To ask for help on how to reply to this customer?

[Squidpinky]

I need your help on how to reply to this customer.

I make cakes for living, home based but all on the books. Never had a complaint apart from today....

Quoted a lady for a 21st birthday cake for her daughter. Quite an elaborate design but she was very vague in what she wanted - I.e didn't specify colour etc just sort of said what she wanted and said "make it look pretty"

Her daughter's party is tomorrow, the cake is finished and she asked me to send a picture. I did and she was horrified - said it's not what she wanted, I was going to ruin her daughters birthday, the colour was wrong (even though she hadn't specified a colour. I offered to change details on it, obviously couldn't change the colour. She wanted extras adding to it which would have taken 6 hours atleast to make - that would have meant I made zero profit.

I made some changes to the cake which took me 3 hours and I sent her a pic and she was grateful saying it was much better and Thankyou.

I then get a message saying she wants it delivered now as I caused her so much stress and upset. The venue is an hours drive from my house. The original agreement was she was to pick up the cake. I explained this wasn't possible for me to deliver and she said that she has no free time tomorrow and can't collect it.

How do I respond to this? She's the type that will leave a bad review everywhere and anywhere so I have to tread carefully! Help!!!

And please from now on get a deposit before starting on new work!!!!

Take a nice photo before she takes it, and one with it in her hands. Don't let her leave without paying, if you can.

For the future, always ask for a deposit (50%) and get them to fill out a form saying colour and approximate design. If they don't fill out this part, then ask them to initial that they haven't specified design info.

Good Luck!

You can go to your last read post Marvelmummy, by hovering your cursor over the bottom right hand corner of the post until a "bookmark" sign comes up, and then clicking on it. It will have a short thin and then tell you it's "saved".

Then when you next click on the thread title, you will be taken to your furtherest "saved" post.

And welcome.

Thank you Astro

Only an hour and a half to go.

And I need cake.

Cake.

Caaaaaaake . . .

Thanks HappyFlappy

Judge Rinder would love this! brilliant idea.

Placemarking

I wouldn't put up a photo of the cake anywhere. It is very identifying.

Move forward with the improvements to stop this happening in the future but don't risk your business by turning it into a social media shitstorm. Keep your reputation intact by minimising not drawing attention to one bad customer.

At most, post a bland response like you see on Review sites like Trip Advisor

"thank you for your valued comments. We regret things were not to your liking on this occasion and hope you will try us again in the future. Hope your daughter enjoyed her birthday celebration"

Great ideas from untilthecows and fabulous! Can't wait to see the cake 🎂

How can it be identifying?

Free give away due to uncollected cake! Is a great way of letting people know that

Your not wasting the cake
Another could benifit

Its not disclosing any real facts - it's just 'paying forward'

Take really nice photos of the cake before she gets her hands on it! Post them on your page!

I hope she comes and you get your money. On bad review (if she does leave one) hopefully wont have to much affect if you've got loads of good ones and you reply calmly and factually.

*too

Marking place with a 🎂

If she leaves a bad review, you could always respond with a screenshot of her message which stated she didn't mind what colour it was and to use your artistic skills.

Waiting till noon

Im new to MN can some explain place marking to me?

As Astro says, sometimes people put "place marking" or a very short message on a thread, so it will come up on their list of "I'm on" threads.

As an alternative, if you want to see how a thread turns out, but don't want to post on it, you can always click on "Watch this thread" and it will come up on your "I'm watching" list of threads.

After her crap and your worry I'd be going for this option......

Sounds like she will be leaving a shit review whatever you do so I wouldn't do a 2 hour round trip just to avoid one. Can you charge her for delivery and take it to her once too be had payment for the cake?

I'd then say this is a "thank you for your previous custom" jobby and chalk it up to experience. Make sure you get sign off on a design before you spend any money on materials or labour and take a deposit.

Would love to see the cake tho!

She's either a piece of work or is just one of those massively irrational unreasonable people. It can be hard to anticipate this if you are a nice person and reasonable yourself. I agree about the safeguards you need to put in place from now on.

I think that most people are good at sniffing out twats when reading reviews.

Yes please can we see the cake? cake, cake, cake, cake, cake, cake, cake!

Sorry about the unfortunate image in the last line of my post above

I hope she pays you in fullOP.

If not, I'm looking forward to seeing FB cake page

Stop filling up threads with pointless place marking posts... use watch this thread you lazy gits