After our first year in the screen printing business, I have noticed I have a lot of pet peeves that customers do or say. I thought I'd make a list...
1. "If I like these 24 pieces, I will come back for more!"
2. "If these designs sell, I will come back for more."
3. "If you discount me, perhaps you can use your logo somewhere on the t-shirt and you might get a lot of business in the future!"
4. "I want to start a clothing line..."
5. "I need a quote for 1000, but I only want to order 24."
6. "I know we need t-shirts, but can you tell me how much it will cost (customer gives no detail to quote by).
7. "Can you give me a quote for 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 colors, and for 24, 36, 72, 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 1000, 3000 pieces?" (customer then orders the minimum...)
8. "How come my photo that is printed CMYK doesn't look like what it does on my computer screen. (then we explain the DPI difference, which we already remind them before printing), ohhhh...hm. I still don't like it."
9. "If I order, how do I know it will be good quality?" (I never deal with people like this...they are trouble, soon after they receive their order they will call demanding a refund. Why? Because they weren't planning to pay in the first place! It's no worse then a scam.)
10. "I'm planning on ordering 24 shirts, but you won't provide me with a sample before I place an order?"
11. "How much do you charge for just your blanks." ($4.00 for colored Gildan), "WHAT?!?! I can get them for $2.00! You're getting ripped off" (uhh yes, go right ahead, $4.00 is for retail).
Don't people understand we are in for profit also? How does it make sense that I will sell blanks for $2.00 to the customer, if my price is $2.00 from my vendor???
I also hate it that people think they can run over us by calling to complain and demanding money back when they have no legit reason. I agree if it was our mistake to refund a customer. (You can tell when they have no real reason when they decide to hang up on you). Many people have the nerve to scam business's to their hard earned money! I personally blame the retail business for spoiling most consumers and allowing them to return almost anything back to the stores.
I just hate some things people say, and a majority of the customers say it too! I just had a complainer about a CMYK print at the end of the day today who really didn't have a clue, so this is just a rant....feel free to add onto the list, I'm sure there are plenty more.
Calling up and saying that they want to order X amounts of shirts, and oh yeah, they need them tomorrow. Somebody called me last Friday morning and wanted shirts Saturday morning. Get lost, there's almost no way I could do that, and he would have definitely been told by me that a rush fee was necessary, but wouldn't have liked it.
"If you give us a good price, we'll come back for more" (I think all my prices are good!)
"Can you mail me some samples of shirts that you've done?" Usually I never hear from them again. From now on I'm going to say there is a $20 fee for mailing samples. Those who are not very serious won't do it, and waste my time and money.
"How much do you pay for your shirts?" I consider that private, worrying that customers will think I'm ripping them off when I charge $8 a shirt for 20 1color shirts if they know I pay $2.50 for a shirt...
Crappy artwork!
Last edited by brent; July 22nd, 2008 at 02:43 AM.
Oh, I forgot a big one... "Keep the screen cause I might order more." I'll keep it until I reclaim it as needed!
Edit: "I'm starting a clothing line..." A clothing line that's just t-shirts? Isn't that a t-shirt line, not a clothing line, unless you're making more than just t-shirts... Everybody's starting a "clothing line" these days, and they want huge prints. I lose out on a lot of jobs because I can't do full/oversized printing.
Also, I specialize in discharge printing, and rank high if you google it, so people come to me with discharge requests that I can't do sometimes. "Have you seen Affliction shirts? That's what I'm going for." is one of my most frequent annoying questions.
Last edited by brent; July 22nd, 2008 at 02:44 AM.
Reason: Thought of a couple more...
"Have you seen Affliction shirts? That's what I'm going for." is one of my most frequent annoying questions.
Oh my lord...the affliction line I hear almost every week.
This one guy came into the shop the other day explaining to me his whole story, "I am a self made graphic designer, I want to be better then Affliction, I know I can design better then them. I also don't understand people who go to school for graphic design, I learned all the programs myself without going to school for it...Stupid people."
I was insulted. I myself, went to school for graphic design and graduated with #1 best portfolio, but don't call myself stupid for going to school.
I told him to show me his stuff (I really wanted to see how great his designs were), he said he was afraid I would steal his designs. WTF?! You came to us, to print your clothing, but you won't show me your designs?.....
I also hear "Do you do oversize prints?" Well, I guess it really depends what you think an oversize print is. "Well, I'm not sure, it's kinda big." Uhhh...standard print is 13x16" so if it exceeds that, it will be considered an oversized print. "Well, I don't know the size of the print." "Do you guys also change the graphic size for each t-shirt size?" (I got this question on a 24 piece order, 6 color job order................)
