Decal Damage - Really? Im calling B.S. What do you think?

Bates Detailing

Bates Detailing

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Ok - heres the background.... Got a third party guy setting up boat jobs for us - he has such a hard time with this one guy that he said it wasn't worth it. A millionaire for sure or at least has a million dollar home on the lake, is trying to wheel and deal to save 20 bucks for a wash and hand wax. The third party calls and says he isn't dealing with this guy anymore cause he is a pain in the butt. So I feel like I don't want to really deal with this guy either. 2 days later or so, 3rd party calls back and says he will take the wash and wax.... which got upgraded to a wash/cut/polish/wax. After meeting the guy, I understood him to be picky as could be so we went over every single inch and busted out the brushes for the final wipedown. 50 man hours and a HUGE turnaround later, this guy seems impartial to slightly disappointed with the results :

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So my crew and I felt that this was an amazing turnaround (sorry no befores, was rushed by this guy and got crankin) - this customer acted like it was nothing special at all! After hearing him gripe about how long it took, and how we missed a spot on the dash (which we didn't do at all and was not included) - he goes to the back of the boat and says we damaged one of his decals! I was shocked and took this pic :


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I don't see how this could have happened from a rotary without taking chunks and/or scratching the gel coat! I told him that and he says that it doesn't matter and that we must replace it! I said sure, we'll replace the O - he said that isn't good enough, you must replace the entire decals! By now I wanted to punch the guy in the face, but stayed calm and told him to get me the info for his decal guy.

Do you feel this was cause by a rotary?!?!??! I feel like this guy had this planned from the beginning or is just scandalous. What would you do?!?!?!? Im seriously shocked and pissed at the same time. Amazing turnaround for a horrible client!
 
Pay, chalk it up to experience and never do work for this guy again! Not worth having your reputation ruined.


BTW, that's one hell of a job. Looks great man! :cheers:
 
i highly doubt that was done by you guys. it's not in any sort of perfect arc, and it looks as if something sharp hit it a few times on the way across.

but...unfortunately, it's impossible to prove who is right without high resolution before pics so you probably have to eat it and chalk it up as a lesson learned about people THIS difficult to deal with.

in my eyes, there is a fine line between being extremely discerning and being a high risk job.

i think doing work for extremely discerning people is great in a way because it keeps you on your toes and presents a real challenge - impressing the average enthusiast is easy; impressing someone with as great or greater attention to detail than yourself is awesome.

however, this guy is just a risk all the way around. he'll have no respect no matter how you slice him. there is no upside to dealing with a person like this - the money isn't worth it.
 
Dr Oldz said:
Pay, chalk it up to experience and never do work for this guy again! Not worth having your reputation ruined.


BTW, that's one hell of a job. Looks great man! :cheers:
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I hear you man - but it is hard to swallow this garbage - The Boat looks brand spankin new and I am almost positive we didn't create this - so paying is a very hard pill to swallow. Very tough :/

builthatch said:
i highly doubt that was done by you guys. it's not in any sort of perfect arc, and it looks as if something sharp hit it a few times on the way across.

but...unfortunately, it's impossible to prove who is right without high resolution before pics so you probably have to eat it and chalk it up as a lesson learned about people THIS difficult to deal with.

in my eyes, there is a fine line between being extremely discerning and being a high risk job.

i think doing work for extremely discerning people is great in a way because it keeps you on your toes and presents a real challenge - impressing the average enthusiast is easy; impressing someone with as great or greater attention to detail than yourself is awesome.

however, this guy is just a risk all the way around. he'll have no respect no matter how you slice him. there is no upside to dealing with a person like this - the money isn't worth it.
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Yeah man, I've never dealt with this before and it is hard to deal with. Im still in shock/pissed mode. Would you pay for your rep, or fight it?!?!?! It is SO hard to stay calm right now.
 
I call B.S. on that customer as well. I've had a couple of those. Just take care of it and never, ever do business with him.
 
B&B Tennessee said:
Yeah man, I've never dealt with this before and it is hard to deal with. Im still in shock/pissed mode. Would you pay for your rep, or fight it?!?!?! It is SO hard to stay calm right now.
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you are doing a great job maintaining composure because you are a true pro. it's not easy, i know.

honestly i'd just replace the lone letter. it's probably the easiest manner of handling things. there is absolutely NO reason to do anything differently unless there is a realistic fading issue that the decal guy should determine.

as far as your reputation with this dude - don't worry about it because there is not a chance in hell that you'll get a good reco from him, imo. you could coat his boat in 24k gold and he'd still trash you when talking to the one friend he barely has.

once the situation is cleared up, i'd follow RoadRage's line of thinking and ask the guy if he truly has no regrets. let him answer, and tell him you have one regret in life and it is letting this guy enter yours. #### him at that point, haha.
 
storm100 said:
I call B.S. on that customer as well. I've had a couple of those. Just take care of it and never, ever do business with him.
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A couple of these guys! Yep - no more business with him for sure :/

RoadRageDetail said:
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:iagree:



builthatch said:
you are doing a great job maintaining composure because you are a true pro. it's not easy, i know.

honestly i'd just replace the lone letter. it's probably the easiest manner of handling things. there is absolutely NO reason to do anything differently unless there is a realistic fading issue that the decal guy should determine.

