well i thought i had finished a job yesterday, easy job for the most part. get a call this morning, comcast remote is going to "on demand" every time the customer hits the volume up key. after fighting the video jacks located right behind where the mount had to go, and the tuner going out in 16 months of use, i had comcast drop off a new box so we could use video instead of the tv tuner.

i will preface this by stating that i now hate LG tv's. well as i originally thought when the client called, the tv's factory code for volume up is the same code as the "on demand" key from comcast.

client's husband calls me complainig that i hadn't made it back to his house today yet to fix it, and that he had payed me a great deal of money to make this setup work. he stated that he was tired of excuses, where that came from i don't know because up till now everything had gone fairly smooth. he told me it was my responsibility to make the cable box work, and he didnt understand why i couldn't come right when they called. i explained that i have a business to run and that i had other appointments booked for today and even ito next week and he should stop complaining because i would be to his house at some point today to get to it.

got to his house later, picked up the factory LG remote, and sure enough it sent the cable box to "on demand". WTF...... anyway, i entered an older LG code and it fixed the problem.

what a dick, i won't be going back. not only did i way undercharge him because the tv is mostly for his kid (i have a weakness for kids, i'm working on it, lol), but i coordinated with comcast so his wife wouldn't have to deal with them. the guy didn't even come face me when i got there, he stayed elsewhere. that a way, dick! his wife is really nice, but i will never go back of him. i hope next time he gets some dumbass that overcharges.

rant over!!


proaudio

I feel your pain. Lucky for me I only have one customer that I feel that way about. He is a dick, and i feel sorry for his wife that has to live with his crap.

I have a bunch of customers that are really nice and I enjoy doing business with them.

Then I have a few customers that I love, I have grown to be good friends with them and now I feel bad for charging them to do work. I feel obligated to give the "friend discount", even though they don't expect it.

As someone once said, "We have to make money off our friends because our enemies don't do business with us."

The LG TV code controlling the cable box is nuts. Even if you chose the LG.. how the heck is that your fault?

The tuner going out sucks but its another reason to treat TV's as monitors and use cable or satelite boxes on every project. If the client would have paid for the cable box up front he would never have had to deal with this drama.

Perfect!

You need to talk to this guy. Tell him that when he uses the car remote to lock his car, the dining room windows open up wide, and you didn't build either one of them.

You can have him return the car and get a different brand, or get different window controls, but if he simply wants to blame you, the situation cannot be fixed.

Ask him what excuses have been given that makes him not want to hear any more. Tell him that you want to help him out but you can't fix things such as no more excuses if they haven't happened.

Good rant.

I don't know about you'all but if I was paying someone $80-$120/hour I would get upset if things don't work properly as well. Maybe not the first time, but remember, we charge big money per hour and it comes with the perks bro. Just make it right. We don't always go home with a pat on the back, but we do cash some nice checks.

agreed, but this guy is impossible. gonna write this guy off.

proaudio

i am not an LG dealer and have nothing to do with Comcast, but c'mon man, don't be a dick. why start assaulting peoples equipment. we all have strange things happen, just like you believed that statement was cool. try something called professionalism.

The client will get more clients for you. Whatever the client says you need to find a way to get back on the good track with him/her. Saying you are not going back to that house shows weakness. Our line of business deals with demanding clients who actually DO spend a huge amount of money and we have to offer the best service. The main issue here is though, Did you actually went through all the buttons of the remote during your setup and checked that everything is ok? If not then its your fault and no one elses no matter how hard that sounds. When doing an install you need to check all the functions you incorporate one by one at least 5 times each to make sure everything is working fine. As far as LGs' are concerned I have to admit that they are the top integrated TV products offering IR/RS232 on almost all models big and small and I would not rant them.
Demetris

I'm with the client on this one. We don't get hired to wire light switches and hang TVs. the people who work for you were. Our job is to make intelligent and informed decisions in an area of expertise, and execute a plan accordingly. A working end result is a supremely reasonable expectation, and initially, you failed.

Now where I do fault the client is for being unreasonable, we aren't perfect, the unexpected does happen, and you had a plan in place to service the problem. I think you'll find that his behavior came up out of fear that you could not deliver, and now that you have, the relationship should improve.

There is a solution for this BTW, we book every project with a follow up visit. If there is something we've missed, the client doesn't panic that it will always be unfinished. If everything on the project went well, its 15 minutes of handshakes and thank you's, if not we have an opportunity to set it right.

jcmitch

And even better, hand out an satisfactory job delivered acceptance paper of some sort. You delivered, the client checked it with you present and everything is working.

Unfortunately I run into this type of scenario more then one would hope to. Usually the phone call starts with "one of my kids fooled with the remote" or something along those lines. Although They do sometimes get upset when they realize that you don't already have a foot out the door to come fix the problem, I do try and see their point of view. If their television is in-op then they probably have a house full of miserable people and right after they just invested what they believe to be a good chunk of money for the setup. I just try and explain that I work on a scheduled job basis and under no uncertain terms would I have left their home in the middle of an install to fix another clients problem. Most of my customers settle down after that, but you always do have a few that remain upset.

This used to get on my nerves, but in this day and age I can't really fault a customer for not expecting the type of customer service that I am willing to provide. The above scenario usually only happens with newer customers and once they see how quickly I do respond to a problem, the fact that I generally do care and am willing to go above and beyond to rectify their problem, they turn into some of the best customer referrals you could ask for. Some people are just hard to deal with, but remember all of their friends probably realize they are hard to deal with and if you can get a good referral or mention from someone like this then you're golden.

Im tired of hearing the BS about how you have to dance around every idiot in the world because they might get a job for you.

Heres the reality.. the jackass who calls you crying about his AV gear like his life depends on it... aint doing you any favors anyway so cut them loose.. forget their number and charge them as much as you possibly can every time they call you out. Eventually they will stop calling and if they dont.. you will get paid well to service their system.

ok, i see that some of you are so desperate for business that you will let someone treat you anyway they want. i am not in that position and i hope that you will not be there for long. i was in the process of trying to test and demo the system when the wife said "okay , it's all working well, thanks, i need to run out for a minute".

i do check all system operations when i sell and program a remote. however, why in the $#@% would i take the time to walk through a comcast remote that is running a tv and a cable box. if you tell me that you try all comcast buttos 5 times before you leave you are either not telling the truth or just not very smart. out of 13 years of experience this is the first time that i have EVER seen this happen. i also contacted another programmer that i know that has 10+ years eperience and he thought i was joking. he had never seen it either.

this client does not spend big money on anything, so attitude is not in the contract.

as far as LG goes. P.O.S. period. i dont care about ir/rs232. the design sucks, picture sucks, tuner is weak, sound quality is aweful, and the sets are ugly IMO.

i have been working with this client for 3 years and never a single referal. always say they are very pleased and they keep calling but no referals. so there went that theory.

BTW- client called this morning. this morning when they got up, the same issue started again. i tested the set last night and so did the client. all was great, thank yous and handshakes, now it's back. if anyone has any constructive ideas on how to solve this, i would really appreciate it.

proaudio