The Bad Customer

For some reason, I've run across a rash of long-distance shoppers who (apparently) have nothing better to do than run a dozen or more different dealers across the country on the quest for the same special order product. This goes beyond regular price-shopping, and gets into custom modifications whereupon said customer is trying to drill down to the last nickel on price.

If you are one of those people doing this, I want you to STOP IT. You make everyone crazy.

In fact, before you waste an hour of my time, I will pay you $ 5 to your paypal account if you tell me in the first minute of our phone conversation that you've already put this identical request into fourteen other dealers in the past 24 hours. This way, I will not waste the next 45 minutes to an hour working up a sheet for your custom specifications, faxing it down to the supplier, and then having the supplier call me back later in the day telling me that they've had fourteen other requests for the exact same job from dealers all over the country!

I can appreciate you want to save a buck. We all do. But realize when you do this you take human resources up from all these people and the suppliers running into dozens of hours when all added up? Pick one dealer and let him have the job on your custom order.

Time is money. Respect other people's time.

Duane,
I have a candidate for "bad customer of the month."

I had a customer recently who ordered a 7 Pc. sectional. Despite my warnings and strong discouragement they insisted on special ordering the sectional with 6" legs instead of the normal 4" legs. I custom-made 28 6" legs for which I charged the customer an additional $20 each for a total of $560.

The customer received the sectional, set it up and told me that it was great. One month later I get a phone call. They don't like the 6" legs and would like me to send them 28 of the normal 4" legs. I do this without charge, even though it costs me about $150 for the legs and the shipping charges.

A few days after receiving the 4" legs I get another call from the customer. Since they are not using the 6" legs they would like to return them and get their $560 refunded. Of course I have absolutely no use for 6" legs. And they expect me to pay the return shipping.

All of you dealers out there -- What would you do in this situation?

Jeff Frank
Simplicity Sofas

Jeff,

I don't think any reasonable person expects you to refund custom work you performed at their request and they chose not to use. I think sometimes folks will 'try you on for size' in such a situation to see if you say "O.K.", what have they got to lose? Naturally you don't want them to be upset if you say 'no', but I don't see how you should be expected to refund their custom especially since you sent them standard legs at no charge. I would tell them that they should package up the custom 6" legs and put them in storage and "IF" you ever get another request from a customer for (28) legs that are modified to 6" you will buy them back from them at that time. Then keep their number and if that ever happens you can work something out with them at that time.

Customers should listen to those of use in the business when we advise against making something. I run into various scenarios such as that as well. Most folks listen, but the ones that press forward with the ill-advised custom work usually aren't happy with the result. We hate to say "I told you so"....but that's what comes to mind.

My favorite is the customer who is convinced they want the 8' round 1-piece custom dining table because they have a 16" x 16" square dining room. I say 'No, you don't want that". First of all, it won't fit into your house unless you have custom doors (standard doors are 7' high) and secondly the entire center of the table is a No Man's Land where nothing can move across the table. Still we make a few here and there upon their insistence and usually leave them in the garage at delivery time because they won't fit in the house or a threshold!

Jeff,

I'm a customer not a dealer. The customer is dead wrong. If the tall legs were finished correctly, attached correctly, and held the weight of the sofa with people sitting on it, you're done. If the sofa looks odd on tall legs or someone sitting on the sofa feels like Edith-Ann, that's what the customer ordered. It might be different if you were selling in the stratospheric price ranges with hundreds of percent markup and wanted to keep a very large source of revenue happy. I don't think that's the case.

I'd never expect custom work to be refundable, but some people aren't very bright. If your order form does not already explain how you handle custom work, protect yourself by revising it to do so.

Thanks for the advice.

A complicating factor that I neglected to mention is that my company has a warranty and return policy that states, If you are unhappy with our furniture for any reason whatsoever, you may return it for a full refund, including shipping.

In the case of the customer above I simply informed her that although I would not grant her a refund for the special legs, I would be happy to pick up the entire sectional and send her a full refund (including for the 6" legs.)

I had one other special factor in my favor. This sectional went into a large basement family room. To get to this family room you have to navigate a 24" wide stairway with two 90 degree turns and a ceiling that is only 66" high in some places. There are not many sofas or sectionals in the entire world that will fit down those stairs. It has been 5 days since I offered to take back the sectional and I have not yet heard from the customer.

The purpose behind my original posting was simply to point out how some customers can make unreasonable demands. Actually, she is one of only two unreasonable customers that I have encountered in 3 years in business. (The other one was far worse.)

It is actually pretty difficult to meet my standards for "unreasonable." Sometimes customers will want to return their furniture because they don't like the fabric they selected from the swatches that were sent to them. Others will receive their order and then sheepishly admit that they ordered the wrong size sofa and it doesn't fit in the alcove where it needs to go.

I have no problem building new furniture for these customers and picking up the pieces they did not like. (It's usually pretty easy for me to sell returned pieces at or near full value.) Offering to promptly correct customer errors without charge or argument generates incredible customer loyalty as well as outstanding comments and reviews that spread around the internet. To me, the value of creating this type of customer, who will let others know about our products and our customer service, is more than worth the modest financial loss involved.

Jeff Frank
Simplicity Sofas