as far as your reputation with this dude - don't worry about it because there is not a chance in hell that you'll get a good reco from him, imo. you could coat his boat in 24k gold and he'd still trash you when talking to the one friend he barely has.

once the situation is cleared up, i'd follow RoadRage's line of thinking and ask the guy if he truly has no regrets. let him answer, and tell him you have one regret in life and it is letting this guy enter yours. #### him at that point, haha.
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I agree man - I may just replace the one decal. In 2 years there hasn't been anything negative that could be said about this company and hasn't been said as far as I know - and this is what scares me a bit, cause I was enjoying a nice record there for awhile.... Out of all the good remarks, one can damage a good company significantly even if it is garbage. Maybe Ive been lucky, either way this kind of crap makes me lose sleep :/
 
B&B Tennessee said:
A couple of these guys! Yep - no more business with him for sure :/



:iagree:





I agree man - I may just replace the one decal. In 2 years there hasn't been anything negative that could be said about this company and hasn't been said as far as I know - and this is what scares me a bit, cause I was enjoying a nice record there for awhile.... Out of all the good remarks, one can damage a good company significantly even if it is garbage. Maybe Ive been lucky, either way this kind of crap makes me lose sleep :/
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Sorry to hear about that. The other week I had a guy tell me I cracked his windshield. I know I didn't but he claimed it wasn't like that before I started. Funny thing, after I was finished, I took a picture. There was no crack in the windshield and I left.
 
Sorry about the difficulty this time. Consider it a lesson learned. In the future, spend a few minutes walking around the boat or car taking pictures. This was if there's ever a problem, you have proof.
 
Bro that boat looks awesome!!!!!! Just a tip. When I got out of marine corps. I drove tow truck in San Diego. Any high end vehicles we were required to do a pre hook walk around with customer (when feasible of course). And annotate any visible issues on note pad with customer signing. I carried this practice over to my detailing biz. I do a fine tooth walk around with customer and annotate EVERY issue I see, Inside and outside, trunk and under hood. Cover your six, remember the cheese line is long with people, jus lookin for free money......One more thing, if your gettin into jobs of that caliber, you may want to incorporate to protect your personal assets from cheese heads. Just had the wife do it for her biz. Once again, for what it's worth boat looks pretty damn sick!!!!
 
This is why pre inspection check lists are a must. Take the time to go over the vehicle before hand and mark any damage then have the customer sign it. Can't argue with that.
 
Great Job. Too bad you have to deal with an idiot. It doesn't look like something you did. It looks more like something was dropped and dragged over it. You will never start again without getting your before pictures.

For what it's worth, unless the law is different where you are, I don't think incorporating will protect you when you are doing the work. It will protect you when you use employees.
 
Wow... what a disappointing experience for sure...

There's no way a rotary buffer would do damage like this unless someone tried and tried really hard by doing something stupid like baning the side of a backing plate against the boat and I know you're too smart have guys working for you that would do this type of thing.

I call B.S.


This does drive home the importance of doing a walk around inspection with the owner and marking damage like this down on your VIF and also taking a picture of it PLUS pointing it out to the owner.

Besides the above, this may have been one of those times you should have went with your instincts and let someone else have the blessing.

One of the things I teach in all my classes to always,


Evaluate the Customer first, make sure you want to work for them and you can make them happy, if you can't then let someone else have the blessing. Once you determine you can work for the customer, then evaluate the project.
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There are some people you don't want to work for and this guy is one of them.

I would pay so he couldn't bad mouth you and then show him the link to this thread so he can see that you documented your experience with the guy for the benefit of all the people that will read this into the future. After you pay to have the damage fixed, warn everyone you know for the rest of your life to NEVER do business with this guy.


I'm a big fan of taking the high road but there's no way this kind of damage could have been done by anyone with you and your teams experience and besides that, this guy doesn't have a clue as to how much work goes into detailing a boat like his the right way.

If you had not done the work chances are really good the "other guys" would have hacked this thing up and only a coat of wax would have added anything positive to the end-results.


After dealing with this guy be sure to take a shower...


:)
 
A lot of good points made above. There is an excellent training video on the Meguiars YouTube site, that shows the detailer walking around the vehicle with the customer and a clipboard and pen in hand, marking down all defects and pointing them out to the customer before the job gets started. Not only does this protect you from the claims above, but it also gives you the opportunity to tell the customer what will get fixed and what won't. It also gives you an opportunity to decide if you want to do work for someone.
 
B&B Tennessee said:
I wanted to punch the guy in the face, but stayed calm and told him to get me the info for his decal guy.

Im seriously shocked and pissed at the same time. Amazing turnaround for a horrible client!
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-I agree that this was an amazing turnaround!!

-I'm glad you stayed calm; and, your appeasement-offer is to be praised, as well (IMHO...true professional-behavior!!)

However...
I would have been tempted to suggest that this Customer would be more than welcome to obtain ownership of:
your lost "overboard"-Cyclo...by spending some time overboard, himself.

:D

Bob
 
The boat looks great!

I think I'd ask the decal guy if the jerk had asked about replacing it before you got the job, and if he put the original decal on. I'd also only replace the damaged letter, not the whole thing.

The whole thing sounds kind of fishy anyway.
 
Replace the entire decal..... with a name of your choice. :xyxthumbs: I'm sure your friends on Autogeek will help you come up with a few new names.

No Tact
No Class
No Friends

I'm sure his vinyl guy will agree.
 
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