Latest Rejects

[Dottonedan]

Even a bad situation can be handled well. It's challenging but I kind of like the challenge of overpowering my personal emotions or to be too reactionary.

In my early days, I had a few similar situations and proved them wrong hands down. At that time, I might have said something like Yea! How do you like them apples!!  But I've improved with age. lol. Now I go out of my way not to embarrass the others involved and myself. The outcome is always better and easier to swallow the truth when you prove your correct with facts in a friendly "team like" manor. Emphasis on TEAM.   Not that Alen didn't do this. I'm just reflecting while having lunch.

[Sbrem]

Even a bad situation can be handled well. It's challenging but I kind of like the challenge of overpowering my personal emotions or to be too reactionary.

In my early days, I had a few similar situations and proved them wrong hands down. At that time, I might have said something like Yea! How do you like them apples!!  But I've improved with age. lol. Now I go out of my way not to embarrass the others involved and myself. The outcome is always better and easier to swallow the truth when you prove your correct with facts in a friendly "team like" manor. Emphasis on TEAM.   Not that Alen didn't do this. I'm just reflecting while having lunch.

This is it; you invite them into the process so they understand. I've offered money for a customer to show me an absolute perfect print, with the idea being that the point is it's only perfect until you remove it from the press. Once the threads move, the ink moves with them, it's only physics, right? It's not like they can prove otherwise. Funny how writing the check makes you more of an expert than the professional. I think in Alan's case, the boss should see this on press so they don't have to eat product for no good reason, and be well armed when making the sale...

Steve

[JBLUE]

Its the way they were loaded. 85% of what we do is printed on paper thin fashion crap. Most guys stretch it in both directions when they load and pull back on the shirt to center on the pallet. This causes it to pucker when pulled. Other guys over compensate the other way and try and shrink it in the middle causing it to bulge after its pulled. Every time someone new starts here they do the same thing. Takes them a little practice to get it down but its not to difficult to get them doing it the right way once they are shown. That shirt in the pic here would get someones ass chewed for letting them go like that.

[alan802]

I don't like the way my guy loads shirts but he doesn't mess the shirt up the way he does it.  I've seen some press ops load the shirt in a way that could cause issues but it isn't happening here.  High tack pallets and fashion type shirts are a pain to load compared to these shirts.  There is virtually no stress on the threads when loading, at least not the way we do it.  The shirt is put on a few inches past where it will be once in place then grabbed by the seams and pulled UP and then back while slightly dropping the shirt as we go backward then the seam is over the edge of the pallet and the shirt is then ready.

[Sbrem]

I don't like the way my guy loads shirts but he doesn't mess the shirt up the way he does it.  I've seen some press ops load the shirt in a way that could cause issues but it isn't happening here.  High tack pallets and fashion type shirts are a pain to load compared to these shirts.  There is virtually no stress on the threads when loading, at least not the way we do it.  The shirt is put on a few inches past where it will be once in place then grabbed by the seams and pulled UP and then back while slightly dropping the shirt as we go backward then the seam is over the edge of the pallet and the shirt is then ready.

Pretty similar here, pull back, and the shirt is in the air, so it can fall onto the plate instead of being stretched over it, then a quick swipe to push it into the tack.

Steve

[screenxpress]

Did you tell her to go wash the shirts and dry them like her husband would and everything would be fine?

Hear, Hear! 

But Alan was already wearing tire tracks.

[GKitson]

Once or twice a year we run into a 'hypersensitive customer', and they are easy to recognize.

When we receive a photo with a ruler laid on the garment their is only one response from our staff.

"There are a lot of reasons beyond our control that may have contributed to your issue and I am sorry we have not meet your expectations, What would you like us to do to make it right?"

No finger pointing, no pissing contests and if the customer requests a refund/replacement we are happy to do it as the first financial loss is always the cheapest.  If you start chasing solutions you are throwing potentially a lot of good money after bad and it only gets more expensive and frustrating.

If you screwed up you should determine how and make it right.

If it was staff related re-train with clear expectations and review your Quality Control.

If you did not screw up and it was garment/ink/process related, learn from it and move on,

If it was customer expectation related review your communication policies, learn from it and move on.

If it was simply that the customer changed their mind and was looking for an out, accept it and move on, crap happens, nobody dies, learn from it and move on.

Changes are it was a combination of the above, phase of the moon, high humidity, Sputnik, and other things totally beyond your control, learn from it &....

Starting to see the pattern here folks.

My 2 cents,

~Kitson

[mimosatexas]

Instead of reprinting just "fix" the worst shirts manually with a counter stretch and steamer and give them the exact same shirts. I doubt they would even notice...

[ZooCity]

I share Greg's approach.  Might want to toss in that it "could always be worse"...

The last weeks have been spent working intermittently with a client who is very happy with our printing but rejecting shirts for garment reasons that are beyond all comprehension- they weigh differently on a gram scale, entire sizes on the order are "too shiny".  Whole box of a couple hundred 'rejects' here with post it notes affixed to most containing downright esoteric reasons for their return.  Ironically our prints look super tight on these runs, go figure. 

The right approach is "what can we do to meet your standards?"  Force them to define their needs, determine how to meet them, charge accordingly. 

[ebscreen]

they weigh differently on a gram scale, entire sizes on the order are "too shiny". 

I'm sorry we won't be able to meet your needs bye.

[Frog]

The right approach is "what can we do to meet your standards?"  Force them to define their needs, determine how to meet them, charge accordingly.

Whenever a new custy mentions that they weren't happy with their last printer, I try to nail down exactly what caused that unhappiness, just in case I feel that I can't match those expectations either.

[T Shirt Farmer]

Agreed. Poor handling by owner. Once a customer has an order under the microscope, you are usually doomed

Doomed... never if you are a professional

[Dottonedan]

Agreed. Poor handling by owner. Once a customer has an order under the microscope, you are usually doomed

Doomed... never if you are a professional

You can be "professional" about a situation and still lose money. If you choose to bite the bullet and take some un-due loss to appease the customer, make sure it doesn't repeat. Educate the customer each time. When you allow an incorrect, unknowing customer to "continue" to dictate the outcome, you become un-professional. With some people, it's unprofessional of a shop to continue to work with them. Choose carefully.

[mimosatexas]

they weigh differently on a gram scale, entire sizes on the order are "too shiny". 

I'm sorry we won't be able to meet your needs bye.

yea freak that...

[JBLUE]

I have found that the pickiest of customers are usually the ones we get the most referrals from. If we can satisfy them then then we are doing our job. We get so much business from the " its good enough they will never notice" printers its just not worth trying to a half ass repair and have them find it anyways. Reprint and move on. The key is getting the QC people to not let that crap happen in the first place.