Let's say a customer brought several photos for you to restore. It's good to get payment up front, but for one reason or another you didn't this time, and the customer told you to do whatever it takes, and you will be paid by an amount agreed upon per hour. You have given the customer a rough estimate of the time that might be invoved. You scanned the originals and gave them back to the customer. You have done what you consider to be an excellent job on the restorations, but the time involved was a little more than expected. The customer comes back, and the bill is reasonable at $400.00. The customer tells you that is way too much, and is unwilling to pay for it. Since you have a signed agreement detailing the work to be done at the hourly rate quoted, you could take them to court. Would you do this, or would you consider this bad for business? Would you negotiate a lower price? How would you handle it?

Ed

Put it this way...if someone pulled the same stunt on a lawyer or other profesional, how long would it take for the summonses to fly? I'd take all the legal action necessary to get payment, for if you let it go or worse, negotiate, you will have set a precedent which will come back to haunt you in the form of other clients doing the same thing to you. Business is business, and if you are going to run a successsful one, there are rules and precepts to follow or you wont be in business long. If you dont have a signed agreement, and this has happened to me, I give the customer a choice...pay or I destroy the copys. If they are not good enought to pay full price for, they are not good enought to leave the shop. I destroyed one set of copys just reciently as the customer decided that they could bargain down the price, something this individual is noted for doing, and discovered it doesnot work with me. Noboby gives me bargains when I buy supplies or equipment and I am not about to sell myself short then listen to the bragging which follows about how so-and so "pulled a fast one" on me. Just my hard nosed thoughts though and perhaps not correct.... Tom

I have to disagree with you.
I imagine that, as with any service, if the work needed goes beyond the estimated price, I would expect to be contacted for my consent before the work was done. Think about an automobile service center that has your vehicle in for repair work. Would you want them to just go ahead and do the extra work (which would increase the cost), without your consent?
You didn't mention what the original quote was, so I don't know how far off the final total was. Are you talking a couple of dollars, or a couple of hundred?
It's my opinion that you ought to bite the bullet on this one, and accept payment at the originally quoted price. Otherwise, you may get your name thrown around in a negative way. I would rather lose a few dollars, than a few potential customers.
This problem is another reason why I do not charge by the hour.

I think that the term "rough estimate" might be key here. On occasion I have received a rough or ball park estimate for a cost related to having something done and it usually turns out that the final price is higher...an estimate is not a hard firm figure. If I give a customer a firm price, thats what they pay..regardless if it takes a week to do the work..I eat the loss, but as an estimate is not a fixed firm price, there is not the same ethical constraint, and the customer in this case pre-authorized additional work if necessary. The people who complain about price are always the same ones to find fault with what ever work is done for them and will "bad mouth" the service provider even if given a "break". In my experience, it is best to not seek those types as clients...they will never be satisfied and will give negative advertising for your business as well as attacking your personal integrity and skills. Good points, though. Tom

Vikki,

There was no quote per say. The customer was given a *rough* estimate as to the time involved. Also, the customer told you to do what it takes, and agrees on an hourly rate. The time involved was a *little* more than originally thought to be necessary.

Ed

Have you released their originals already? They wouldn't get them back until payment for sure. But for that kind of money I guess I would sue only if I thought I stood a chance of winning the case. Unfortunately, in small claims court you need to have proof that there was a "meeting of the minds" as to what was agreed upon especially if not specified in writing and sometimes that boils down to your word against theirs. What I'm saying is that you might not be able to win in a court of law with out the paperwork or a witness to the discussion. It's a tough case and I guess if it's that much money on the line, things should be better stated than just a "rough estimate" and a verbal response of "carte blanch".
DJ

if the customer say "do what ever it takes" then they should be prepared to pay the extra cost. I've never been in that situation and I like to think I would be able to stick to my guns nd destroy the originals if they refused to pay what the work was worth.

Sandra,

I'm hoping that you meant you would destroy the restorations instead of the originals (and I think that's what you meant).

This has turned into a reasonably good thread with the different inputs. Personally I would do the same as Tom. It's my impression that if the customer is going to bad-mouth you, he will probably do it whether you give in to his wishes or not. And as Tom pointed out, re-negotiating the deal should not be an option to consider. Strictly my opinion. If anyoone else has more input, we'd be happy to hear about it.

