Latest Rejects

[Dottonedan]

Apreasing a picky customer can be beneficial as mentioned. I think the hard part, (the more important part) is the ability to discern who's worth adding some stress to the orders and who's worth turning away.
As you all know, there are times.

One example is a customer came into my shop to purchase 3 shirts. One for the husband, the child and herself. She was dressed professionally and spoke professionally.  It was a birthday surprise and needed them within a few days. We rushed the art, overnighted the sublimated transfers, heat set them and they looked great, felt great.  We did this type of order,  often so no issue on quantity. At the beginning, she went on and on complaining about the "all other print shops" so of course my red flag rose. Hearing this about the other printers was nothing new and I was aware of their quality and lack of customer service skills, so, I stayed true to pleasing this customer and we did. 2 days later, she returns wanting a refund. It seems she left the shirts in the box in the trunk of her car (in Florida) in the summer time, and were wrinkled when she took them out. Yes, wrinkled. So she came back fuming demanding a refund. So me, I go through about 20 minutes of speaking softly (as if to a mentally ill person) and was able to get her to a satisfied point.  When she left, we decided to create a (do not take orders from) list.  I feel that while she possibly could come back with some good orders or referrals, I want no part of what else she may bring to my shop. There are others out there to work with/focus on pleasing with less risk, that will also provide good referrals.

[mimosatexas]

With a customer like Alan is dealing with, my concern would be going through the trouble and expense of reprinting only to have them unhappy for some other minor reason.  I mean, yes the shirt is a bit distorted (maybe 1/4 of an inch in the middle?), but it is not a rigid geometric design ruined by the fabric being super stretched and i doubt very much that it would affect how people are going to react to the shirt, especially when actually on a persons body.  I honestly think you could "fix" this by hand by stretching it a few directions, hand it to the client, and they would have no clue whether it was a reprint or not, which means it isn't a big deal and doesn't necessitate reprinting.

If a client weighed shirts and rejected them based on a few percentage variance I would fire them on the spot unless they wanted to pay me quite a bit to weigh them before printing as well...

[Dottonedan]

While at Disney's park printing, (the tee shirt printing) facility, we had a Disney employee that was the buyer, also known as a product developer. She was new to that dept. Came from some other glamorous named business where she was involved in buying from manufacturers.  She rejected an order for 1200 shirts, scheduled for reorders 2 times a month.

The order had a left chest print. The engineering dept. (Not the art dept). Had a map/dimensions of each shirt and measurements of where each print will land. She rejected th entire order because the left chest prints were not consistent in placement. Some were + \ - a 16th to a qtr inch off. Maybe some even a half inch.  So we had her come over, get on the press and load shirts to make sure she can show us exactly where they should land.  She did. She understood from that point on.

[ZooCity]

unless they wanted to pay me quite a bit to weigh them before printing as well...

I often say that you can pay us to do whatever you like.  I'll do the math on our cost to go walk around the block for an hour if that's what makes you happy.  Weighing shirts?  No problem, what's the target weight or variance?

[ebscreen]

Large contract client got a complaint from end user that their cheap Gildan whites had variance in size.
Contract client asked if we could compare sizes on 5000 piece orders. "Sure, should be about $1.00 each".
Suddenly not such an issue.

[Screened Gear]

These 2 shirts were rejected due to the image distortion from pulling the shirts off the pallets.  It wasn't fresh tack either, we used fresh tack for the front print then turned it around and did the back on the same tack without refreshing.  I've been told I need to fix the problem   It's gonna be a great week.

Tell them to wash all the shirts and then find those two shirts again. I'm glad I don't have your customers.

[Maxie]

We printed a order of Bordeaux shirts this week and were missing a few so used shirts from a different supplier.    Same quality, slightly different color.      I got a call for the person who ordered them, not happy, I said she can send them back.    Then the director of the organization phoned.
I think people sometimes loose perspective on what's important in life.
I've been to Alan's shop and can picture him going into the embroidery dept. where all the ladies work and getting told off by a customer who doesn't understand that we are not printing on paper and when people where the shirts nobody will ever see that slight distortion.     

[Rockers]

We printed a order of Bordeaux shirts this week and were missing a few so used shirts from a different supplier.    Same quality, slightly different color.      I got a call for the person who ordered them, not happy, I said she can send them back.    Then the director of the organization phoned.
I think people sometimes loose perspective on what's important in life.
I've been to Alan's shop and can picture him going into the embroidery dept. where all the ladies work and getting told off by a customer who doesn't understand that we are not printing on paper and when people where the shirts nobody will ever see that slight distortion.   

