ISO: Someone with good customer skills...

[poolplayr]

I do vhs to dvd film transfering on the side in my business. I have spent countless hours on this website reading and reviewing hardware and software and the best tools to use in certain situations so I could make sure that the customer was satisfied. I have had a handful of orders without any complaints until I get this lady from hell. Im really looking for some help in responding to this lady.

The equipment I use is WinTV-PVR USB2. Virtualdub-Mpeg2/DVD Moviefactory Suite 3.5.

I viewed parts of these movies she sent in and one of them was the old silent movies which I ran through Virtualdub using the MSU smart sharpen filter and I thought it came out noticeably better (I actually went above the call of duty being I only offer straight transfers).

Another tape was a wedding tape where there was a lot of feedback or humming like noise through out it (im guessing vhs tape wear) and someone had made her a title on it that would jiggle and blink on and off from severe vhs tape wear so edited that one of and gave her the exact same looking one back and used Movie Factorys noise stabilizer and again I was happy with the results (once again above the call of duty).

The last tape she states that i had to of broke and doctored it up somehow so that when she stuck it in her vcr it ate it. I swear to god the tape was fine when i shipped it back. How could I captured it broken? And if i did break it I would have taken it in to get it fixed. UGH

Heres her letter. Again, any helping dealing with her will be MUCH appreciated! I have a feeling she thought I could work "hollywood" wonders on these tapes.

I appreciate your care with my order, however, I have to tell you that I am very dissatisfied with the results. First of all, the visual quality of all of the 3 DVDs you did for me is terrible, the contrast is too severe. My home movies are very old, but “blank” and “blank” Wedding is only 6 years old, I ran the VHS tapes to compare and there is no comparison on any of them in terms of quality.
Second of all, my Home Movies VHS tape, as soon as I ran it, the tape came out of the reel and is now inoperable. I just ran it before I sent it to you, so something must have happened when you ran it. I hope you can at least fix this tape. I wait to hear from you.

Oh yea and she states the contrast is to severe. Contrast?! I viewed them and saw no such thing besides how could that even of happen. I didnt use anything on them to have given a contrast problem just captured them and transferred them to dvd. I have done dvd's for me even using the same steps and see no contrast problems. Maybe this lady is just trying to get her money back.

Sorry so long wanted to give you whole story.

[RabidDog]

I have had a handful of orders without any complaints

so most of your orders do have complaints?
explain everything, then say you will give it all another go .. de-contrast (?) her movies then re-burn, wait about three weeks, then send em out.


*my local pizza place uses this technique.

[Capmaster]

It sounds to me like she was expecting the video to be commercial DVD-quality. It's hard to satisfy a customer who has unreasonable expectations going into the deal :P

You might be right - maybe she's trying to get something for nothing ...like so many others before her

[poolplayr]

Rabiddog - wow you really dig deep in to something that isnt really there.

"I have had a handful of orders without any complaints" simply means i havent done very many of these yet. I just started this business 2 weeks ago.

I never said i would give it another go. Not sure where you even got that from! I said I was satisfied with the results.

[Capmaster]

Rabiddog - wow you really dig deep in to something that isnt really there.

"I have had a handful of orders without any complaints" simply means i havent done very many of these yet. I just started this business 2 weeks ago.

I never said i would give it another go. Not sure where you even got that from! I said I was satisfied with the results.

He was making a suggestion on what to do:

explain everything, then say you will give it all another go .. de-contrast (?) her movies then re-burn, wait about three weeks, then send em out.

He wasn't quoting what you said you'd do

And the first part about the complaints was a joke

Lighten up

[Nelson37]

It depends how far you want to go, IMO you need to "divorce" this customer. Apologize for the problem and give her her money back. Offer to pay reasonable cost for the tape repair performed by a shop of her choice, I would not touch it nor recommend anyone. Point out that tapes do break and it was not broken when you returned it, but you will pay for repair as a courtesy, as it is possible some unforseen error on your part may have contributed to the problem.

Possibly re-do the conversion with no filters, if you still have the source files. This may be the source of the "contrast" issue.

If you have a sample VHS and DVD conversion showing excellent quality you can send her, do so as example of your work with good quality source.

Explain that you do quality work and are concerned that she did not get the results she wanted. Remember that as far as word of mouth goes, one unhappy customer will talk as much as ten happy ones.