Ed

Ed,
I'm inclined to assume that the customer trusted your rough estimate as a professional call. It seems that it is an important part of the business, to be able to assess the damage as soon as you look at the photo, and categorize it for pricing, accordingly.
What happened that caused you to under estimate (what problems did you encounter)?

Another consideration is that of the contract that was signed. If nothing was in writing, there is little you could do except compromise your business standards and settle for less, or simply destroy the copys and put the individual on the "No Service" list. However, a written agreement, signed by the individual is a different matter. Just because they dont like the price after giving informed consent to proceed doesnot excuse them from the obligation they entered into willingly. If you are going to use contracts, then they have to be adhered to..by both parties or else dont use them. In business you are going to get the occasional dissatisfied customer, period. That is a fact of life. Mostly these people have a history of being difficult and for all the complaining they will do, very few people will give it any serious consideration, and those who do are probably not the ones you want for customers. We are Business People, providing a highly specalized and highly skilled service...not Dance-hall denizens bent on extracting the final buck from a cowpokes pocket. I would rather loose a few customers and keep my integrity than compromise away my ethics and ultimately my self respect and business. Besides, the good customers, the ones who keep coming back, dont complain..and they are your true treasures. Tom

Vikki,

I didn't have a problem because I don't have a business. My restoration skills wouldn't qualify me for one anyhow. :) It just seemed to be something that might merit discussion.

Ed

From past experience I get the impression your 'customer' would have jibbed on your agreed quote anyway. As DJ has mentioned masters should not be returned separately but as the completed package.

Originals supplied should be receipted both ways to avoid comebacks.

I think keeping the originals until payment is made is a good idea. There are others who would rather give them back to the customer as soon as possible to avoid any possible mishaps with them.

Ed

oh yes only the restorations. I would never intentionally dmage an original. :)

A nice question, but of course the real answer is to avoid the situation in the first place. We do that by filling out a form we have that gives the customer the final price before we start any work. And we always try to get at least 50% of the cost in advance, the rest is due when the work is completed.
But even with all that, we have had customers who have complained about the price after we did the work, and who have just walked away, leaving both the 50% down payment and their orginals and the restoations here with us!
Mike

How long areyou required by law to keep the originals before they are considered abandoned and you can dispose of them? Tom

Tom, that is a really good question, and I do not have an answer for it. In the course of 20 years of doing business here, I have about 40 to 50 (and thats a really rough estimate, I am not going to the store room to count!) orginals that have been left here for what ever reason. We make 3 calls to try to get them to pick up their work, then we just file them away. A number of the customers moved while we were doing the work and they left no forewarding address or phone number. In one case a customer left the orginals here while she went home to talk to her husband about the pricing. Said she would call us back and let us know, we finally called her after a couple of months and she got angry and told us not to bug her so quickly. Its now been at least 10 years and we are still waiting for her call. Needless to say we will have to re-estimate the charges on that job!
I am sure that there is some kind of law about this, and I am even more sure that the law is different in every state. A call to your state attorney general would most likely get you on the right trail.
Mike

Mike,

That's a problem we haven't discussed at all (people not picking up their originals), and it certainly has potential to become problematic. I wonder if something could be put in a contract to specify how long you would be liable for the originals?

If you've been in the restoration business for 20 years, I'm wondering if you do all restorations digitally now or if you offer other services as well.

Ed

I guess I haven't done a big enough business of this yet to have the originals left to store. Can't even imagine the person who would take the effort to get them restored and then leave them and the restoration behind. Hope I never get any of those.
DJ

That would be a good thing to look into. I know that there are specific time limits here that a person has to pick up their property and if exceeded the service provider is free,after certain minor legal steps, to dispose of said property any way they see fit, to recoup whatever they can in compensation. Tom

Surely something like that could apply to many businesses. Maybe clothes left at a dry cleaners or something similar. It shouldn't be hard to find out what the laws are for something of this nature.

