Venting about a subcontractor

This is going to be a rant. You've been warned.

So I'm basically doing the contracting work for my bread shop build. (And no, it's not open yet. I don't want to hear it.) As far as the subcontractors go, I've had really good experiences, really OK experiences, and one that's been two solid weeks of frustration that I thought would be ending today. Nope.

I went to a big local granite supplier to get a piece for the sill on my brick oven's entry. It's an 80" x 12" rectangle, eased edge, nothing weird. On top of that, I'll be picking it up and installing it myself, to save money and hassle scheduling delivery and installation. Sales people tell me 1.5 - 2 weeks for fabrication, which is a bit of a bummer, since the oven build is held up until this piece gets done. But whatever, I must be getting in a fairly long line of production work ahead of me, but no big deal. I can kill 2 weeks in a productive manner.

The 1.5 week mark passes with no call. No worries. The 2 week mark passes with no call. OK, I've been on their side of the counter, I know E36 M3 gets backed up, I'll give them a day or two. When the three week mark rolls around, I call. Guy says, "Yep, we have you scheduled for completion on June 3rd," like there's nothing out of the ordinary. I'm not happy, but it's not like I can make them do it faster.

This brings us to yesterday. I call to ask what time they expect the piece to be ready, they say it's scheduled to be done at 1pm. I ask if there's any way they can shuffle the schedule around a bit to get it done in the morning, as my assistant is only available until 1pm. They say, 9am would be pushing it, but 11am I fine. I say, great, thanks, see you at 11.

I roll up at about 11:15. "Hey, I'm here to pick up my piece."
"Oh, did they call you?"
"We talked yesterday, he said it would be done at 11."
"I'll be right back...
[5 minutes pass]
Yeah, we'll have that done by the end of the day, maybe in a couple hours."
"Dude, my assistant's out of commission at 12:30."
[blank stare]
"Call me when it's done."

At this point I'm frustrated. They've blown their own time estimates twice, one after a direct conversation on the phone with a verbal agreement. But my buddy can help with the install after work tonight, so I can still get it done today. Not a big deal.

I get a call at 1:45 that it's done. (Remember when he said it would be done originally? 1pm. Yeah.) So I roll up, check out the piece (which is cool as hell - it has fossils!) sign off and the salesdude asks, "Ok, what do you have to transport this?"
"Full size pickup outside."
"Oh...Ok, pull it around to the door."
[backs up to door]
"Do you have anything to keep it upright? This thing's like glass and it could break if it lays down."
What I think: "Could you have maybe mentioned this in the FIVE berkeleyING CONVERSATIONS WE'VE HAD DURING THIS TRANSACTION WHEN YOU KNEW I PLANNED TO PICK THIS UP MYSELF? DO YOU ASSUME I KNOW THE INTRICACIES OF TRANSPORTING GRANITE? IT'S A ROCK. ME PUT ROCK IN TRUCK AND DRIVE. WHY SHOULD I KNOW THIS ROCK IS ANY DIFFERENT?"
What I say: "Uh...no."

At this point one of the fabricators ineffectually attempts to rig up a completely unstable frame consisting of cardboard scraps. After about 10 minutes of this (he's obviously paid by the hour) he just walks away.

I go inside to the sales floor.
"Did they get you squared away?"
What I think: "Would I be back in here talking to you if they did? Do you think I'm here to say 'Bye, I'll miss you' and blow you a kiss?"
What I say: "Nope."
[blank stare]
"How about you guys deliver it to me?"

At this point I get passed off to somebody who is presumably slightly more qualified to find her ass with both hands.

"We can deliver it, but that's usually a $75 fee."
[swallows rage, rubs bridge of nose, pregnant pause, sighs heavily] "Look, you're two weeks behind your original production ET, I've been here twice today and I'm still not leaving with the piece I paid for in full a month ago. I think you can eat the delivery fee here."
[BONUS: another fabricator walks by]
"You can probably just lay it flat."
"Will it break?"
"Maybe."
[I gawk at him. He walks away.]

