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screen printing => General Screen Printing => Topic started by: Ripcord on January 20, 2012, 11:56:15 AM
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I printed 20 4-color polos for a customer (womens style shirts). She likes the print job but doesn't like the shirts. She says they do not fit like the one the girl is wearing in the catalog and she believes that the catalog is misleading as to how the shirts fit (length vs. width).
She says her staff will not wear them so a discount is not a feasible solution. She wants nothing short of a total reprint on a different style of shirts.
The shirt rep says there isn't anything wrong with them and it appears I won't be getting any compensation for the shirts. It's already been acknowleged that my printing was fine (In fact I'll say that for the rather intricate design it was a very nice print job for a pique shirt...)
So I didn't do anything wrong and now I need to do the entire job again at my own expense. If I think about it practically, I can replace the shirts for $100 or so, reprint them, and keep the $250 or so I charged for them. Twice as much work, but I still make $50 on the job. At the same time, part of me wants to go pick up the shirts from her, refund her money, and be free to pursue more profitable endeavors.
It's kind of the principle of the thing. You aren't happy with my product I don't expect you to pay for it...But I want this customer to go away, and $50 doesn't seem like that much money in this case. And once I set a precedent that I'll reprint a job, no questions asked at the sole discretion of a customer...Well that's certainly not a good thing. How would you guys deal with this?
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I printed 20 4-color polos for a customer (womens style shirts). She likes the print job but doesn't like the shirts. She says they do not fit like the one the girl is wearing in the catalog and she believes that the catalog is misleading as to how the shirts fit (length vs. width).
She says her staff will not wear them so a discount is not a feasible solution. She wants nothing short of a total reprint on a different style of shirts.
The shirt rep says there isn't anything wrong with them and it appears I won't be getting any compensation for the shirts. It's already been acknowleged that my printing was fine (In fact I'll say that for the rather intricate design it was a very nice print job for a pique shirt...)
So I didn't do anything wrong and now I need to do the entire job again at my own expense. If I think about it practically, I can replace the shirts for $100 or so, reprint them, and keep the $250 or so I charged for them. Twice as much work, but I still make $50 on the job. At the same time, part of me wants to go pick up the shirts from her, refund her money, and be free to pursue more profitable endeavors.
It's kind of the principle of the thing. You aren't happy with my product I don't expect you to pay for it...But I want this customer to go away, and $50 doesn't seem like that much money in this case. And once I set a precedent that I'll reprint a job, no questions asked at the sole discretion of a customer...Well that's certainly not a good thing. How would you guys deal with this?
Though one, and you probably lose either way. So which way will you keep the customer (if you want to). I would probably personally not reprint them for a "fit" issue. I dont manufacture garments, I print on them.
Some people think its JCPenny and you can just try it on, buy it then take it back if you don't like it. I think that's unfair.
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I don't think I'd print for her again. She's very time consuming...Although I should have added that in addition to the polos I printed 40 regular T-shirts, front and back and she likes those...So overall I made some money.
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If it is a new customer, an item such as this I always get them a sample. You might reprint them, and see if they will buy the rejected shirts for a discount.
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I would get the customer what she wants and reprint them.. Take the other ones and donate them to Good Will of something and get a tax write off.
Get samples of the style she wants and make sure they fit right.
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yup, you're screwed either way. can you measure the shirt in relation to what is in the catalog? I had this problem with some Port shirts years ago, and I got a refund because the size charts in the catalogs were wrong and didn't list the shirts as junior sized.
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for what it's worth, here's my thinking:
you are selling the garments retail and thus they are part of your sale (and responsibility). Retail shops charge more and also get an opportunity to mark up garments but at the expense of having to deal with customers like the one you mention above.
next point, it is not worth having a customer badmouthing you around.
I would take care of her (add $50 to the income) and politely refuse any additional work when she comes back. She will have no ground to stand on as far as not being taken care of. I would have her sign something that you are replacing it and that she accepts the new shirts so there are no issues later.
pierre
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You will not win in this situation. Even if you get better shirts and reprint them you will have to do 2 more jobs for them just to make up your money. I would guess that she will only order once to twice a year. Its hard either way.
One option: Tell her that you can take them back but she has to pay for the printing (Time, labor, inks and screens) since the printing of the shirts was not the problem. Then tell her that she has to pick a new shirt and have her entire staff ok it before you will print them.
