2 hour drive and picked them up. The cushion stuffing was 100% dacron. She didn't want to switch it with foam because she liked the soft feel.

So we added more dacron, just enough to make it more firm but not too much to be uncomfortable. And we steamed them to get the wrinkles out. Then we brought them back. And a week later she complained again. This time we told the decorator there simply was nothing else we could do. Linen tends to wrinkle. Maybe she should consider a different fabric. We told her we wouldn't be doing anymore work for her because the distance makes it hard to give the kind of service our customers are use to. And we left it at that. We still work for her sister.

When this recent decorator asked us to do a job in Orlando we made sure to tell her if any followup visits were needed they would have to figure out a way to get the sofa to us.

[Mojo]

We have tweaked our business model numerous times and along with that changed a few policies to eliminate future problems with customers.

I think that no matter what business your in that your going to get a problem customer that will give you ulcers. I have had my share over the years. But I have learned how to identify potential problem customers much better and I actually send them to my competitor. Let them deal with the jackwagon.

Since we have changed our policies and now provide much more information up front we have almost eliminated the unsatisfied customer issue. If an awning customer comes in with a certain assembly I make sure they know up front that we are not magicians and their assembly has known issues. We provide a great deal of education to our customers and that in itself has really paid off. We are known around the country as being experts in our niche market so typically when they do contact us and I tell them of known issues they understand and accept what I say as gospel.

Still, we do get one or two customers a year that aggravate the hell out of me. They are the same people that would bitch if you served them cold ice cream. Nothing will ever make them happy so I try and identify them early on and pass them off to our competitor but sometimes I miss the signs and end up doing a job for them. I then kick myself later for being a dummy.

Chris

[kodydog]

Thanks for all your advice and experiences.

Today we delivered the chair. She asked for an early delivery because she had much to do today. We were there at 9:30. She loved loved loved the chair. We kept pushing all that was involved in the restoration of this piece. Frame work, retying springs, new padding etc. Her husband came and sat in it and proclaimed it to now be his personal chair.

We spent 45 mins talking about furniture including 4 dining seats that need regluing. She paid us and all was good. We spent the rest of the day doing pick ups and estimates.

When we got home I checked our fb business page where she gave us a glowing review and invited two friends to like our page.

So in the end we took $35 off her bill but added two referrals and possibly two new customers.

Yeah, I'm eating a little crow here.

[kodydog]

I just went to her fb page to see who she is. She posted a picture of the chair proclaiming it a valentines gift from her husband. And she shared a slide show I made of the restoration process. She got 92 likes and 33 comments. I think we made a good investment.

[Darren Henry]

I'm glad everything work out so well for you. The next time this situation comes up though, I would see it as a RISKY investment as apposed to a GOOD  investment. What if the next customer finds some way to still have an issue, despite the great work you do?

I don't mean to rain on your parade Ed, but she'd have been just as impressed if the job only took  a couple of weeks and delivery had already been arranged for that time.