Shop problems

My friend who owns a small shop was asked to do a system in a ferrari 550 maranello. The car was brought over from a body shop from a $80,000 reapir/retrofit. He was going to look it over, plan out what he was going to do, had a friend of his from the Ferrari repair shop over to help as well. With labor and and gear it was to be about $14,000-$16,000 job. Navi, some fabrication, Dynaudio, Brax, etc. Some of this gear had to special ordered like the Pioneer screen and the radar detector which was a K-40.

The owner said he wanted to sound great blah blah blah. Well the owner called yesterday and said he wanted to scale back the project, and only spend about $10,000. So my friend says oh if ($16,000) that is too rich for your blood  then we can maybe do something. The owner flipped out and started bragging about how he owned Bentleys and Mercs.

The guy called back later and was acting friendly and buddy buddy and wants to go ahead do it for the "lower" price. Well my friend said ok, but has since changed his mind and returned the car to the body shop without telling the owner. Pretty ballsy imo.

I think he should have swallowed his pride and just did the job at a lower cost with lesser gear. What do you think? 

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    With a guy like that i would get the money first then do the job. Even rish people dont like to spend money. i did a ferrari not to long ago and the guy did not want to pay me so i had to take him to court. and when i got paid then he got his car back.  make people sign their names next to the total bill so they cant stick you with free work. thats what i do when the bill is more then 5k.

SoundExplosion

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"You are only as good as your last install"
" T-taps should never be used"

I would think that he might do agreements as it makes sense, but his business is based on word of mouth stuff and isn't really into that image, besides a guy like that will probably be pain in the ass customer in the future, knit picking every thing.

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you are corect but 10k is 10k thats alot of money to take someones word on. but by doing what i said you can get rid of dead beet people. you dont want to have to wait to get paid. even if you ask for 1/2 payment at least that covered work and product. and 1/2 when car get picked up. in new york  where i am from thats the only way. its sad how some people are.

SoundExplosion

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"You are only as good as your last install"
" T-taps should never be used"

A customer is entitled to chage his mind on the investment he wants to make in HIS vehicle. The shop SHOULD HAVE LISTENED to the customer. Instead of taking a customer and building a relationship with him and the referalls that could have been generated, the shop has now sent the customer to their competition. Not a great way of doing business.

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Top Secret, I can tell you but then my wife will kill me.

Yeah, just sending the car back without the customer knowing was pretty stupid. The customer has the right to change his mind, as long as what he wants to change has not been done/installed yet (if it has been done then there is a charge). Custom is exempt from that little statement. He can cancel but must pay flat rate ($90 a hour for fiberglass, 65 a hour for other) for work performed. 10 grand is 10 grand, especially when 30+% is profit.

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Certified Security Specialist
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I've been sick lately, sorry I won't be on much.

I agree with both of your points. They are both logical. However when a customer backs out of a deal, especially like this one, it is a real pain in the ass, and frankly a bit of an insult. Product was special ordered, I had to drive quite a distance to get that k-40, cost is about 650 w/ difuser.

I don't know if I would have done it, but the guy was a real jerk on the phone apparently. Is it worth the possible future confrentations with this guy? Like I said, he probably is a knit picker. 

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Consider this, if this was your car, wouldn't you be picky about it as well? Just because it is a high profile vehicle does not mean that the customer should be treated any different that a customer who drives a Pinto.

Now if special order parts were necessary, the customer should have been made to pay in avance for those parts with a no return option on them. We all need parts and they differ from vehicle to vehicle. All it takes is getting burned by a customer once to instigate a no return on special order parts rule. Perhaps this is something that all shops need to be more aware of and how to make the customer more aware of it. If the customer is made aware, chances are he wouldn't have backed out of it, but since an escape route was there, he took it.

Buyers are liars is what it comes down to, if the job is done properly, it leaves out any of the uncertainties between buyer and seller. We all have had picky tempermental customers but suck it up and do the job that you are asked to do. I agree with what aeux posted about completed work or work in progress that the customer now wants to change or eliminate, that customer is responsible for that portion of the job at the completed stage it is at. This is no different than building a house and changing the paint colour.