So let's recap:
- They exceeded their initial time estimate by 100% without notification or apology
- On the phone, they either over-promised/under-delivered the time of completion, or just lied about being able to get it done
- They missed their original time estimate today anyway
- In the course of a month and over 5 conversations with different representatives, when all parties involved knew I'd be transporting it myself, nobody thought to broach the subject of specialized transportation requirements.

So I've lost two weeks of income and probably a couple hours off the end of my life from the increased blood pressure today, basically because they straight up dropped the ball on REALLY basic customer service stuff.

Man, this self-employment thing is fun.

mndsm said in the other thread I managed to cock up somehow: I get one small point of it from their side- the transport. Anyone that's gonna pick up something like that, knows exactly what they want and has been pestering them for that long to get the berkeleying thing done probably knows how to transport it. At least that's what i'd assume if i was the sales dope. Beyond that- the fact that they're two months behind and they just get a call in.... today? Totally unacceptable. They need two goobers on a truck today bringing it to you.

In reply to mndsm:

I mean, I understand the oversight. But I gave all the salestards every indication that I didn't know what I was doing when I initially came in by saying things like "I've never bought granite before, so, you tell me xyz," and "I really have no idea what I'm doing." Were I in their position, I'd make a mental note.

And had I known how this thing is supposed to be transported, I could have knocked together a 2x4 frame with all the scrap I have at the shop. Would have taken 20 minutes.

Now they're delivering it Friday morning. We'll see. Mean time, I'm not raising hell until the piece (which I really like!) that I paid for a month ago arrives at my shop safely.

E36 M3 happens. Man do I understand that. But in this case, so many little, easy things have been flubbed, and it adds up to me being a really unhappy customer with connections to a small, incestuous local restaurant industry and several contractor friends.

But, even given that, I have a really bad feeling that I got this treatment because my order is small potatoes. These guys do entire kitchens and bathrooms in McMansions, and I have a $400 rectangle. But shoving the little guy to the end of the line is no berkeleying way to run a business.

I'm guessing they aren't delivering it for free?

Oh yeah. The polite, condensed version of my rant worked on the salesgirl. They'll get the long form if/when the piece is actually delivered Friday.

In reply to alex:

Sounds a lot like racing:

Big name #1

Big money next

Little guy pfft

In reply to Datsun1500:

Yeah, that's the thing, though: I go out of my way to make sure those little sales get satisfaction. Hell, absolutely worst case scenario, I'll pull a loaf from the big wholesale order (and tell them I'm doing just that), because I know everybody buys with a buffer, and I can make it up to them tomorrow without any negative effects.

And that one customer throwing that one party will be directly exposing his friends to my product, and at least half of those people will become customers. I haven't done any real tracking, but based on my time in direct interaction with customers at farmer's markets, I'd wager that over 85% of people buying would tell me "I had your bread [with a friend or at a restaurant] and I had to come get some." That particular kind of word of mouth is the bedrock of my business.

Sales people lie. Especially in the construction industry. Lie, lie, lie. My business partner (the sales guy) and I had a long talk about this when we started 8 years ago. It took him while, but he finally figured it out. Don't promise any schedule I can't keep, and talk to me first. Nothing pisses me off like people that can't keep a schedule. When it's me, I get furious.

Next time, call and ask for the shop foreman. He'll tell you, straight up, when it will be ready.

Under promise, over deliver. A mantra I try like hell to live by. My clients have no comprehension of what that means. Right now, we have a nice fat order in process. It took their accounts payable dept 5 freaking weeks to get us the money. Next day we get calls asking when it will ship. Arrgghh. The JOYS of self employment. Oh, Pete Gossett bought a nice system from us. The next product we ordered from that supplier was not shipped to us, but to Pete. Simple shipping dept screwup, but makes me think something is in the air.

alex wrote: "I've never bought granite before, so, you tell me xyz," and "I really have no idea what I'm doing." Were I in their position, I'd make a mental note. .

