man one of those days!

[ericheartsu]

Last week customer comes in, and wants a black on black tultex print. Adamant about it being black on black. Really wants to get into the tone on tone of the design. I advise that might not be the best thing, but if he wants it, we'll do it.

Finish shirts this morning, and an hour later he calls up livid. Says that in certain lights it looks green, but he can't even see his print on it. Says we took to long to print them, so he ordered a second batch (keep in mind we printed within 5 business days, which is quick for us, no charge of course) through someone else. So he brings our shirts in and says that we ripped him off and the quality is so bad on ours that he can't sell them.

our black was straight out of the bucket unisoft black, through a 272 screen. The other shirts, which were perfect were printed most likely through an 86 or 110 mesh.

however, i point out several times that he approved the mock up, which clearly states that the color tone of the tee is lightened, to see the print correctly.

I refuse to refund him, as we did what we were asked for. I told him, i'd re-print an order to his specs at a discount, but that we did what we were asked!

man that ruined an already bad day

[ebscreen]

Tone on tone/prints like these are incredibly difficult to communicate. He, quite obviously, had a different idea of the desired end result.
Almost impossible to avoid a press check, and for many cases, not worth it, for most types of folks that want that sort of thing.

[ericheartsu]

Tone on tone/prints like these are incredibly difficult to communicate. He, quite obviously, had a different idea of the desired end result.
Almost impossible to avoid a press check, and for many cases, not worth it, for most types of folks that want that sort of thing.

I 100% agree, and tired to relay that info in the beg. but we obviously have very different ideas on how it should be done.

[TCT]

Man that sucks! I know that type of customer all to well, they are just looking for something to complain  as out!

We have had pretty good luck when doing a tone on tone black to add either a matte additive or HD clear. Seems to help the print stand out a bit better....

[ericheartsu]

Man that sucks! I know that type of customer all to well, they are just looking for something to complain  as out!

We have had pretty good luck when doing a tone on tone black to add either a matte additive or HD clear. Seems to help the print stand out a bit better....

if we end up reprinting them, i was thinking about adding a puff clear, or the HD clear. but we don't ever print with that stuff. 99% of our customers ask for discharge/wb

[kingscreen]

We keep a black on black printed shirt in our front showroom to show people exactly what it will look like. We typically use Union Ultrasoft black printed through a 155 for black on black or we will use Wilflex's HD Clear. Both leave a glossy print that is much more visible than our standard out-of-the-bucket black. Another trick, if using Tultex, is to print them on Coal instead of Black since it is a marginally lighter garment.

[mooseman]

here is another trick to shine up black plastisol a little...throw it under your heat press WITH A TEFLON SHEET cover.... the Teflon sheet will shine up the ink on the dull shirt.
Likewise using a piece of parchment paper will mat the ink through the same process with the different cover.
Either operation will soften up the hand of the ink.
mooseman

[GraphicDisorder]

Tone on Tone is tough.  Black on black we have done before but I always question it as it really is just not super ideal.  I prefer a few shades lighter than black so it shows up a touch better.  But customer is always right, right?

[Doug S]

But customer is always right, right?

We do our best to please the customer but a few over the years has me thinking a different way.  The customer is always right unless they're wrong!

[alan802]

We had a customer refuse a job last week that we sent a proof to but apparently they didn't look at it.  Simple white print on assorted colors and a certain text part of their logo was dropped recently and nobody told us so we sent them a proof of their logo that we've done for them several different times over the years and they approved it and said run it.  Then when they came to pick up they said the text at the top of their logo wasn't supposed to be there.  They asked that we eat the cost of the reprint entirely since they would like to keep using us for their screen printing.  They spend less than $300 a year with us so we politely declined to reprint their job for free and offered to reprint at a discount and they could buy the misprints if they wanted at our cost.  They didn't want to do that even though they didn't do their part of the process and there really isn't much else we could have done.

[prozyan]

It wasn't screenprinting, but a recent customer ordered 6 five by three banners.  Customer picked them up, said everything looked great.  Next day, she brings them back and says they are too big.  So I get out the tape measure and show they are exactly 5'x3'.  She leaves and returns later with a banner and says that this banner is the size she needs.  We measure it and its 30"x30".  She wanted me to redo all six banners at no charge, apparently because although they were the size she ordered, they were not the size she meant.  I said, ok, I'll redo the banners for free, but I'm going to have to charge an extra $300 for the mind reading service.

Customers are, at times, the worst part of business.

[alan802]

If you sent an e-proof with the exact logo, shirt color and ink color and they don't look at it what are we to do? There is a good reason why most all of us send a digital representation of the job for approval.  They replied to the email with the attached proof saying everything looked great.  I guess we could have put the image into the body of the email so they didn't have to open an attachment?  I don't mind doing that if it would help.

[tpitman]

Tone on Tone is tough.  Black on black we have done before but I always question it as it really is just not super ideal.  I prefer a few shades lighter than black so it shows up a touch better.  But customer is always right, right?

The customer is frequently wrong, but his money is always right.

[ericheartsu]

So far this week we've had 3 instances (not including this one), of clients just approving the mock up with out looking at it or reading it.

Im not sure what else to do. maybe hold their hand a bit, and walk them through it even more and charge it as a premium service.

[ebscreen]

Put offensive words or pictures of turds on their shirt. Then ask them to double check.