If I hear this one-more-time, my head is going to split open and any remains of a brain I have left are going to slosh out all over my glass room floor! How do you all handle these customers that can’t keep their panties on? I think they should go buy a Pop-out off the rack if they can’t wait for THEIR custom board, but then again, I am particularly GRUMPY today because a Shaper no less, called and asked the dreaded question, ARE MY BOARDS DONE YET? My God, what’s to be done? I’m certain he called because of antsy customers. Makes me feel like never doing another custom board again, and sticking with the ding repairs. Now, those are some thankful customers! What is it with the new custom board Newbies? But I need them. So, how to deal with the unpatient heathens? Wait! Let me take your order! Pop it in the machine here and POOF! Out comes a new board in two weeks!
Sorry guys. I just had to vent this and get it off my chest. Would be a great title for a short movie…
Sounds like what I said to Surfore a couple of months ago after I had built a spectacular board with heavy amount of gloss color, custom stringers, tail block, custom fin and the customer sees, calls Surfore and says, “I really wasn’t that impressed with the fin”.
I told him I don’t ever want to build any more custom boards, it just lets the air out of my balloon
Carry on Girl! You’ll live. Like my glasser here on Maui always tells me “Two Weeks”. and he doesn’t mean ten days. He very often calls me before then, Which means I have to have all the money collected etc. at about ten days just in case. Of course he doesn’t raise chickens etc. Lowel
I do get those people who get me all pumped about a custom board and they swear they want to pull the trigger on the order, I get all pumped and start shaping what they want ,and then…their gone
but Im so into it by then I just finnish it and sell it to one of their friends at a better deal than the original guy
Thanks. I bring home the bacon, fry it in a pan. clean the pan, kill the pig, yadayadayada. What I would like is a nice sunny beach, an umbrella, a fruity drink with an umbrella in it, and a cute muscular NON SURFER guy to bring me ANYTHING I need, anytime I want, any time of day. No customers. LIke my friend Paul K. once said, “Business would be great if it weren’t for the customer”.
There was a wilber kookmeyer once with wilber calling everyday … is my board done yet, is my board done yet. is my board done yet??? We pinned it on the wall of the shaping room and no one bothered us from then on.,
Yes, Chicken’s can be stressful. Not as bad as tropical fish, but nonetheless, stressful. If it weren’t for those darn chicken’s, I’d be weeks ahead of schecdule. A girl gets to whine every once in a while. It just feels good. It feels especially good to do it on a public forum!
Greg, can you send me the Kookmeyer? And a Martini? We’ll just see how straight those pinlines come out after a few Martini’s! Probably better for me than those Cobalt cocktails I’ve been mixing lately.
Where's MY Board? Where's my BOARD? WHERE is my board?
Wow....I deal with the same bullshit in the non-surfing world....Every Process Order has a start date and a finish date. No matter how hard they try to stress me it does not matter as long as I meet the finish date. I've been pulled into the office for telling people to pound sand......Why do you want it today when the schedule has it for three days from now?...... Maybe you should update the schedule......Do you want me to do the "hot" order now and forget the stuff scheduled for today????? Who made these changes???...........Blah blah blah.....
I’m a backyard board builder. I also do ding repair. Every project has a finish date. Every project over $100 has a down payment. I always finish on time. Pain in the ass customers are on caller ID so I don’t answer the phone…
Prototypes are the exception…There’s no time frame on R+D…
Lock the doors , work at night , don’t answer the phone…
I know a shaper who had a kid calling him 2 times a day bugging the crap out of him . So shaper shapes the board, all done he saws threw the blank on the bottom 3/4s threw and puts it on his rack deck up and calls the kid to come look at it before its glassed, the kids there in 10 min. he shows the blank to the kid and then HIGHYA!!! JUDO CHOPS THE BLANK IN HALF, the kid just FREEKS , shaper says I will call YOU! when your boards done.
Wow. Y’all make being a wanna be garage shaper / glasser with no skill sound pretty appealing ; ) Happy Valentines day Leslie!!! I’d wish a happy Valentines day to the rest of you too, but I’m apparently not secure enough with my manhood for that. Okay … happy Valentines to you too Rachel!
I love this topic because it is the backbone of my industry.
always give an ample turnaround time. 4 weeks is 4 weeks, not 2 , not 3, but 4. if you need more time, state it in the policy. Also add time for shipping etc. early payment on product qualifys for a cash discount. Something on the line of 2%20 net 21? if it’s done early…hold on to it until the day it is supposed to be ready. being reliable is a huge virtue in our new world. if you set a precidence of delivering early, then your going to pay for it later.
Special orders are exactly they…SPECIAL. Special thing have special consequences. The are not the norm…if you promised a special order at 2 weeks, something special must happen…Special payment, special treatment, i.e. no bitching of the customer, free lunch, extra work, better work…whatever. Set your terms up front.
My favorite: Poor planning on your part, does not constitute a crisis on my part. I’ll put your order in the pile. Like i said, 4 weeks. You want it in 2 then it’s a special order. refer back to #2
the customer is always right…if they abide by my rules. Thats right 100% guaranteed, no questions asked! if i screw up it’s my fault and I take responsibility for it.
Set your rules up front and stick to them. I’m not saying be an asshole, but there is a protocol that everyone knows is right, stick to it and eventually everyone will respect your wishes. If not then that customer will move on to someone else they can bully…But they will be back…because you are a person of your word, and you do what you say.
Hey guys, thanks for all the input! BUT, I didn’t mean for this to get so serious! True, it is a problem with customers. I NEVER give a customer a completion date on new boards. I don’t put myself under that kind of pressure. Good or bad, that is how I function. The norm is 4-6 weeks. I do everything by myself, so I am not as fast as a shop with employees. Sometimes they get done sooner, sometimes they take longer. The boards need cure time anyways. I do put a time frame on repairs when possible, but not always then either as most come in as demolition boards!
Howzit leslie, It’s just part of the world of building surfboards and we all have been subjected to it. I used to tell the impatient ones that if they start calling me and bugging me about their boards, That I would make sure I slowed down on their board and make it take longer then it really should. It seemed to work and they didn’t bug me nearly as much. I have to admit that that is one part of surfboard building that I don’t miss at all. On another topic, don’t know how many people on here knew Jim Mizell an OC board building friend I knew since we were little kids but found out the other day that he died of kidney failure due to working with the chemicals involved with board building,just another thing to remember about using proper protection in the business.Aloha,Kokua
When getting a board shaped by a master craftsman, let him work in peace, and when the board is done, it will be better than expected.
I’ve learned the hard way. In the early 70’s, I kept bugging Liddle about my board. I can’t print what he said exactly, but I can assure you, it wasn’t pretty. It took the Retailer/Consumer relationship into a whole new perspective. Since that experience, I now know better.
I let GL work in “Hawaii Time”, and I have always been very pleased with the product.
A girl gets to whine every once in a while. It just feels good. It feels especially good to do it on a public forum!