The life of a customer relationship.

[Dottonedan]

I just had been thinking about the though process of the ever age customer of a printer.

It seems 9 out of 10 new or potential customers complain of my competitors. Always about everything like customer service mostly. Calling back, rudeness, mistakes that go uncorrected, printed wrong, etc, mostly everything (other than art and print quality). None of then say, man, the prints just dont look goo. never, but i know they are not that good looking to be nicr. That tells me something also, but that's another post.

With that said, I wonder how long a satisfied customer actually stays loyal even after you've done every order great for the last 10 jobs you did for them but one was messed up in some way.

I imagine it like this. that for the average customer (custom 1 time a year) customers, you only get that chance and if its messed up that one time, you might not see them for another 3-5 years. The reason might be, because they are going to the next 2-5 shops each time looking for that perfect experience and price.

At My last place of employment, they stayed with a vendor for 5, 10 and 15 years for the bigger players, but most only for 1-3 years and then the printer seems to fall off the radar.

I had a customer that came in to get 4 shirts done. We did vinyl letters. She was a problem customer from the start and the wife and I knew it was not going to end well. Turns out, shes fully OCD. she complained of all the othet shops. she put in an order, very picky, questioned everything, wanted the most hard to find items...wanted them within 5 days, leaving today for a trip. we did it.Bent over baackeards. When she picked up the shirts, she loved them...and cried on the spot, so happy!  Then, next day, she email 6-8 pictured of the shirts. Had them crumpled up, stuffed in a bag in a hot car. She pulled them out to see they were not flat and smooth like when we gave them to her. (Vynil lettrrs) She was "sooo dissappointed in us and our service". So, we divorced her politely. 

[aauusa]

for us you are only as good as the last customer says you are.

but then you always have those customers which are just a pain.

[ZooCity]

I love it when we give someone the "screen printing experience they've been searching for", that's the best, and we totally pull that off for a lot of jobs but not all of them.   I think the scale of your business really factors into this.  By sheer numbers, the more work you do with more clients the higher the odds that you'll get problems. 

Anyways, I agree, I think most customers bounce around and around with printers, sometimes for very legit reasons other times for petty or even ignorant ones (your example falls into the latter).  I don't really blame them, the "grass is greener" mentality affects us all.  I mean how many us switch up inks, chems, mesh, suppliers, shirts, etc. every year?   But when someone goes off to me about the "last three printers" they used boy howdy do I stay on my toes with them to try and avoid being number four. 

I see it as the never ending and often exhausting challenge of our work- just printing well is nowhere near enough. 

[abchung]

"you are as good as your last job"......
We would bend over backwards for our customers. If they are unreasonable, then we politely raise our price for the next order.
If they think it is still worth coming back. Then good. If not...then good.

"The grass is greener on the other side"? That is the thing that push us to be better everyday.

[beanie357]

The customer is generally clueless to the whole process. They only know they were not "happy" at prior relationships. They do not read care instructions, they do not understand time, and the instant gratification idea spoils their ability to think custom.

Most are unable to vocalize exactly what they want or even mean. It is up to our csr girls to translate, educate, and set the relationship on the mutually beneficial path. Once this is established, even if the customer does bonehead stuff, they all laugh and go on to the next project.

We do feel we only are as good as the job on the table, and expect no quarter if it is our issue.

But, some customers need to be fired, as no relationship can be created, as they are too superior for us mere decorators.