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A bit of friendly advice
i dont know if this subject has already been addressed, but let me tell you a little story. (sleep)
i received a call last week from a company wanting 4 brand spanking new vans signwritten. after alot of stress and hard work the job was completed on time.
however, i had arranged for the vans to be dropped off one at a time, so as each one was finished another one would turn up. this of course went belly up and after some arguing i agreed to pick the vans up myself.
anyway, the vans were completed and delivered with a kiss.
i then get a phone call to say one of the wheel trims is missing and it must be my fault because they were on the van yesterday blah… blah…. blah…after searching everywhere and even driving back round the streets, nothing.
fearing that i’m now going to be stung for a new set, (cause you can’t buy one on its own) i start to get annoyed with myself.
remembering when i hired a car last year, they walk round the vehicle with a check sheet and mark off and defects.
so i thought, next time i will print an outline of the vehicle and do exactly the same with the customer.
this could be a valuable bit of advice. next time i could be paying for a new headlight etc….thinking i had learnt the hard way, i get a call to say the wheel trim had been left off by the garage because of a problem with the wheel nuts being to long on that particular wheel.
got an apology, but perhaps a valuable lesson learnt………………..
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4 Replies
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The kinda thing you don’t really think about
Thanks 😆
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Here comes rob again to say ive done that ive done that! 😆
But to be totally honest mate. I have and I did get the sting into the bargain.
A Falkirk tyre company asked me to design and sign up their brand new metallic finish transit. I spent a few hours on the design & the van came in, another guy and myself started to letter it. We wiped it down with paper towels then meths etc.. Usual stuff.
I spotted a few tiny (not scratches) but lines.. Like scratches here and there on the van. I asked mark (other guy) did he notice them. He said yes but its all over the van and in places we arent even working on.
They were so insignificant I dismissed it..
Letter the van, which was covered in graphics and text, in about 4 hours.
It looked great! (hot) I was pretty chuffed with it and parked it back outside. I went to another job and that was that.
My dad called me an hour later, ranting and raving saying I had covered the van in scratches with my squeegee!!!! Squeegee? I said. yeh he said.. The guy said he seen you using some orange plastic thing on the van and thats what must have done it. He said they had just come from the garage they bought it in & it was brand new. So it could only have happened here.
I said. I did see scratches of some description but they were there when we wiped it and in places we had not touched. My dad says forget it.
I have waved the fee!!! I said what? He went on to say the customer said he wanted us to pay for this new metallic job if T-CUT didnt take it away.
So I just told him.. Take the job for free & thats that. I cracked up as you can imagine. When I got back to the work my dad and I was still at it.
The girl on the phone said. emm excuse me but what van are you both going on about. We told her.. She said well, “when the guy dropped the van off he gave me the key. The key had a large brown paper key ring on it say, Mr Bloggs HAD BE GRANTED 20% discount on the EX-demo vehicle DUE TO THE FAULTY PAINT WORK.” 😮 😮 😮 -
I had a similar thing to Robert. My squeegee had put some minor scratches on a new van which the customer noticed.
It’s a sad fact of life in this country that everyone nowadays is angling for a discount after the job is done – and will use any excuse to pursue this.
This fellow expressed his concern about the minor scratching, so I used some “T” cut to get rid of most of it. However, when making his cheque out he wanted to deduct a small amount to compensate for the so called damage. I refused to allow any reduction and forced him to pay up in full before I would agree to release the van.
Businesses have rights as well as consumers!! Don’t let them get away with it!! This is a growing problem in the UK in all types of business. Remember you have rights too – the right to get paid for a fair days work and not to be swindled by the growing “customer is king” culture.
To emphasise my point, The Ford motor company of great Britain have just recently sacked their chairman because of the huge losses being made by Ford in this country. The reason for these losses is the “bowing down” to customer demands. Massive discounting by Ford have caused these huge losses. I believe in the long term the customer himself will lose out as more and more companies go to the wall giving less choice to the consumer.
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Phill: Good point! We should stick to our guns
I’m probably the first to cave in however just to get it sorted quickly and outa’ my hair.Rob: Did you leave it there then!!!!??
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