In the hose business the mental note would be to bump the profit margin a little higher. LOL

Heh, I figured I was setting myself up, but I have a few options in town if their price made my eyeballs pop out of my head. In this place was barely more expensive than a competitor for exactly the stone I wanted (fossils!), as opposed to taking a pick from remnants.

Toyman01 wrote: Next time, call and ask for the shop foreman. He'll tell you, straight up, when it will be ready.

In the future, when a salesman gives me a time estimate, my reply will be "Is that the same number your [foreman/service manager/etc] will tell me?" Then I'll go ask him.

In other news, I wanna see this rock, and I wanna eat some bread.

You should have put on a Dee Snyder wig and gone back in there and said, "I wanna ROCK!"

If/when I get it to my shop, I'll take pictures. The sample on their site isn't representative at all. It's cool as hell. I'll have to figure out how to identify the fossils, since I'm sure that's going to be the first question out of anybody's mouth when they first see it.

As for the bread, you're gonna have to wait. Like everybody else.

Toyman01 wrote: Sales people lie.

+1. I have never met an honest sales person in my life yet.

alex wrote: ...you're gonna have to wait. Like everybody else.

Sounds familiar

Datsun1500 wrote: 2 guys walk into your bread shop. One owns a restaurant and wants a large order every day for 2 years. One wants a loaf of bread for a party he's having once in his life. Who goes to the front of your line? It sucks, but it happens, install it and get on with the excitement of opening a new shop, don't let it ruin your day.

In our shop (Production Manager, precision grinding), the big order gets the bump. I can push off an hour or so on a big order, and can bang out a small order, easier than trying to tell little guy that his work won't be done for a couple days.

Same concept here. If I get a big order that I know is going to get used over a couple/three days and I need to fill other orders, I'll split the big order over a couple days to be sure the smaller ones get filled on time. Everybody's happy, though I may work with a little bit less efficiency.

Likewise at the bike shop, we had one lift out of four dedicated to turn-n-burns and one dedicated to long term jobs (and that one would get bikes rotated frequently). The other two were sort of limbo - a more complex diagnosis or a more involved job. If somebody comes in for a tire change, an oil change, a minor service or whatever other quick job, one of the mechanics gets pulled off a long- or medium-term job to bang out the easy work in an hour or two. Keeps turnover moving, keeps the customer happy, and keeps money flowing.

See, and your hypothetical frustrates me even more, because it solidifies my belief that this shop was shafting me thanks to my small order. I mean, how many of their big orders are calling them to try to pin down the time of completion because a couple hours makes a difference? Probably very few. How many of their big orders are for clients who sell several granite install jobs at a time, and a day or two doesn't really matter to their crew? Probably plenty. But the little job gets pushed back because "we can knock that out whenever he gets antsy."

Maybe I'm making too many leaps of logic here, but I can see this happening too easily.

First off, the inexcuseable part is the lack of communication. The client has to be kept in the loop and they did not do this. Second, underpromise and overdeliver (like cwh said) is the way to keep 'em happy.

About scheduling, it's the bane of the car repair business. Every time I see one of those testimonials where someone traveling had a problem, the shop was busy but they got it right in and got them back on the road I wonder what the person who got bumped had to say. Bet they weren't as happy.

I've had people walk in when the place is busy as hell, I tell them it's going to be a while because all the techs are tied up and they say (in various ways) so what? the other people's cars are not important but theirs is. Hmmm. Well, the person who got their butt out of the bed and got their car to us early so we'd have time to diagnose and repair it before they get off work is every bit as important as the guy who decided to sleep in till noon then show up at 2 or 3 pm and demand to get their car in right now.

