Dear Sales Rep,
You measured wrong. Instead of explaining to your client the importance of a professional site survey, you decided you wanted to do it yourself. We get it, you wanted to save your client a few extra dollars. But, guess what happened? The graphic your production facility printed for those windows was 6” too short on both the top and the bottom.
Your client is in a pinch because the Executive Team was scheduled to conduct a walk-through of the location the day following installation. They had plans to see how everything looked and to make a decision if they wanted to roll out this piece at all of their stores or not.
Unfortunately, due to your incorrect suggestion you have strained the relationship with this client. Frankly, you’ve made them look bad. On top of that, you have lost your company revenue because now your production team has to focus their time and energy on reprinting the entire graphics packages for these windows. And they have to get these done as soon as possible.
Next time, you need to be brave enough to explain the benefits of conducting a professional site survey to your clients. And you need to explain why we charge for it.
We all know the install date for any project is a bit nerve-wracking. There are so many things that could go wrong. Are the graphics printed at the correct size? Did the production team split the panels up with enough overlap so the installer could line them up correctly? Did you print on the correct material? And those are just the start of the never ending list of questions.
The last thing you want to do is take on the liability of conducting the site survey yourself. The installer, whether employed by your company or contracted out to, is a critical piece to the entire process. They should be contacted at the very start of the project (even before you send an estimate) in order to get feedback about how they would like the panels to be printed.
On top of sizing issues, there are other factors that make site surveys just that much more important. During the site survey, the installer should check the wall (or window, or car, or… anything, for that matter) for proper adhesion, proper measurements, and look for any obstructions that would make the install more difficult.
Do yourself a favor and let the installer do what he does so we can do what we do.