I get one bad customer every year and I just take care of it as fast as possible. If you think about the money to much or that they are screwing you it will just make you mad. I personally would just buy new shirts and reprint them and move on to the next person. I would rather have a happy customer at the end of the day then make a few extra $$$. Just next time make sure she approves and signs off on shirts.
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I bet she's over reacting a bit. I would offer her the current shirts at a discounted rate (cost of replacement goods) PLUS a reprint on something new. no she isn't your ideal customer but that 50.00 almost pays my phone bill for the month. . .wait, not even close, but you get the idea. . .
or send her a link to the Atkins diet. . .
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HAHA, I had a customer order Christmas gifts one year and he ordered one of his customers a 3XL, the guy looked at it and said, "you've got a problem, I wear a 4XL." My customer replied "I'm not the one with the problem."
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If you are selling something site unseen it your "job" to make sure the client is getting what they expect....
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I see it this way what good is having a principal rule if your not going to stand by it...once this customers gets you on this they pretty much will be a thorn in your rump. Yes everyone hates losing money...I,m thinking too the best thing to do is offer a to replace the shirts and let her paid for your printing service. I hate to see women come in my shop, they always think they are at Macy's when it comes to polo's and such, and I allways tell them that all women don't have the same body type and stuff fits different from lady to lady.
Darryl
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I see it this way what good is having a principal rule if your not going to stand by it...once this customers gets you on this they pretty much will be a thorn in your rump. Yes everyone hates losing money...I,m thinking too the best thing to do is offer a to replace the shirts and let her paid for your printing service. I hate to see women come in my shop, they always think they are at Macy's when it comes to polo's and such, and I allways tell them that all women don't have the same body type and stuff fits different from lady to lady.
Darryl
hmm. . you mean you don't get out the measure tape and size her up D?. . .must be just me :P
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I find that the smaller framed women are tough to measure with a tape, so I sue my hands. Very effective.
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This is going to get me in all kinds of trouble but here goes...women are the worst customers to deal with when it comes to fit, quality, style , shrinkage, length of the tail on the shirt, underarm seams / comfort, sleeve length, itchy tags, brand names, and PRICE.
I just love it when I am dealing with a 4 foot 10 in tall lady who is un proportionally built in the chest area and she orders an XS shirt. Or ladies who should not wear fashion form fitting 3.2 ounce garments to cover muffin tops selecting something a fashion model only could wear. Oh and here is the best one again on the fashion fitting light color 3.2 ounce Bella or LA style garments when they complain they don’t have a bra that doesn’t show through the shirt...”we thought the shirt would be thicker than that”.
I had a lady who drives truck for the local town complain and bad mouth me because the Gildan style 2000 safety yellow tee shirts I sold her were too thin and everyone could see her bra through the shirt. EVERYBODY wears gildan 2000 safety yellow, ( and by the way Jerzees I think are worse) but the whole world wears them...but it was my fault because she never had that problem before.
All you can do is grab your chest fall to the floor and fake a heart attack short of that get out your knife & fork cuz you most likely will be eating some shirts.
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I still vote for the atkins e-mail. . .just sayin. . .
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Yeah, wow yikes... I think in the name of customer service, you're just going to have to do whatever it takes to make her happy and chalk it up as a learning experience.
In the future now, it might be wise to either get samples for the customer to try on, or have a disclaimer that says you aren't responsible for fit and can't take refunds on apparel that aren't actually defective.
A couple of the shops I've worked for had showrooms with samples of various sizes of the most popular corporate workwear... knits, sweaters, jackets, etc. Yes, it's true, women are more particular about fit... greater variation of body size and shape, and men usually just don't care. We're slobs. :P
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How about doing what a post I saw earlier said. Let her know you're going to donate the shirts she doesn't want to some homeless shelters. Her pretty logo will be worn around town by a rougher looking group. She may change her mind.
In another life I used to peddle twinkies in provided uniforms. A new batch of uniforms was passed out and a bunch of guys donated their old uniforms to the homeless shelters. The bosses had a stroke when they saw their easily recognizable uniforms on a bunch of bums. After that we had to turn in all old uniforms.
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I would eat it and move on. Some times it just the cost of doing business in public.