Ed

To be on the safe side, before discarding the items left behind by customers, remember to document your attempts to contact the individuals to pick up the items. The best way to do this is to make copies of your correspondences with the customer stating the deadline for picking up their items and the ultimate loss if they choose not to. Then send them registered return reciept mail. This creates a paper trail of your sincerity to return the items involved and it also proves that they recieved these letters and chose to disreguard them. I would give them a safe time limit of 30 days upon reciept of your letter as a safe time.
DJ

<If you've been in the restoration business for 20 years, I'm wondering if you do all restorations digitally now or if you offer other services as well. Ed>

I hope that you are not too confused here, we have been operating a photo studio for 20 years and have always offered copy services. We contracted out all retouching and restoration work when we first started. We had a lot of customers that just wanted copies, with no other work required. We started digital services about 4 years ago and started doing more and more of our retouch/restoration type work ourselves. I think that this is rather typical of a lot of photo studios that have entered into the magic kingdom of 1's and 0's.

The decsion to use or not use digital depends on the job. Since most of our jobs seem to be original prints smaller than 8x10 and they usually want their finished product about the same size, then digital is a really great tool. However we do get a larger size original now and then, with a final product that sometimes gets as large as 16x20 or bigger. Then we have a debate about the best way to do the job. Several years ago (when digital was much newer) we had such a job and the people who did it for us did it both digitaly and with film, and in this case the film was somewhat better.

I really think that digital is really a great tool, but then again so is film. I never met a good carpenter that only had 1 hammer or 1 saw, so why should I only have 1 camera or 1 way to do a task?
One should be able to look at the task and pick the best tool to work with.
_____________

Customers not picking up work is not a new problem. Years ago we went to a 50% prepay just to make sure that we would at least not lose any money on the job. We even have a complete set of proofs from a wedding that the bride and groom (nor anybody else from their families) have ever seen. I think the marriage was over quicker than the 10 days or so it took to get the proofs done!!!

Making a contract, with some kind of time limit inserted in there might work, but if you want to do that, I would write something up, then go buy an hour of some lawyers time to make sure it is going to work in your location. If you put it in writing, then it had better be right or your XXX is hanging out for someone to bite on!

:(

Mike

All very good points. It seems to be that getting half down is getting to be headed toward the norm rather than the exception for many different service related businesses. And there's good reason for that.

Out of curiosity, do you normally use medium format for copy jobs?

Ed

Another idea,
What about adding a $NTE line?

Ed
When we used film, we used Kodak Techical Pan, a film that is virtually grainless. I preferred to use 35mm if I could (it would make great 16x20's) but if my retoucher needed to do any work on the negatives before we printed them, then we would use medium format.

Vikki
OK, I give up, what does $NTE stand for? And if you think I get confused here, you should see me trying to figure out some of plates people put on their cars!!!!!

Mike

I'm sorry.
It's: "Not To Exceed" a specific dollar amount.

I guess the best you can expect here is called experience. You'll waste more energy and money trying to collect or trying to prove you are right than it's worth. We don't have the problem because we work with signed orders and 50% deposits on individuals and purchase orders from business and institutions.

Spelling everything out up front is essential. If the job is too complex for a firm estimate up front we take it a step at a time -charge the customer for a negative, cleaning, testing and a proof - show the proof print and go from there. On oil paintings and other high ticket jobs we take the same approach and show the prints before we continue on to the art work phase. Customers appreciate this and often never look at the proofs believe it or not - when you call and tell them to come in and take a look the rest of the job for example, will be another $270 ...they will usually say "Oh that's OK, I'm sure you'll do it the best way - just go ahead with it" and give us the bank card authorization for the added cost to finish the work on the phone. .

All of this doesn't mean that we don't have a pile of prints accumulated over the years that have never been picked up that we still have money due on (and many more that are paid in full) but we just keep reminding the customers from time to time and don't push it at all - and we never release the originals unless the full order has been paid. Learning that "the customer is always right" isn't easy but it's a good way to stay in business so my take on this would be to bite the bullet and smile! Give the client back his original while you are still smiling and go to work on the systems you are using by convincing yourself that the customer was not at fault!

Jim Conway

I forgot the insurance! As some of you already know from my previous posts elsewhere in this forum, we insure the customers originals while they are in our care (from $200 up) per order.

If the prints are not picked up in a few weeks, we send out a letter stating that our coverage is not valid on any order or original left in our care for over 90 days and we can no longer be responsible for them in any way after (date).

In the case of prints left for estimates, that's reduced to 30 days.

It's an effective reminder!

Jim Conway

Jim:

Do us all a favor and start a new thread about how to insure a user's originals. I wouldn't have a clue how to even start doing something like that.