Perhaps offer her a free conversion on another tape, but if you do, you better damn well do a good job on that one.

Lemons to lemonade, see if she has a church or social group you could do the freebie for. This could lead to a good source of future business.

Under no circumstances argue with or contradict the customer. Yes, they ARE always right.

[poolplayr]

Rabiddog - I apologize. My since of humor was off and im on the defensive side due to me being upset with this customer.

[DereX888]

Rabiddog - I apologize. My since of humor was off and im on the defensive side due to me being upset with this customer.

Shoot him and bury in the forest. Problem solved, you'll lighten up
Or better yet - eat this customer so they never find him, and he/she won't bug anyone else with nonsense demands ever again...


Dude, if youre into *any* retail services (where you deal directly with every single customer) then you have to be prepared such cases will occur. The more people you serve the more casess you'll have. I remember there even was a formula to calculate ratio of unhappy to happy customers... meaning: there is no chance to satisfy every one of them, so dont take such crap personally, be professional. Or change your line of work/business

[junkmalle]

Maybe this lady is just trying to get her money back.

Offer to fix the problems if she sends EVERYTHING back to you so you can verify what might be wrong. If she's just looking for a freebee she won't do it.

[pjcrown]

I wonder if she played them back on her computer and expected a great display as compared to the original VHS tapes played on her TV. I'd ask her to ship everything back to you, so you could see if there really was a problem and to satisfy your own curiosity.

[Capmaster]

I'll bet anything that she was under the impression that whenever the term "DVD" is used, it's a guarantee that everything will be commercial DVD quality.

It's amazing the misconceptions people have about DVD. Well ...just hang around the Newbie forum and you'll see posts like "My brother's friend told me that I can fit 18 hours of top-quality video on one disc. How come it comes out crappy?"

[lordsmurf]

I'm not confident from the brief description that you did a clean job on the video transfer. Digital video is not, and never will be easy. What you have may make you happy, but that's not going to always be enough for a customer.

On the eating of the tape, totally on her. Not your fault at all.

On the audio errors, that's so simple to fix. I give free audio correction on all my work. I've been playing with digital audio for almost 10 years now, so it's easy to do.

[Two2Tango]

Nelson37 has got it right... Give her a refund and move on.

[lordsmurf]

Under no circumstances argue with or contradict the customer. Yes, they ARE always right.

I entirely disagree. Unreasonable customers will always be unreasonable, and will "talk" no matter what happens. Most other intelligent people, ones you want to deal with, usually understand that kind of person is a troll anyway.

[disturbed1]

Nelson37 has got it right... Give her a refund and move on.

Exactly. Just say you are sorry for any trouble, and promptly give her the money back.

I'm sure you gave it your best effort, and even if you did something different, she still wouldn't be happy.

About the tape, offer her, that if she ships it to you, you'll take a look at it, and attempt to fix it. One thing I can say, is never ever blame the customer, or let them know you think it is their fault, even if you know it is.

It is very important to fix any mistake. Even if you are not at fault. It seems as if you are new at this, so any negatives so soon, will count for an early demise for your new venture.

I think everyone makes mistakes. It isn't the mistake they make, but how they go about fixing it that matters. Not everyone thinks the same way, but it does speak aloud, when a company goes out of its way to correct a situation.

[thecoalman]

Under no circumstances argue with or contradict the customer. Yes, they ARE always right.

I entirely disagree. Unreasonable customers will always be unreasonable, and will "talk" no matter what happens. Most other intelligent people, ones you want to deal with, usually understand that kind of person is a troll anyway.

I have to agree, bad customers are just bad customers. I've dropped many and don't regret it one bit. Once a pain in the ass always a pain in the ass. In my case now it's someone else's pain in the ass. Luckily I'm in a great position, I know that my service, quality and price is superior to the competition. So I really don't give a shit what a customer thinks, if they are unsatisfied they will never be satisfied.

My suggestion is you offer a full refund with the return of the discs. As for the broken tape I wouldn't offer anything.

[lordsmurf]

You have to realize this is a business where you can be swindled. Somebody can "say" they don't like the work, copy the discs, send them back, and get their money back (following the above suggestions). You get double fucked (lost time, no money) and they get free work. Chew on that one.