]
I`ll be honest this would never happen in our shop, replacing a few missing shirts with a different brand of shirt. At least we would inform the client first and ask if the would mind. If they do mind then  we would schedule the job for printing another day. In the end it`s not the clients mistake. Why are there shirts missing in the first place? And why has it been only spotted when the job went to press?

[ericheartsu]

We printed a order of Bordeaux shirts this week and were missing a few so used shirts from a different supplier.    Same quality, slightly different color.      I got a call for the person who ordered them, not happy, I said she can send them back.    Then the director of the organization phoned.
I think people sometimes loose perspective on what's important in life.
I've been to Alan's shop and can picture him going into the embroidery dept. where all the ladies work and getting told off by a customer who doesn't understand that we are not printing on paper and when people where the shirts nobody will ever see that slight distortion.   

]
I`ll be honest this would never happen in our shop, replacing a few missing shirts with a different brand of shirt. At least we would inform the client first and ask if the would mind. If they do mind then  we would schedule the job for printing another day. In the end it`s not the clients mistake. Why are there shirts missing in the first place? And why has it been only spotted when the job went to press?

Yep same thing here.

[Frog]

I used to even have problems with client complaints about dye-lot differences with Purple Ports.
Enough that when I mentioned it to the distributor, they flagged my account with a "Please check that purples match" note to the packers!

Same thing happened many years ago when Stahl's changed their Thermofilm material, with noticeable visual differences. To this day, the invoices from my Stahls distributor still have a note "NEW FILM ONLY!"

[3Deep]

When people are that anal you wonder how do they function during the day , I had one of our contract customer's call me anal about the there artwork, and I told them I only want to get it right because I don't want your customer jumping down your throat then you looking at me sideways .  I have friend that has a screen shop, this cat can get away with ton's of stuff and the main reason is this biz is just something to keep him busy and does not need the money.

[Gilligan]

Our new employee comes from another shop and he said that when they would finish a job, they would have to bring it to the sales person.  He said one of the sales people there would take EVERY shirt out and inspect it... HARD!

Sounded like having one of your worse customers doing QA for a large portion of the jobs you printed.  They wouldn't order any extras and were hard on them when they messed up.  Crazy!

He was in the groove yesterday and burnt up 4 sweatshirts due to a dryer backup... he felt terrible.  I had to assure him it was no big deal, it has happened to us all.  We used to have a camera to help catch that but the heat burnt it up (it was a uber cheap ebay job)... I put a good camera back there which watches the shirt stacking/counting process (after talking to them, they all loved the idea btw)... so this camera also can see the end of the dryer.  I'll be feeding that to a monitor on the top of the press so they can keep an eye on the belt now.

[mk162]

I had a customer come in with a smudge on a shirt...an ash gray shirt with an light orange smudge.  i could BARELY see it.  She found another one while she was here on the same shirt and I had to have another person blow it out because I kept losing it when I moved the shirt it was so light.

I seriously wouldn't expect anybody to ever catch those they were so faint.

[JBLUE]

Our new employee comes from another shop and he said that when they would finish a job, they would have to bring it to the sales person.  He said one of the sales people there would take EVERY shirt out and inspect it... HARD!

Sounded like having one of your worse customers doing QA for a large portion of the jobs you printed.  They wouldn't order any extras and were hard on them when they messed up.  Crazy!

He was in the groove yesterday and burnt up 4 sweatshirts due to a dryer backup... he felt terrible.  I had to assure him it was no big deal, it has happened to us all.  We used to have a camera to help catch that but the heat burnt it up (it was a uber cheap ebay job)... I put a good camera back there which watches the shirt stacking/counting process (after talking to them, they all loved the idea btw)... so this camera also can see the end of the dryer.  I'll be feeding that to a monitor on the top of the press so they can keep an eye on the belt now.

Dont change his attitude. Be happy that he is bummed for messing up 4. He should be. The busier you get the more expensive that gets as it happens more often. It is hard enough to get someone that gives a sh!t about your money like you do.

[ol man]

Dont change his attitude. Be happy that he is bummed for messing up 4. He should be. The busier you get the more expensive that gets as it happens more often. It is hard enough to get someone that gives a sh!t about your money like you do.
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