T5 How do you deal with difficult clients?

Robert Young · February 21st, 2017, 12:04 PM

could still be embroidery/digitizing related if my Dad and I stopped at a client or two along the way.. introduce him to this magical world! lol

back on point... is it THAT difficult for either the end user OR the distributor/embroiderer to look at the art at the size that is needed?

I mean if you want a left chest at 3.75 inches wide.. and you look at the art at 3.75 inches wide... to me... I don't think you need ANY embroidery experience at ALL to see the issue with many of the logos out there. no one has EVER seen .5mm satin lettering!

and what about the advertising agencies that actually are paid good money to create logos.. WHAT ?? they do not think embroidery is part of the equation?

The client may be difficult.. but some of this is because of conditions out of their control.

digidana · February 22nd, 2017, 10:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Robert Young

and what about the advertising agencies that actually are paid good money to create logos.. WHAT ?? they do not think embroidery is part of the equation?

tax deductible roadtrip...even better!

i don't know anything about advertising agencies and the logos they create...and i would imagine that they don't know anything about digitizing or embroidery either. it sure would be a nice bonus if they did! but i just consider it part of my job. explaining what will work and what won't and give options. i had to redo a bad logo a customer got somewhere else yesterday. there was a larger version and a smaller version. the larger one was fine. the smaller one, they did the tagline in running stitch lettering. ICK! my recommendations:

"so, for the smaller version they have a couple of choices

live with it as an illegible running stitch lettering

i can do it as a smaller satin stitch lettering and it will still be illegible AND you'll get thread breaks

do the top lettering smaller and keep the taglines the same size as the larger one

don't use a smaller version, or

remove the tagline and lose the "INC." on the second line of text on the smaller version so i can make that line a little larger, but they can keep the rest. "

i'd much rather give recommendations for a design that will work up front, than do a design that i know will look or stitch like hell.

Robert Young · February 22nd, 2017, 10:29 AM

I Totally agree with giving advice up front... but more often than not they come back.. WELL! I just saw a hat at WalMart that had lettering that small.... why can YOU not do that??

WE can,, YOU cannot... or more precisely WILL NOT... you WILL NOT use thinner threads or needles for parts, you WILL NOT slow the machine down at certain parts of the design. etc. WILL NOT use different backing to avoid puckering on a shirt.. WILL not use solvy.... WILL NOT allow the letters to be larger so they can touch .. .instead you insist on 3mm tall letters with a trim between each and every letter... meaning with the lock stitches at that size letter there are blobs of thread.

It is a matter of education I believe.... where can anyone go to learn?? It is not their fault , they just have not been taught in the medium

They are only being difficult because they believe it is super simple and we or the embroiderer are the people that do not know what we are doing. I understand.

digidana · February 22nd, 2017, 10:42 AM

they come to us to learn.

...and to the lists

ltpemb · March 3rd, 2017, 10:22 AM

I have done all of the above.

Fire them, call them out on their difficulty, discussed the situation politely. Charged more money. And in some cases backed off a bit shut up just did it to get them out the door

Robert Young · October 11th, 2017, 05:31 PM

Client sends in 12 designs with very specific size instructions. We do those. ALL have come back with different size instructions now. I do the changes all at no charge but do provide some attitude... I admit.

Why the attitude the client wants to know.

Well , you were VERY specific on the instructions....apparently without realizing the sizes??? You told us to follow your instructions EXACTLY. we did that.

She pushes back again... OK

well lets talk about we do 12 designs for you... following your instructions only to have to retouch ALL of them because of something on your end.

OR how about you are behind on your term payments to us... to the tune of you have not paid us for work done in August... just sayin... not really happy to help you when you have 5 invoices that are past net 30

why don't you just pay your bills on time and we would be "nicer and more professional" as you request??

otherwise just go away... stiff some other company IF you can find terms nowadays??

thanks for the venting.

what would you do?

ltpemb · October 11th, 2017, 06:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Robert Young

Client sends in 12 designs with very specific size instructions. We do those. ALL have come back with different size instructions now. I do the changes all at no charge but do provide some attitude... I admit.

Why the attitude the client wants to know.

Well , you were VERY specific on the instructions....apparently without realizing the sizes??? You told us to follow your instructions EXACTLY. we did that.

She pushes back again... OK

well lets talk about we do 12 designs for you... following your instructions only to have to retouch ALL of them because of something on your end.

OR how about you are behind on your term payments to us... to the tune of you have not paid us for work done in August... just sayin... not really happy to help you when you have 5 invoices that are past net 30

why don't you just pay your bills on time and we would be "nicer and more professional" as you request??

otherwise just go away... stiff some other company IF you can find terms nowadays??

thanks for the venting.

what would you do?

I have a few clients who have done that exact thing and I always start by referencing any PO/artwork Email notations etc. And if the artwork was done as specified then any edits would be paid for.

As for unpaid clients... Like most apparel vendors I have a policy that if someone is 30 days overdue on a bill I wont run any more orders without either paying for the overdue order or in some cases requiring them to pay for the past due as well as in full upfront on the new order. Being as polite as possible but stating things as policy.

I do work really hard to not take it personally but occasionally i have needed to use the sickeningly polite passive aggressive method.

"Unfortunately we cannot compete on price...
If you are happy with your current vendor's pricing and quality then I encourage you to continue to go with them as you are getting a fantastic deal and I will go ahead and move these quotes into canceled..."

(who cancels a quote).

And even issuing client/policy update emails with policies stated in writing.

SunEmbroidery · October 14th, 2017, 09:23 PM

As an embroiderer/ screen printer I feel most of my customers are good. 99% of my customers are online and I rarely have any issues. What I don't like are some of the requests I get from local people. Most of the businesses are very small so the orders are small, contain a mix of items (different fabrics/hats & flats), have poor or no artwork, want text added to their artwork, don't want to pay up front, don't want to pay for artwork and want have their order processed the way their last embroiderer did it. I used to spend a lot of time providing quotes but now I usually come up with some reason why I won't provide a quote. For me the online orders are more profitable and much less stressful and it isn't worth the hassle of dealing with local orders. There are exceptions and I appreciate the local customers I have but I don't try to gain more local customers.

That's CRAZY about the 60wt thread! I love 60 wt thread. It has definitely improved the look of many designs I've embroidered and just having a few thread shades in stock will handle most logos. I'm guessing that M***'s high shipping/handling fees scare a lot of people away when they just need a few spools but everyone should stock up when they can.