My experience when I used to work in the construction world is that the size of the order doesn't matter. A bad company is a bad company. If you don't want to get screwed, you have to constantly yell, and threaten people, etc. It seems that if you're not screaming at their face, they assume that they are doing a great job. That's what totally burned me out of the construction industry.

There is an example that I remembered, where I had ordered a 500k piece of equipment from a company is the US. This was a big chunk of their annual revenue.
Yet, they got it finished two weeks late. The construction site was put on hold because of that.
When it finally arrived, it was damaged because it had been improperly tied down.
Then, during installation, we noticed some automation equipment was missing and when I told them, they argued with me for two days before they send me an e-mail saying: "Oops, we just found the missing stuff in the shop, we'll send it ASAP".
And finally, they refused to provide a French (I'm in Quebec) version of their user manual (even if that was a condition for the purchase). Only when I threatened them to hold the last payment and take them to court, did they finally provide the manual.

Second time we ordered from them (because another client asked for them), it was pretty much the same thing.

A bad company, is a bad company.

all businesses are different.

i'll personally delay a big job to get some small ones taken care of for that little old lady who needs her fan put up, or whatever. a huge high dollar custom piece of furniture is going to take time, so if i work on it 3 days and go elsewhere 2, honestly nobody knows but me because i build that stuff in the shop. i strive to take care of the little guy, because 90% of the time the little guy calls back in 3 or 4 years telling me how great it was that i did X for them and they turn into a big $ order.

ex: new tile in laundry room. calls back for new gate to backyard. turns into full master bath remodel/blowing out walls for huge shower. then vinyl side the whole house + new garage door. i'm there right now wrapping up a custom entertainment center and in a month or two we'll be rebuilding their deck out of composite material. take care of the little guys.

however being a regular customer at several suppliers and fabrication shops has its perks, because my stuff always gets bumped to the front of the line past all the little guys. because they do not run their businesses like i do mine.

i appreciate your dedication to the little guy, alex.

I once ran a exhibit house / fab shop / sign shop and we always had hell with scheduling. Little stuff always got pushed to the front for no other reason than to get them out of the way. Big stuff was our bread and butter and if you have 20k square feet full of one project you get the other stuff done to make space.

Always communicate; biggest mistake companies make and the easiest way to lose customers is to not keep up with you customer.

Constantly bumping your big client is never a good practice. If you always bump their job to the top for them, they will come to expect it. Now let's say you have to bump another good client because those guys asked you again. You'll piss off one of your good clients no matter what you do.

You also have to take care of the little guys, because they can help you survive in bad times.

A good friend used to have a cleaning company for industrial plants. His best customer accounted for close to 50% of his revenue. He had started to get rid of his little clients because he felt they weren't worth the trouble. Well his best customer changed ownership, and the new owners said "we'll hire people for the cleaning, instead of sub-contracting", not realizing the can of worms they would open. Losing half of his revenue so suddenly, forced my friend's company into bankruptcy.

Datsun1500 wrote:

patgizz wrote: however being a regular customer at several suppliers and fabrication shops has its perks, because my stuff always gets bumped to the front of the line past all the little guys. because they do not run their businesses like i do mine. i appreciate your dedication to the little guy, alex.

So the shop that bumps little guys for you is great, but the shop that bumped him for their regulars, not so great?

nowhere did i say it was great or proper business practice, i just said it was a perk. it seems like most fabrication shops are like that. way back when i was learning business i worked in a shop that fabricated sunrooms. i would have my orders arranged by how they were going on the trucks, and it never failed the boss would come out and throw the larger dealer's orders on top of the others and say it needed done in a few hours.

the granite shop i work with gets my quotes, gets out to make templates, and has my stuff getting installed in a week and a half. the other one in town that i do not have much history with looks at me as one of the little guys and one job i ran through them took 2 weeks longer than promised, for 2 little 3 foot wide countertop slabs that were remnants from their stock. it works both ways.