Sure the guy can be a jerk on the phone, but to cast him aside based on it, well now the shop will never have him or the referalls to continue to grow the business. I would get the customer on the phone, get him down to the shop and go through the whole damn thing again. Make the customer feel important, be thorough with him and explain to him how cancelling special orders affects the ability to do business. He sounds like a businessman to me and without talking to him as one, how is one ever suppossed to find out?

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Top Secret, I can tell you but then my wife will kill me.

Well I think my friend is on a bit of an ego trip and just doesn't want to deal with the situation. I am in between in his desicion.

He runs a small shop, and is justified in being picky when it comes to customers. I believe his reasoning for dismissing this customer was to avoid further issues that probably would arise. Whether or not it is an 1k system or 16k system the headache and time wasted dealing with the customer isn't worth it. But reapeat customers are where its at, I know, and so are most of his customers.

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I understand where he is coming from, just last week I told a customer that I was refusing to do any more work on his car and that he is to pay his bill and take his business somewhere else as he is being too confrontational. At this point is when the customer snapped back into reality and realized that I run the show here and not him. End result, a finished install and a happy customer who has since referred someone else in to see us.

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Top Secret, I can tell you but then my wife will kill me.

Thats it, slap 'em around, make 'em your beotches, and they'll send in their friends.

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Nik
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Check it out.

Nitpicky or not a customer is a customer.As far as special order parts they should have had to be paid for upfront as well as a signed agreement/contract on the total bill.

Also though I agree with a confrontational customer is not a good customer :)

Bj White

Reality check, when a guy who drops 80k at the body shop comes by to get a "rockin" system and asks for gear and fabrication for about 14-16k you don't ask him to sign papers like at circuit city. This is beyond that. I might even go as so far as to say if he were asked, he may be insulted.  

I think these rules (customer is right, etc) apply themselves about 99% of the  time in this business. With a project like this, I think there are exceptions to the rules. This guy came to the shop, has more money than he knows what to do with and asks for all this stuff and then backs out. Its not that he was looking to take advantage of the guy whatsoever, but his business is based almost soley on word of mouth and dealing with a flip flop guy like this will result in more problems than its worth. He has a rep to keep, becasue in this county where his shop is, it is full people like this, who have excessive wealth. So my point is turning away someone like this may be better in the long run, becaue his actual work was never questioned.

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dwarren wrote:

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Reality check, when a guy who drops 80k at the body shop comes by to get a "rockin" system and asks for gear and fabrication for about 14-16k you don't ask him to sign papers like at circuit city. This is beyond that. I might even go as so far as to say if he were asked, he may be insulted.  

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 For a guy wanting to drop $80k at the bodyshop, then come into the sound shop, set up a $15k install then call and want to reduce it to $10k, sends up all kinds of warning flags to me.. regardless of that, it would be in writing what the work to be done - equipment to be installed is. For both parties sake. 

dwarren wrote:

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I think these rules (customer is right, etc) apply themselves about 99% of the  time in this business. With a project like this, I think there are exceptions to the rules. This guy came to the shop, has more money than he knows what to do with and asks for all this stuff and then backs out. Its not that he was looking to take advantage of the guy whatsoever, but his business is based almost soley on word of mouth and dealing with a flip flop guy like this will result in more problems than its worth. He has a rep to keep, becasue in this county where his shop is, it is full people like this, who have excessive wealth. So my point is turning away someone like this may be better in the long run, becaue his actual work was never questioned.

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  When are consumers going to understand that business owners can turn them away?.. the business does NOT have to work on their vehicle?  All the business has is it's reputation.. if they start doing work the way the customer wants it, rather than the way the shop thinks it needs to be done they are risking everything.

'the customer' "But shop X can do the work for X amount less than you!!"

'me' "I can't do that.. I suggest you take your vehicle to them."

 Jim

Insulted or not,dont matter how much they dropped somewhere else the shop has to be assured your money.Like was stated before in this post alot of so called rich people HATE to spend money.. i guess that is why they are rich :)

a $14,000 dollar install that someone will not pay for is enough to close a small shop.

As for him backing it down to 10,000 nothing wrong with that sicne it is his choice... what about when the work i all done or even partially done and he only wants $5000 put into it?

Must be nice to live in a part of the world where you can just take a persons word for $15,000 worth of work.

BJ White