Honesty

[neiljustframes]

Customer collected 5 frames on Friday the 12th, all wrapped, 4 of which were in 2 cellophane bags , back to back, these were shown to her and taken away leaving a tip in the process, heard nothing till Wednesday when husband phoned to say the hangers had scratched the face of the frames, after this he arrived Friday to show me the frames, in an asda carrier bag, 3, out of the 4 damaged, asked where the original packing was , he insists that's how his wife collected them and how he found them on Friday night on his arrival home from work, the fact he did not phone on Saturday or monday/ tuesday to report this, he feels is irrelevant ,we had a few words and he stormed off ,free to slag off my business to any one who will listen, this has left me totally gutted and ready to pack it all in, if the guy had addmitted that he or his wife, had by mistake or lack of care placed the frames back to face I would have sorted something out for him , but to lie through his teeth like that really made me mad, nothing like this in twenty years framing,has this country run out of morals? Is everything somebody else's fault? Sorry rant over.

[IFGL]

through the shear volume of what we produce, this is something we have to put up with , I wouldn't say regulary , but probably twice a year, we check every item before it leaves the shop and wrap it accordingly .I just replace the frame even though I know price it did not leave my shop in the condition it was brought back. our reputation is more valuable to us than the cost of a bit of molding. I would rather stab them in the eye with my Stanley knife but I'm all smiles.

It takes exceptional work too be recommended, but only minor problems too be slagged off.

[theframer]

The only way to get around this in the future is to have a collected in good condition box on your invoice so the customer can sign it when they collect the framed pictures in perfect condition then your are covered,
I have had customers pick up big pictures and then strugle to get them into a small sports car only for them to bring them back damaged,
I can normaly get away with replacing 1 damaged side and will do it as a good will gesture.
Regards
dave

[IFGL]

we do get customers who bring items back and admit they have damaged them , we replace these free of charge too.

[Roboframer]

If someone came in with that sort of damage - damage I am 100% confident was not there when it left the shop (which is pretty much always) and with that sort of attitude, then reputation is not a worry - a reputation for taking no old BS is not a bad reputation!

However, we play things by ear and in this case I might be thinking that this is not the customer, it's the customer's other half; I don't know what's gone on between collection and that phone call, maybe a huge domestic with maybe a worse one if not resolved to the other half's satisfaction? She may have done the damage but is too scared to fess up to him so is blaming you and dreading his return with the situation unresolved. Counting on you IOW, to save her from ..... who knows!

[IFGL]

when I worked on my own I did take that stance, now we have several staff and most of the the time several customers in the shop, it makes more sense for us to replace the stuff, if it became a significant dent on profit I would rethink.

[prospero]

I'm always willing to give any customer the benefit of the doubt. But in this case there is no doubt. Tell him the frames were packed properly and in perfect nick when collected. End of. If he gets stroppy, too bad. It's not too difficult to work out what happened. Mrs unwraps them to have a peek. Jams them in a carrier bag until showing them to hubby. Hubby notices dings. Mrs won't own up or doesn't realise it her fault. Hubby gets the right hump.

It's not a bad idea to have a CCTV camera covering the counter. Could save a few arguments even if it's a dummy.

[Roboframer]

.... and if, when you know, for sure, the damage happened after it had left the shop ... and the customer is aggressive/out of order .... and it's a really expensive moulding/whatever that you don't have any stock of any more (or maybe it was a chop order as well) - ????

We have staff too and - for example - on Sat made over 100 sales, so probably at least 160 people through the door.

As I said, we play these situations by ear, although our (unwritten) policy is we can and will not be held responsible for any damage (to anything, not just frames; we sell loads of other stuff) after it has left the premises, we nearly always "do something" up to and including complete FOC replacement - depending on many factors, including attitude.

We've had people ranting and raving over situations like this (like, they're wrong and they bloody well know they are and they know we know they are too) when the shop is rammed and I'm sure a big part of their strategy is that we will want to be ever so cap-wringing in front of an audience. Sorry - if we know we're right and it's obvious you're trying it on, we want the 'audience' to appreciate just what an arsehole you are and, on several occasions, have been congratulated by other customers on how these types have been dealt with.

In fact, on one occasion another customer butted in and asked the person to leave ... and that was over a ball of wool!

[IFGL]

again exactly how I did it before ' I once physically ejected a customer over a £12 mirror . it's just no longer worth my time or effort to do so, I do tell my staff they are not to accept certain behavior , they are not paid to be sworn at. but in general we just replace .

the ball of wool incident lol.

[Steve N]

About 18 years ago, the policy was to wrap the frames in bubble wrap, then show the customer when they came to collect, one day one of the staff just gave the customer the picture without unwrapping it. As we watched him walk across the road and along the pavement, we saw him hit the bottom corner of the frame against a doorstep. He came back the next day to complain the the frame was damaged when he left the shop, it would of been his word against our, but we just changed the frame and he became a very good customer. Now I ALWAYS show the customer every frame in the order before they leave.

On another occasion I sold a large clip frame to a guy, open the box and showed it to him, he comes back about 10 minutes later asking to exchange it as it's broken, when I ask how it happened , he said he had knocked it against a big concrete flower pot outside the shopping center, told to take it up with the center management

[Tudor Rose]

We ALWAYS unwrap the frames or mounts to show customers. We learnt the lesson by watching what happened in my in laws shop where customers would regularly try it on with breakages they had very obviously done at home or on the way home.

My particular favourite was a man who came back in one day when I was helping out on the till, with a mug that he had bought about 20 minutes earlier. The mug had been checked over by me and then wrapped in tissue paper before being put into a paper bag for him to carry. When he handed it back complaining that he had just noticed it was damaged, it was in about 20 pieces. I just looked at him and said "you're joking, right?" He laughed, shrugged his shoulders and said "it was worth a try!" and then bought himself another mug to replace the broken one.

People will always try it on and so it is better not to give them the opportunity.

[mikeysaling]

In my experience (albeit working as data security vice president in a major us bank) the following holds true in all walks of life - staff and customers alike

25% are totally honest at all times

25% are totally dishonest whenever possible

50% are as honest as controls and personal motivation dictate.

I could give you even more interesting figures !! some alarming

[Jonny2morsos]

I had a customer last Xmas who came back in with a frame with damage on the corner which I know was definitely not there when she collected it.

I always used bubblewrap but I now have a template on my CMC which I adjust to frame depth for cutting protective corners from scrap mount board. These go on in addition to the bubblewrap.

[Jo]

I framed three long service awards for a local company, and wrapped them individually on collection. Over zealous lady was so impressed with them back at the office, she opened them all, stacked them up and rushed in to show the boss...
Four new sides later, she apologetically collected the two damaged ones again, and has been more careful with all their framing since!

I used to wrap two items together, back to back, but as soon as I saw a customer shove them back in the same way round, made a new policy to wrap frames individually. A bit of extra wrapping is cheaper and quicker than replacing sides.

I had an irate customer in lately, saying what a poor quality frame I had sold her daughter about a year previously, because it was all peeling apart. It was a very poor quality mdf paper wrapped frame, and even when I pointed out the £9.99 price tag from some cheap store still stuck on the back, I'm still not completely convinced she believed me!