I found a picture the other day as I was cleaning and it brought back some good and bad feelings from years gone by.
I owned a screen printing company back before they had computers, and sold it a number of years after the computer came out. As I said, it brought back some interesting thoughts and memories.
As any business owner can tell you, there are a lot of great customers that you would do anything for and then there is the one that will push until there is no place left to go.

As I got so busy with orders that I had to shut down the shop for 2 weeks a year to just sit still for more than 2 minutes. One of the things hanging in the shop was this clipping out of a magazine, "The Customer from Hell".
I laughed and laughed about it, boy was it TRUE. Once in a while someone would come in and it was like they were reading it word for word.
I gave the business away to a youth group after I got tired of the stuff and things some 20 years later, and I ended up with a couple of boxes that didnt find there way to the new owners. So out of the dark bottom of the box came a bit of the past, that still plays very well today.
Funny how much life changes, and how much stays the same.

Some of you wont find any humor in this, but some of you will.
I find myself asking, am I one of those?

click on the pic to enlarge it

That's a good one.. I saw one like that dealing with an unhappy customer that just couldn't be satisfied.

Probably the most important thing on either side of the transaction is "managing expectations."

Sadly, that's very much akin to alchemy.

ATB,
Sam

P.S. Regarding old finds.... I recently came across a design notebook book that's been packed away for 8+ years... ooooh the time does fly. Still trying to see if I can suss out some of the partial entries I was working on.

Nice, Jeff... 2+ yrs employed at Kinko's through high school and college brought me many customers akin to your guy there.

Some people figured out that we were able to give discounts to unhappy customers and would complain simply to get a percentage off.

Then there was the time someone left a penny on the counter, so out of kindness I offered it to assist the next lady in line come up with correct change... So she proceeded to write a check for the amount she owed less one cent so she could use the penny I offered her... What the...

Sounds like these old people that come into the supermarket where I work. They think because they had the Produce lady CUT a WHOLE watermelon into quarters that they still get it for the WHOLE price, which is 10 cents less a pound. They say I overcharged them and get irate, I explain that if they get it CUT, they get charged the CUT price. Sometimes they accept that they are going to pay a dollar more, and sometimes they get a manager to give it to them for the WHOLE price because they have better thing to do than argue with customers.

I have to talk with customer service every once in a while with different companies over different things and I have to stop for a minute and just chit chat with the person on the other end. Man O Man, what a garbage job, customer service. Yelling, screaming, cussing, and thats just to get through the automated crap before the live person answers.
My grand daughter stayed with us last week while her mom and dad were out of town, and she heard me yelling from my office while I was on the phone. She asked grandma who I was yelling at and she had to explain I was talking to an answer machine that wasnt asking the right questions and wasnt getting me to a real person. It took a bit but finally got a real person and was able to talk in a calm voice and got the problem salved in just a couple of seconds. My grand daughter asked me after the call if yelling helped, and I told her it did. Some machines just wont listen at all.

I had a customer a few years ago when I was a general contractor, asked me for a bid to fix the poor draining rotten deck and they didnt like the fact that the deck didnt drain correctly and I was not going to repair it without the reslope work. I didnt get the job.
A month later I was asked to look at a deck job and after I got to the house I realized it was the house that said they didnt want me to reslope the deck before the repair. Well the deck was repaired and was NOT resloped. They asked me to bid the waterproofing of the deck. I wrote the bid to waterproof the deck and set the price at $1,000,000 plus tax.
The home owner aked me if I added a few to many 0000's to the cost and after I looked at it, I told her that the cost was correct. Then I got in her face and told her that with the size of her balls to call me back after they cheeped out on the repair and asked me to waterproof the deck I would still have to tear out the new repair and reslope the deck before I waterproofed it. The reason for the high price was to let her know that thats the cost of making me return for a cheep customer.............
I didnt get the job. The customer from hell, glad it didnt work out. But if it did, I would have been set for retirement.

This is just another of hundreds of reason's I could NEVER work in retail. Don't get me wrong, I do like people. Just not that many of them. And I have a very hard time not speaking my mind to idiots!!

I am a Manager of a store so I see this almost EVERY DAY!!! Before I use to get pissed when they tried to get everything under the sun for free or at a discount- then I looked at it a different way- it's not my money- customer is happy and maybe.....just maybe...they will write a letter to corporate so I can get an "atta boy!'

Funny...I generally do not like the public but I am in retail..or is that why I do not like the public!?

Quote: Originally posted by beachrights

Funny...I generally do not like the public but I am in retail..or is that why I do not like the public!?

My wife works in a medical clinic and one of her jobs is dealing with the public. She is awesome at her job and there isnt anyone who has anything bad to say about her, except me. I'm the one she dumps on at the end of the day. If I could only drink, life would be wonderful. I'll just take another pill.

I do construction work and I get similar problems, take to long to go into it all but I do stone flooring, so somehow a free quote means I will design their house for them, including color coordination selections, arrange all the other trades needed to do repairs before I start, supervise all the works prior to mine so they don't make mistakes, be available for them in the middle of a public holiday because they have more questions ( I do onsite quotes), expected to give a written report on other peoples work and associated problem solving,oh and I'm expected to do this as part of a FREE QUOTE.

I try to weed out those that are less than genuine before I go there.

People wonder why they can't get trades to do small jobs, because they expect a lot more than just a small job, to be done for a small price.

If you haven't seen this site, it's worth a read...

http://clientsfromhell.net/

Life is what you make of it.
If you look for the bad in people, you find it.
If you look for the good in people, you find it.

just gave it a read . . . OMG I'm a CFH: ( :D

That's pretty awesome Bison,... My wife used to be in graphic design so much of the same applies... Awesome... I forwarded the link

Thanks Jeff for the good laugh. Being an active graphic artist and screen printer now in my 52nd year, I have heard them all and then some. There's never a day that goes by that we don't get a zinger from a customer at the counter or on the phone.

Our basic mantra is, "We're not Burger King. You get it our way or you don't get the damn thing at all !" The one we use every day is "I'm a great designer, trust me, you'll love it."

It's always a challenge to give the best customer service we can.

We have learned that most people don't have any idea what constitutes good art or bad art and when making presentations we always throw in a dog design that we know is going to be a throw away. Most of the time the clients say they like them all?
Back to Burger King.

I had a few customers that I had to work a bit different with. They are from the old country in Asia, and it is customary to dicker the price of everything. It is more like arguing over pennies, but in the end you either make money or not.
I figured it out one day and after looking at the job, I write up 2 bids, one with the real cost and another with about 20% added to the real cost. After dickering over the cost and what to do and what not to do, I excuse myself and head out to the truck. I eat something, check my emails, check my phone, call and say hi to my wife, and pickup the REAL cost bid and head back to show the customer the reworked price.
They sign the contract, they are happy, I'm happy, and life is much easier. This worked very well until the wife of one customer watched out her kitchen window and asked me later about what I was doing, before I could answer, she laughed and said I caught on a lot sooner than the others on how to deal with her husband. She makes the best chocolate chip cookies, and I bring her fresh cut flowers everytime I start a new job with her husband.

Quote: Originally posted by rocfighter

This is just another of hundreds of reason's I could NEVER work in retail. Don't get me wrong, I do like people. Just not that many of them. And I have a very hard time not speaking my mind to idiots!!

Must be something kiting.
S