Unhinged customer

[jack-ant]

A lady brings her laptop in. The left hinge is hanging off. I give her a quote. She complains about the price but then agrees. She was an African lady so I expected a little friendly banter around the price as I've experienced before. She calls me 3-4 times over the three days the computer was in for repair to hurry me up. I contact the lady when it's complete:

7th April - Email to customer

Your laptop is now ready for collection. I have repaired the left hinge and the hinge is now working well.

Bill Of Services
£120 Left Hinge Repair
£25 Screen Bezel
£145 Total

Left Hinge Repair

Your laptops left hinge has been reattached and re-enforced. The Bluetooth cable has been repaired and Bluetooth and Wireless connections tested. The screen bezel has been replaced and hinge Cover reattached.

When she collects the laptop she notices that the hinge cover is loose and is very angry and abusive about it. I explained to her that I can install a new hinge cover for her but she'd have to wait a long time for shipping. She agrees to pay a discounted £100 and takes her laptop. I agree to order the hinge cover and contact her when it arrives to install it and she'll pay the remaining £45. I ordered a set of hinges from overseas for £20.

17th April - Email to customer.

Your laptop hinge cover has arrived and is ready to be fitted.

Bill Of Services
£45 (Remainder of bill).

Are you available this Sunday (20th) at 11AM? Alternatively we can collect and return the laptop the same day if you prefer this option.

After a phone call and email she does not get back to me. I almost forget about it until two to three days ago. She calls with an attitude and says she's been waiting for me to contact her and would like the hinge cover fitted ASAP. I agree to this and get the laptop in and the whole left hinge is hanging off.

I have a relationship with one my competitors for when we are busy so I gave it to him this time because I was busy and for a second opinion.

Because the bezel has been removed quite a few times, the fixing lugs are becoming worn and brittle. Both the lid and the bezel will need to be renewed.

He also said the plastic was too damaged. He said the bezel would cost around £100 from EBay at the moment and that these laptop hinges often break and advised not to go ahead with the repair.

I called the customer and advised about the high cost of repair. She was not wanting to pay any more money. She was shouting down the phone now. I advised her that the repair was not viable as the hinge is now beyond repair without replacing the plastics and I offered her a full refund. She then said I've wasted her time and that I am not capable.

I've put several hours into this laptop and ordered and paid for parts. I am now taking a big loss. I'm also doing this out of the 3 month warranty. This has really disheartened me.

The lady was being so abusive, when I really have given her the benefit of the doubt here.

What can I learn from this and how do you manage these situations better?

 

[ohio_grad_06]

Learn that sometimes people are jerks and you can't please everyone. You have offered a full refund, I don't know what else can be done. With the hinge, if the cover was only a plastic fascia and did not need to be there for structural purposes, then how is she being laptop hinges?

I think I'd show her the records of when you attempted to contact her just to prove a point. If you want to give a refund that's up to you, but I think I'd for her as a client, and tell her that you apologize she's not happy, but being rude and spiteful is not how you conduct business, and that from now on she can take her business elsewhere.

Also, avoid cheap clients. I'm American, but I don't negotiate prices anymore personally. Any time I cut discounts for people I seem to get burned, and people I have trouble with are the ones who always want the best price. You don't want clients who are cheap. One I raised my prices and stopped negotiating rates at all, I almost never get people who are being cheap calling me.

In fact if she has as bad an attitude as you say and she is out of warranty, then forget the refund and tell her hit the road, and you will simply refund whatever she paid on the cover.

 

[Krynn72]

3 Months out of warranty, we'd probably not refund her at all. If we did we'd refund up to our diagnostic fee. She's not happy already, has been a PITA the whole time, there's no point in trying to salvage the relationship or trying to keep her as a customer, so why refund her when none of your policies say you should?

BTW, I liked your thread title

 

[ohio_grad_06]

+1. Fire your client in that case.

 

[pc-rebuilders]

In my experience, if it starts out bad - it usuall gets worse! I've only had to fire a customer a couple of times, but no regrets.

 

[ohio_grad_06]

Same here. I find after a while that you seem to attract clients that are just generally easier to deal with.

 

[HCHTech]

In general, I think the others are right, however I noticed that in your initial bill to the customer, you charged $45 for a screen bezel, and then your competitor who looked at the returned unit said the bezel was too far gone and needed replaced @ $100. That doesn't make sense. Did you replace the bezel when you did the repair?

You've probably already learned that hinge repairs have a low success rate. Sometimes the design of the case is just too weak. I do my best to give customers low expectations. It failed in the first place (usually) because of poor design, so the best you can do is return it to original specs = likely to fail again. Usually, you can't even do that well so it is almost certain to fail again.

Regardless, though, no one needs abuse = refund the $, take the loss, and get on with helping more appreciative customers.

 

[mkeathley]

Honestly, it sounds like you didn't do a complete repair.

1.) You should repair it totally. Use epoxy if you must to make it better than new. It's not acceptable for a customer top pick it up with a loose hing cover.
2.) Don't accept abuse. If your wrong then say that, apologize and offer to fix it. If they choose to continue to be abusive explain that action will cause you to cease services. Stand by your word.

If you can't fix it properly without loosing lots of money dicide whether its better to just fully refund the whole thing. One option is worse for yoru reputation than the other, both are bad.