Sent from samsung gem(the worst smart phone ever)
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Hindsight is 20/20 of course, which is how I learned to get samples for fit before printing an unknown item. Reprint, see if she will take the others real cheap and use them as giveaways to customers... keep her happy, as you said she was OK with the t-shirts, and she will hopefully remember that you took care of it.
Steve
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If the customer picked a style and you ordered them and printed them and there is nothing wrong with the garment or printing, I would stick to my guns. The fact that the customer doesn't like the way they fit on herself is honestly NOT your problem. Guarantee she isn't even close to what the model int he catalog looks like as far as size and how she wears the garment. Yes bad news travels faster than good yet this is total BS. Hell for all you know she ordered the wrong style and is passing the buck on you with this story.
I would either eat it and move on. She can take her business elsewhere or I would offer a discount. Since nothing was wrong with the printing there is no fault in this but hers and you are now trying to figure out how to take the loss not her. Sorry but I am calling BS.
If you are worried about what you may loose if not satisfying this customer, than reprint the new garments and move on to the next. Just make sure if there are any price differences between the garments that she covers the difference.
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If I still had the screens... I'd reprint them.
No screens... I'd refund her money.
Either way, I'd need the shirts back to be used as I see fit.
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This is why having samples is so important. It also helps to have a disclaimer that covers once the garment is decorated there are no refunds.
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I would make her pay for the new shirts and print them for free (if I still had the screens) otherwise I'd tell her to go screw... she got what she ordered end of story.
May sound harsh but I've been working in the customer service field since I started working and a huge factor of starting my own business is the power to control not getting bent over and taking it up the rear end by a customer which is exactly what this lady is trying to do to you. This isn't Walmart...
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This is why having samples is so important. It also helps to have a disclaimer that covers once the garment is decorated there are no refunds.
Who has samples of everything in the catalog? I keep sample of t-shirts around but that's about it.
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Custom retail is a bitch.
Myself, I tell people to f*ck off, if they're messin with me and my crap.
If it's the other way, and I messed up, I try to fix it up proper.
I always try to do great work.
That's my method.
If someone's messin with that, well..
You gotta call the situation, based on where you stand within it.
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I agree that this is a NO-WIN scenario, however I would as already suggested offer to reprint the shirts for free if she buys the new shirts. Profit will still be made on the new blank garments. I would REQUIRE her to come to the shop and try the shirt on BEFORE printing them with an absolute agreement that this will not happen again AND that she understands that you are being the nice person in this deal..there are no guarantees of the garments "fit" and "wear"
On that note, as a business person I found it REALLY interesting that as I read the comments and original post....NOT A SINGLE PERSON, including the original post took note of a basic FACT of business. As stated by Ripcord..."....Twice as much work, but I still make $50 on the job" In an ideal world, maybe? However in the real world you must also consider that your ship will take on work that has a MUCH lower margin of profit and could require your facility to either lose, or delay more profitable work. In reality you could "still make $50"...or tell her to jump off a bridge and print a job that makes you $250.00 or much more. However this is a raw scenario, and does not consider customer loyalty if she comes back again and future sales profits (if any). It also does not consider the negative sales context if she is associated with other business's in her area..bad word travels. However in my printing days it was not unusual for me to refuse work that was not as profitable or schedule it to a lower status of importance when WE were clearly not at fault.
In the end, she must understand that you do not really accept her reasons for rejecting the job...AND that YOU are doing her a favor if you choose to do the job again regardless of how you work it out. Furthermore I would make it known to her that it will be redone without causing any delays to other customers you have scheduled in your shop...even if you don't have any at the time. Lastly, update your sales terms to make clear that you do not make any guarantee of the fit of the garments and that if there is any reason for a customer to question the fit of a custom ordered garment they can purchase at a discounted price up to 3 sample garments of various sizes (or what you want to offer)....either way, this issue will NOT come back...Live an learn.
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I would reorder the polos, reprint them and pick up the others. thats the right thing to do regardless of the reasoning. remember a happy customer tells 2-3 people and a unhappy customer tells 10. I know its tough especially since its iffy but i would want this situation over with and her out of my life.