[poolplayr]

I gave her exactly as my website says. I transferred her vhs to dvd. I didn’t offer any editing or "magic" touchups. My website says clearly and they have to click the I agree box and sign it before i will do their order

.....provided without warranties of any kind. "blank".com does not warrant that the services provided will be error free or that defects will be corrected. "blank" does not make any warrants regarding the use of the materials provided in terms of their correctness, reliability, accuracy, adequacy, usefulness, or otherwise.

it also states....

"blank".com does not warrant that video to DVD conversion services will fit all users' particular purposes, and is not liable for any damages or losses of any kind to the original video tape provided by customer.

However I will give her, her money back and not offer anything for her broken tape I know was not my fault. Just really sucks being i spent hours of my time for nothing but a headache.

Thanks all for your replies. Lesson learned.

p.s she only paid 19.99 per dvd, hell it costs 10.00 just to get a vhs to vhs copy. Maybe she can take her money and try again and then really be disappointed cause i feel her expectations we're really unrealistic.

[Gritz]

If you're only charging $19.95 per DVD you'll probably go broke! Charge her $50 and she'll probably think that she had to pay a lot of money but it was worth it! As for the quality you may have to offer to go to her home and let her show you the difference, and then offer to "correct" the deficiencys. It may be a different story on site if you're willing to spend the time with her so she can explain and demonstrate what she means. Just don't be on the defensive if you can't see what she does .. just offer to "redo" or make an "adjustment". Customers will give you a long rope if they see you're willing to bend a little. Just my 2 cents.

[Captain Satellite]

Have you ever thought about transferring about five minutes of a customers video and sending it back to them so that they know what to expect before proceeding any further?

[gll99]

Her words

First of all, the visual quality of all of the 3 DVDs you did for me is terrible, the contrast is too severe

From what I've seen this is a common problem. I have a number of earlier straight dvd conversions that I rechecked and compared frame by frame and noticed the darker image on the copy. I took 4 shots at putting one vhs movie to disc for my wife before we were both reasonably satisfied. Similar issues with a few of my Scifi vhs movies. It's not something you did, it happens as part of either the capture or conversion process so you need to adjust for it yourself based on the source material. It may take a few small tests to decide on the necessary adjustments. Conversions aren't always 1 for 1 takes. That's why you need to pad your billing to compensate. $20 a tape is probably too cheap to justify the extra time required to do a proper job.

Second of all, my Home Movies VHS tape, as soon as I ran it, the tape came out of the reel and is now inoperable.

She says it ran off the spool. I don't see where it's chewed up. The tape is not broken, the leadin just slipped out. She said she put it in and it happened. It's possible it did pop out when you rewound it after the copy. If you didn't rewind it then the leadout probably slipped out when she tried to go forward at end of tape. Either way it's an easy fix. You only need a small screwdriver to open the case and resnap the small plastic clip that hold it against the reel.

[VideoTechMan]

Under no circumstances argue with or contradict the customer. Yes, they ARE always right.

I entirely disagree. Unreasonable customers will always be unreasonable, and will "talk" no matter what happens. Most other intelligent people, ones you want to deal with, usually understand that kind of person is a troll anyway.

I agree with LS also......im sorry, but as much as people say the "customer is always right" they are NOT always right. Thats just how it is. Its unfortunate that no matter what kind of business you get into, there are always people that will try to take you for a ride and try to cheat you. If someone isnt willing to pay decent money for work that takes more time to finish, then IMO they are pretty much lowdown cheapskates.

That woman probably had a bad VCR that made a meal out of her tape, so thats definitely not your fault. I would do what the other suggested and just get rid of her. Offer a peaceful solution and then move on. Its pretty much a fact that you wont please everyone. Some people need to be educated that a VHS transfer, especially if its an old tape to DVD will not yield commercial DVD quality, no matter how much work you put into it. Most commercial DVD's source material comes from film, and 35mm film, and thats something most common people dont have.

VTM

[Sabro]

I'd suggest that if you continue to do this type of work that you make an additional backup of their original videos should a tape break blah blah blah.

Should you have complaints, the 'copy' could prove the original state and your 'enhanced' version(s) to prove legally there were services performed and to what extent your work included.

As someone mentioned, a sturdy disclaimer stating you can't always preform mericles (SP!) and that equipment malfunction is always a possibility.

Hell her videos were 6 years old...good ole VHS tapes could of been subject from anything from dry rot (heh) to condensation issues. Not sure exactly, but I wonder if shipping from different environments (hot -> cold & vise versa) could result in tape shrinkage/expansion which if she took it right out of the package and didnt allow it to warm to room temp could have resulted in the damage itself.

