Charging for design changes

[Phill Fenton]

I also find this to be a constant source of irritation. 😕

Like Rob – I do not charge for minor changes, but I do charge more for major changes which involve additional text for example.

I have also been known to reduce the price when a sign has been simplified (more fool me 😳 )

Some customers are easy to please – others want to see loads of permutations before settling on a final layout – to be honest, I find these people the most difficult to deal with.

However – Sometimes a dark hint that extra costs may be involved is enough to focus a customers thoughts and agree a final design 😉

But you’re right Gray – how much extra time can you spend with a customer without charging more, and at what point do you draw the line and tell them “further changes will cost extra” To be honest I don’t know. I have lost work in the past by becoming impatient with a customer – but then I’m not the most diplomatic of people anyway 🙁

[Alan]

My heart bleeds for you Gray. 🙁

Thank goodness we have somewhere like this to get it off our chests. 😆 😆

[Martin Pearson]

Like Robert & Phil we don’t charge for minor changes and to be honest I am having trouble thinking of a job where we had to make anything other than minor changes so I guess I have been lucky there. Because of this I havent had to think to much about what this cost us, but I think I would follow the same lines, if we had to make quite a lot of changes or add extra text etc then I would review the price.
Even adding extra text can be a problem as this could throw out the whole balance of the sign, meaning the whole design needed doing again. I can see the problem though Gray, when do these minor changes reach a point where you should be charging for them?

[Mike Grant]

I done a job 3 months ago, it was a board display that went into detail with text and photos of an eco friendly building that a local council had just funded. To cut a long story short I gave a price with a very rough brief and was given the go ahead. It was wanted in such a hurry I had to do this all within a week including making an ash frame and fixing it. I was told that there would also be some Welsh text added as well AFTER quoting! OK I says no probs 🙄 well an “extra 2 days” later I managed to finish the job and get it fixed in time for the opening. Now I didn’t hastle them for more money at the time as I had enough to do just to finish in time, so now three month down the line they have finally accepted the equivalent of one extra days labour, I should have hit them for 2 days worth but I felt that the board was starting to go overprice. I was quite happy with that as we were both stabbing in the dark with the tight schedules and the “can we add this somewhere” scenario.

I think sometimes you have to bite the bullet and compromise, rather than throw all your teddies out of the pram in one go.

Ya win some…Ya lose some! 😉

[Mike Brown]

as you say Mike…

“some days you get the bear, and some days the bear gets you!”… 😀

more soon

mikethesign