This may be the nastiest email I have ever received. Not to be nit picky but the client also spelled my name wrong...I think I would have been less offended if he bothered to spell my name right. Okay so the back story is, bride and groom ordered their wedding invitations through one of our vendors and wanted to print the directions cards digitally inhouse to save money. Client emails us a 3 page word document file to scale it down to a 4x4". I sent them a proof double sided on 6x6", it was the only way to fit everything, the font size was tiny. The client then made edits to the text, not enough though and subsequently this went on for another 3 proofs. At this point the client needs to pay for the additional proofs, because it is time consuming to reset up all the text changes and adjust everything to fit. I told the client that an additional proof would cost $25 and this is his reaction.
P is the bride and D is the groom.
From D
Haley,
We really appreciate you guys trying to get this done for us. I
know you guys are trying your best and we really appreciate it. We appreciate
your effort and hard work.
P was running with this and keeping me in the loop, but I
felt the need to reach out myself because I was shocked by your last email. As
a matter of principle, there is no chance that I will agree to pay $25 for
each additional proof going forward. Quite frankly, I think its insulting that
this would even be mentioned to us given the circumstances.
First, this policy was never mentioned to us for internal
proofs. We were explained the policy only in regards to proofs being done by
external vendors for the actual invitation. For you guys to ask for
another $25 for internal edits, given the amount we are already spending
on invitations, is absurd.
Second, we quite frankly would not have required these
additional proofs if you did not keep making mistakes. For example,
in the second round of insert proofs, you decided to put the hotels in list
format (one on top of the other) instead of side-by-side as it was done the
first time. We never requested this change in format. So we had to ask you
for another round of proofs because of a mistake that you made.
There is also another mistake in the last round of
proofs: Your choice of font size for the last 4x4 proof was far from
ideal and we are obviously going to require at least another round of
proofs because of this error. The sole reason for why we tried to shorten the
wording was to make the insert more readable in the smaller size formats.
Why would you leave so much empty space on the second page of the 4x4
format given that the font is so small and hard to read? We assumed that you
would have increased the font size so that there is no empty space on the
second page and so that it becomes easier to read.
Finally, another mistake on the last round of proofs is that you
did not leave everything in bold as we had requested. The word
"not" in the last sentence of the "Shuttle Bus" paragraph
is not in bold (as it was in the version we sent you).
Attached, please find the changes outlining the mistakes you
made in the last proof. There are also a couple of new minor changes. If you
can please correct your mistakes (in both the 4x4 and 5x5 sizes), include the
few new edits, and resend us the latest proof, it would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
D
The changes he requested.
Usually you keep pertinent information on one sided of the card and don't break it up. In this case "Accommodations" would be on one side of the card and the hotels on the other. The bride and groom booth came into the store on the following Saturday to "discuss" the direction card. And by "discuss" I mean gang up on me. Now, I will admit to being not great at customer service, I am more of a salesperson, but this couple really pushed me too far, coming in ready to argue. I lost it. I started yelling back at them "IT'S JUST A DIRECTION CARD!" Then the groom started getting huffy with me about how he shouldn't have to pay for the proofs when they were my mistakes...luckily I print out EVERYTHING and literally went through all of his changes verbatim as he was screaming at me. Finally, when he said I should feel horrible for nickeling him over the proof fees because he spent so much on his invitations. I asked him "if you went to Peter Luger's and bought a steak, would you expect to get the mashed potato'f for free?" he looked at me dumbfounded. Anyway, I think you can tell a lot about a couple by their direction card, just saying. Also, I learned from my mom after this encounter that apparently Peter Luger's doesn't serve mashed potato's. Oh well.
