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(January 2006) posted on Mon Jan 30, 2006

Jim breaks down several vinyl failures

By Jim Hingst

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There's nothing more satisfying than solving a good graphics mystery. That's usually true if you're a technical service person who thrives on troubleshooting challenges and has no financial stake in the job.

But, in the real world of the signmaker, when graphics fail, someone pays for it. If that failure affects your pocketbook, that enjoyable intellectual exercise often becomes emotionally charged, and there's nothing satisfying about that.

From the signmaker's perspective, what's really important about troubleshooting is discovering the cause of the failure, so it's not repeated.

Common-sense suggestions

As with most things in life, there are right and wrong ways to handle complaints. Here are a few of my gems of wisdom on the subject.

Respond quickly. One very wrong way to handle a problem is to ignore it, hoping that it will just go away. Years ago, I worked with a classic procrastinator, who documented complaints in detail. There's nothing wrong with that, but these documents were just filed in his desk's bottom drawer, with no action taken. After three years of inaction, more than 400 unresolved complaints had accumulated. I had the misfortune of cleaning up my co-worker's mess, which took several months.

None of these problems went away; they just festered in customers' minds. The longer a complaint drags on, the more difficult it is to resolve. In my opinion, when there's a problem, deal with it now. At the very least, visit the complaining customer promptly to demonstrate your concern.

In troubleshooting the problem, don't try to conduct your investigation at arm's length over the phone. Few vinyl mysteries are unraveled in this manner, because critical information is usually communicated badly or not at all. Solving complex problems requires stepping on the playing field and conducting a firsthand, thorough investigation.

Is it really a problem?

Early in the troubleshooting process, assess whether or not the customer's claim is valid. In spite of the old saying, the customer isn't always right; most have no idea what is commercially acceptable. Complaints about mottled vinyl, tiny air bubbles and overlapped seams are really non-issues. Sometimes customers expect vinyl to do what vinyl wasn't designed to do, such as conform to extreme, compound curves without seams in the vinyl.