6 Years in business and 3 troubling customers?

The Real Story

People are funny creatures, they can do strange things out of anger (or stupidity?).


We have found the enthusiasm for cars can bring out the best and the worst in people, sometimes people can take their anger out wherever they can find an opportunity, job lay offs, family struggles, personal challenges, mental disorders and many other situations that only those going through the struggle can relate to.  As a business, you could be one customer away from running into one of these time bombs and you could receive the shrapnel that comes with it.

We ran into 3 of these customers over the last 6 years which is the motivation for this post.  We will discuss the time bombs we ran into:  The convict, the DIY Epic Fail and the Lay-ed Off.  The reason we are going to talk about these three is because how blatant the events can be distorted out of spiteful anger and how websites allow them to post but will not allow the post to be removed, even if its inflammatory.

As a business we pride ourselves on the ability to learn, grow and change with the times to meet our customers needs to the best of our ability, understanding that as people grow (normal people do), they learn and implement such experiences in their life and become a better person and business because of it.  But sometimes we meet people you just cant help, for whatever reason they just want to lash out at someone and you happen to be at the right place at the right time and the recipient of said anger.

Communication and education is one of the keys to a happy customer.  As hard as we try through paper documentation and verbal communication, sometimes the communication process breaks down and confusion is the result. 

Cars are an extension of our interests, a refection of our personality and yes in some cases can cause havoc in relationships.  The interest in the automobile runs deep with enthusiasts.  Balance is the key word here, a proper balance between the love of cars and the love of people in our lives can get out of control and interfere with the things that matter;  Human relationships.  Some customers can get so out of balance it can confuse their judgment and create a bitter situation that no one should have to deal with.

The Convict was a corvette owner who wanted lambos on a 1978, a particularly troublesome install that was an engineering challenge to say the least, but we did our home work. created a feasible plan and schematic, anticipated relocating several items, one of which was the heater blower (very time consuming task).  This install was growing more complicated as the fiberglass structure could not be welded to, strut mounts for the GT Factory style hinge has to be custom fabricated,  payments were slow in arriving and customer refused to live up to his end of the bargain and pay "time and materials".  As this project seems to spiral in a direction we were not comfortable with, the customer informed us of an impossible deadline we had to meet because he said he "had to be in federal court and would be gone for 10 years", talk about dropping a wrench in the works.  Did we get the short end of this deal?  you can believe it, are we bitter and refuse to do any more challenging work? are you kidding, if your not challenged, you not growing.  Did we return his car?  yes we did, have we heard from him again? probably wont for 10 years.  Live and learn and tell the funny story I guess.  He who laughs last, laughs best...

The Customers DIY epic Fail was the result of a project (lambo door conversion) that went painfully bad, so bad the person could not even close the doors and had to drop the vehicle off to us without the fenders on.  The 1st mistake we made was quoting a ball park price over the phone (why we no longer do this).  Another mistake we made was assuming the customer was reading the paper work they signed (sure sign of ignorance not to read contracts), paper work that stated "we will go over budget and we will miss all deadlines set" and we use "time and materials" billing for this type of work.  The reasons for the budget concerns was the fact the existing conversion could not function on the model car it was and the new set had to be ordered, the order was delayed at the supplier (why we don't buy from wicked bodies any more), the customer hacked most of the bolts off the hinge plate, marred his fenders while trying to install it in what appeared to be a drunken stupor of massive proportions.

Now seeing this nightmare and feeling sorry for this person (our 3rd mistake) who seemed like he just fell off a turnip truck, we proceeded to explain how we have to charge for each and every hour we worked on his failed attempt at mechanical genius to not only restore the vehicle to its functionality but also do the install in a high quality and professional manner (that we succeeded at doing).  Yes, through the whole process we lived up to our end of the agreement, we installed the items, got his vehicle back functioning and yes we charged for every hour we worked on it.  Live up to our end of the bargain, yes we did.

Now in return for our explanation of charges and dealing with the headache of the failed DIY attempt, we did receive payments and as a bonus we received bitter phone calls, refusal to pay final payments, demands for immediate return of the vehicle and money, lies about how he was treated as a person, lies about the quality of workmanship, lies on message boards that we are still trying to rectify and the bad news is, hes still out there and may have an appointment at your shop next.

In the end, we are happy about one thing and one thing only, the quality work we did was top notch and we fixed his vehicle and are proud of it.  The customer? he is a whiny baby with a frightfully coddled future.

Did we change how we do business?  Yes...  Will we continue doing custom work?  Yes, will we do business with customer again? Wholly crap no and if your smart, you will avoid the person too.

Personally we think he just did not want to tell hi Daddy how bad he messed up his vehicle and how much it was going to cost to fix it.  Sometimes the truth can be hidden for a variety of reasons.

Lay-ed Off was a project that came as an unfinished attempt, Fiero Kit Car conversion, damaged beyond the customers skills and rusted to the point of wholly crap.  After installing customer supplied parts that did not lower the car as much as he wanted (its a Fiero after all).  Doing extensive repairs to the composite materials damaged by the customer, fabricating a headliner due to budget constraints, fabrication a hood pin system to allow for the rear half of the car to open.  The customer proceeded to explain how he got laid off from his job and refused to pay his bill.  Did we get paid?  Yes, did we have to resist his attempt at his bullying us into a discount?  yes.  The work we did to the car was top notch.  It got so bad in our office, the verbal confrontation was not pretty and in the end we asked them several times to wait outside so we could finish closing out their paper work, after those repeated attempts and asking nicely several times, we finally had to call the sheriff and have them removed from the office.  In the end we regret 2 things:  1 - Taking this customer at his word and  2 - discounting the labor to try to help him.  Can anyone say Postal?

So why on earth would we are our dirty laundry like this? and tell the world about the 3 customers who were impossible to please?  Because it seems they have carried their bitterness online and refused to tell the whole truth about what happened and we feel the need to warn other Automotive service businesses that this customer may have an appointment at your shop.  This is our official response to the infammitory posts.

Some customers are immposible to make happy, short of working for free.  We refuse to be bullied into a situation that is unfair.  Do we ever make concessions?  Yes we do, in fact all our customer know we have their best interest at heart (short of doing the work for free) and stand behind all our work.

To summarize this post:  We have been in business for 6 years and in all those years have met 3 customers we could not please as we feel they were being unreasonable. 2 customers who we feel we could have done a better job with and learned a lot from.  All totaled for 6 years of business and 5 blemishes on our record.  If this was an eBay account we would still have a 100% feedback rating but its not.  Still a good record for a service business.

So there you have it, the real story...

To view these project and see how much work we did to these cars and the quality of workmanship, view them in our web album and judge for yourself.  Thanks...

The Convict
Customer Epic Fail
Laid Off