Service - an old-fashioned concept?

Last week I had a client request a large format canvas print mounted onto a wooden frame for use in his West End showroom window.

On the previous occasion we had done a similar job for this client I had been a little surprised by the cost of the job so I looked at 2 or 3 alternative suppliers. I chose one, not the cheapest, and sent them the client's high res 16mb file (upsampled to 56mb).

The supplier then surprised me by asking me to pay them by debit card - or credit card - before they would proceed. I had been talking to them over a few days asking them for different prices for different size prints and at no stage had they said anything about pre-paying for the job. The job had become urgent by the time the client gave the go-ahead so I registered my complaint before paying them with the company debit card. Small mistake - but still a mistake - by the supplier.

Then they sent us a proof which they wanted us to approve before proceeding with the job and which looked to me like a lo res pdf - which it was. I asked them - as politely as possible - how I could approve a lo res pdf that was less than 1mb for a file that was 56mb. They didn't understand the point I was making and I was told that all I had to do was to zoom in to the pdf until I was looking at a 100% representation. Another small mistake - but still a mistake - by the supplier that showed me that the person I was talking to didn't know what they were talking about.

I said that if they had faithfully represented the hi res shot I had sent them, the finished job should be alright and I sent them an email confirming all this. Some 5 minutes after this conversation and email they called to say that they now understood the point I was making and asked for approval of the proof. I pointed out - again very politely - that I had already given them the go-ahead in my email. Third small mistake - but still a mistake - by the supplier.

I can understand that they've probably had bad debts in the past and if they wanted me to pay up front they should have given me the option of perhaps paying 50% of the cost up front and the remainder once the job was finished or of at least telling me at the start of the quoting process that because I was a new customer they would like me to pay up front and that thereafter I could pay on invoice.

Now I know these individual small mistakes aren't all that important in the large scheme of things but they are not the way a customer - a new customer indeed - should be treated. The service they were offering was based around the way they wanted to work without any consideration for me, the customer.

It is doubly annoying when we bend over backwards to give our clients what they want and to conform to their way of working. We are in a service industry and there's a lot of competition out there so as well as it being a natural way of working with clients it's also a necessary way of working.