Honestly, I'd only refund the charges for your services at best and take a dent to the head. Doesn't sound like your truely ever going to satify her and if you truely handled her items in a professional manner.....there are probably more issues that were out of your control that resulted in the damage.

ALSO.....if your neglect truely caused the damage...I'd be Bitc%**%%ing you out and requesting you to repair my VCR as well since mostlikely it ate the tape.....funny she didn't request that as well

Sabro

[guns1inger]

The two biggest issues in this business are

1. Customer expectations. You can spell it out in black and white, and get them to sign off on it, but that wont stop them complianing when it's done. It might, however save you a law suit, so keep the disclaimer there. I also warn customers not to expect THX quality from what is possibly the worst video format invented,, but people still dream.

2. The general populous have no idea how to set up home theatre equipment. You will probably find that she has a god-awful picture at home anyway, and has adjusted the video player output to compensate. Her tapes look OK, but disks look crap. Unless you can test on the customer's equipment, you can't guarrantee what the output will look like for them.

Ulitmately, if you truely believe that you did a fair job, and that her complaints are groundless, then you can stand firm. Offer her a refund if you believe it is worth it (will she give you repeat business ?, can her word adversely affect your business ?), but make it contingent on her returning the work you have done to date. She has no right to multiple copies if she hasn't paid for them.

[gll99]

If I was the judge in a legal case this is how I would look at it and rule on the matter.

I wouldn't refund any money because the agreement on your site covers the aspect of quality (or lack of it). The contract is only what she agreed to when she requested the service. She can't add new conditions after the fact even if she feels it's inferior work. Any refund would be strictly volontary on your part but you would likely win any legal challenge on that point.
The damaged tape is a separate issue and could go either way should she decide to pursue the subject. I would offer to settle but request that she send you the tape first. If it is chewed up then it's not your fault. If it's off the reel at the beginning then it's probably you fault because it popped off when you rewound the tape. If it's off the reel at the end of tape it's not your fault she did it on her machine when she pressed play.

[jimmalenko]

I would argue that the broken tape was through no fault of your own and that you cannot accept any responsibility for it. Whether she likes it or not, it is her problem, so she should deal with it, not you. You have covered this in your disclaimer, so she ought to have known this risk anyway, considering she accepted your terms and conditions.

As far as the quality issue goes, I think you have gone above and beyond the call of duty already by trying to tweak the video a little and that you should reiterate that your normal service is for the straight transfer, and that in this case you have applied minor restoration work to it to get it to the stage it is at now. Re-iterate your disclaimer, in that VHS quality is poor in comparison to store-bought DVDs and that this is just part and parcel of the whole process.

I then think you've got one and a half options from then on:

1. say to her that you can do a full restoration on it for an extra charge, and really bring out the big guns. Noise removal, color correction, audio etc etc. you name it, restore it.

1.5 leave it as it is now, and let it die. While she may badmouth you, I think you will be worse off if you compromise yourself, because then the message will get around that you'll buckle if a customer complains about poor quality.

It's up to you ...

[skeg64]

If the b&w movies were from overseas, it's possible they were in NTSC_M_J format, and you capped in NTSC_M format. This would give severe contrast problems, but then again, you probably would have noticed it.

[hech54]

In my opinion the only sticking point is the broken tape. I've worked retail all of my life....though in the "background - office/computer work" type of setting.
I'd give her the money back....tell her to keep the DVD's and give her a detailed, technology laden sequence of events as to what you did to preserve the quality(or lack of) of her original tapes....also explaining that putting something to DVD does NOT in any way mean that the outcome will be factory/store bought DVD quality.

[thecoalman]

Charge her $50 and she'll probably think that she had to pay a lot of money but it was worth it!

If I was doing this and am considering it that is arounf the rate I was considering. Your second statemennt about her thinking it is worth it has much validity. This is actually one of the business philosophys of someone I know. "Charge Them" to quote him. People think they are getting a better product or service based on price alone. Apparently it works for him, the only point about doing that is you better deliver on your promises the first time.

[lordsmurf]

I just wanted to say that in the 20 years I've been around a VCR, and the thousands of tapes I've been around, only ONE tape has ever snapped off the spool because of the VCR.