Another one, "Can I come sit down with your graphic designer as they design my artwork for me?"
Another one I extremely hate is when a customer calls in the middle of the week when they were already given a finish date and says, "Hi, I was calling to just check in on my order, How are they looking so far?"
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, PEOPLE, PEOPLE, please understand that just because we have a 7-10 business day turnaround, doesn't mean we have 11 gnomes constantly working on your order 8 hours a day. And we explain this to some customers who don't understand this concept, and they continually argue as to why they then have to wait 7-10 business days. A lot of them don't understand after careful explaination.
Last edited by TshirtGuru; July 21st, 2008 at 08:33 PM.
" I want to order like 10 today, maybe another dozen next week, and If they sell well, I'll order a couple dozen next month...give me a good deal cause my band is about to get signed and then we'll order 1000's to go in Hot Topic" I got that one 2 weeks ago.
"If I order 25 today, 50 next month, and 25 in September, can I get a price break of 100 pieces?" I got that yesterday.
"Can I see how you produce your shirts in the back?" Hell no, do you ask the restaurant cook if you could visit his kitchen? I immediately placed a EMPLOYEES ONLY sign on the door.
"Do I get a discount if I come help you fold my t-shirts or if I help print them?" Got this a year ago when we first started.
Also got, "Can I have these done by tommorow if I come help you guys?"
"Can you print on slightly used clothes I have?"
"Can you let me know who your vendors are?" .................no comment
This is a public forum, accessible to anyone, and indexed by Google. For those of you with your business name or website in your signature, you should understand that this thread (and any other thread you have commented on) will show up when someone searches for you.
Now, if your customers have a sense of humour that might not be too bad, but you never know.
For those of you with your business name or website in your signature
In the quick reply mode there is a show your signature tick box below the text field.
In the "advanced posting" / reply with quote reply mode (you know, the one with all the stuff, on the next screen) underneath the "Reply to thread" field is an "Additional options" field that has the same tick box.
Using that you can turn off your signature on an individual post basis.
In other words, if you want to you can have your signature not show up on posts like this, and still have one on your other posts.
That wouldn't make it impossible for your customers to find, but it would make it unlikely.
Oh this is so good, especially first thing this morning! I can't wait to blast somebody! Pleeeease call me this morning with some b.s.... Pleeeaaaaase!
I got a phone call on my cell last Thursday at 9:40pm - b.s.'er
Then I got a knock at my HOME front door at 10:30 pm- HOME!!!!!!!
wtf? Who the hell are you? "I heard you mass produce t-shirts..." , Who told you that, what do you mean you heard?
Here's one for you: "You're going to keep my screens right, we'll probably order some more later."
This one I hate: "I need you to sign this agreement stating that you will not use my artwork" then they never do the order.
P.S. I hope somebody googles this and reads my post. I have quite a few GOOD customers, the other ones know who they are.
Without the stupid questions what fun would it be to be in business. Actually the questions arent stupid, the customer just doesnt know how to give you money. All the above mentioned consumer questions are basically saying take my cash because I dont know what the hell I'm doing.
"Hi, I need to just get one shirt made. How much would that be?"
"What is the shirt like?"
"Oh, simple, white text on the front of a black t-shirt"
"Alright, if I have a black shirt in stock in your size, it would be $45"
"What? $45?"
"Yeah, to compensate for the time I'd spend making just one shirt, I need to charge $45"
"Hmmm... Ok yeah I'll call you back *click*" (They never do)
Usually the high price drives them away. If it was an easy print, I feel like $45 would be worth it, if I could just pick the shirt out of my own inventory. I once did three unique shirts for this guy because I wanted a huge hoodie order he was getting information about, charged like $35 to $45 a shirt. Sorta still not worth it...
Also any of those scams were someone needs to buy 2000 white shirts in size XL to be shipped to orphans or whatever in Africa. They ask the price and I say something ridiculous. Responded to one of those emails this morning by saying I needed $40000 in cash to provide the shirts.
Then I got a knock at my HOME front door at 10:30 pm- HOME!!!!!!!
wtf? Who the hell are you? "I heard you mass produce t-shirts..." , Who told you that, what do you mean you heard?
I had that happen the other day too... came home to a note taped on my door with a phone number
Printer vs. Customer Pet Peeves 