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I would apologize for the inconvenience, replace the shirts and then remember she is a high maintenance customer so charge accordingly on her next order. She will either go away or pay a premium the next time she tries to order from you. I had this happen to me last year with a principal at a school I deal with. He told me the sizes that he wanted to order and we delivered but he ordered too small. I got him what he needed refused additional payment and moved on. I'm pretty sure he will be a customer for life.
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IMHO Quadaddy has it right. We fixed a schools problem for cheap, even though was not our problem. Made nothing on the fix, but were stars. Now dealing with other coaches. Redid a couple other small questionable orders on the problem, but so what? Cost of advertising. However, we can do prototypes on DTG for most clothes and Boy O Boy does that make us smell good. We have to print regularly on the damn thing anyway to keep it happy, so no biggie. You should see the stuff in our chart of accounts under advertising.
One of the reasons we did a store front and put a few K on the floor in samples was for the sizing issues abundant in our nation of svelte personnas. "I'm an xl!!" Like he**. You be a 2 or 3x. Imagine the poor shoe salesman (a la Al Bundy). How's this one? Ladies M, but a male M fits perfectly. Boy talk about denial.
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I ran into a similar situation, twice!!! lady orders off the website catalog. Ribbed tanks with a glitter imprint for a group she was involved in. The print was great but she wanted them longer. We went back and forth for 2 days and I reordered the goods and took it on the chin because it was for a cancer walk. Couple weeks later another lady comes in and we went through the catalogs and she picks out a junior fit tee for her order. Order is complete and shocker they don't fit all the mid 40 yr old gals. She wanted a reprint on larger sizes. I stood my ground. I made it very clear that these shirts were a junior fit when she ordered. During a conversation she mentions what I did for lady #1 and she was expecting the same service. I wanted to loose my mind on this lady but I took into account that obviously she came to me because of word of mouth. I ended up telling her to have the ladies that had the fit issue to go out and purchase shirts that they are more comfortable with and I would print them. And she could add members to the group by selling the others shirts to new members. So I got paid in full and only had to print on 3 more shirts. Plus with in the Mommy group my name is still good!!!
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IMHO Quadaddy has it right. We fixed a schools problem for cheap, even though was not our problem. Made nothing on the fix, but were stars. Now dealing with other coaches. Redid a couple other small questionable orders on the problem, but so what? Cost of advertising. However, we can do prototypes on DTG for most clothes and Boy O Boy does that make us smell good. We have to print regularly on the damn thing anyway to keep it happy, so no biggie. You should see the stuff in our chart of accounts under advertising.
One of the reasons we did a store front and put a few K on the floor in samples was for the sizing issues abundant in our nation of svelte personnas. "I'm an xl!!" Like he**. You be a 2 or 3x. Imagine the poor shoe salesman (a la Al Bundy). How's this one? Ladies M, but a male M fits perfectly. Boy talk about denial.
Sorry, could not let that setup go unanswered.
Al Bundy Classic (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-ZpcJ9kuxw#)
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Like Lance mentioned, If I return her money and move on, I'll have a net loss of $100 or so on the job (the amount I paid for the shirts), which I can easily make up in the time it would take to reprint the shirts. (Plus there's something about doing a reprint that tends to put me in a real funky mood for the whole day, and it would be nice to avoid that...)
I don't see how the customer can bad mouth me if I return 100% of the payment. She didn't like the shirts so she's getting her money back. That's a good business practice. She can take the returned money and use it it to pay someone else to do the reprint. They need to be reprinted, whether it's by me or someone else, so she won't be losing any more time. The refund makes her whole and satisfies my obligation.
What I like about the refund option is that by going elsewhere she is going to learn that a lot of my competitors don't do the same quality work that I do and many of them charge more than I. I certainly don't want to print for her again, so it doesn't bother me in this case to lose her business.
I'm definitely getting the shirts back as a condition of the refund, and I'm going to mention to her that I'm donating them to a homeless shelter. LOL I love that idea! What a righteous man I am, donating clothing to the homeless.
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I'm definitely getting the shirts back as a condition of the refund, and I'm going to mention to her that I'm donating them to a homeless shelter. LOL I love that idea! What a righteous man I am, donating clothing to the homeless.
Those grizzled homeless men will look simply smashing in their ladies shirts as they panhandle on the interstate off-ramps. Good for you!!
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Those grizzled homeless men will look simply smashing
Simply Smashing, indeed. LOL