j4ckos mate

i work in the couruier industry,

i have one customer who is a nobend,
on his acct we make about 20k a year,
his work takes up half of the day and is a nightmare to control its probably 3-4 hours a day in stock checking holding labelling and collecting and delivering,

i know its not the the time to bin customers at the moment, but as we dont charge him for collections we do, the cost for this go's onto other accts.
therefore i susupect we make nearer 12-15k,

we have to collect freight free of charge hold it pick and despatch it or give it to other logistics companies,.

infact several jobs consist of collectng boxes (which costs us money) holding it and organising it being dispatched on someone elses courier acct,
and from time to time i have to go to his office pick up consigments bring them back to my office ring tnt or whoever and send the goods out on a 3rd party acct. they could arrange this from their office without us even seeing the shipment as its nothing to do with us. and as its on a 3rd party acct, we dont make any money on it.
there are other complex issues such as us holding freight from several manufacturers and sending it out for him as well,

we make money on the big ones but frankly him and all his suppliers make so many mistakes we spend alot of time covreing his mistakes from hisd boss, who is also a nuisance.

we also bill his customers abroad for stuff sold ex works which im not over the moon about.

what are your thoughts on it please chaps, is it worth doing.

Fuzz

Stop doing the guy favours and charge him for what you DO do.

j4ckos mate

im in early to get a head start, and im home late laoding my own van in our warehouse, and delivering the freight myself, im so fed up just the sheer name of him makes my stumach churn.

Kieran_Burns

iTrader: (1)

Introduce a 'new' charging scheme that details the work done for each delivery. Create a scheme that charges 'less' for those customers that prepare the deliveries correctly themselves.

NotoriousREV

Step 1: figure out what you do for him
Step 2: figure out what it costs for you to do the things in Step 1
Step 3: compare what it costs against what you earn from him

If you make a good profit, it's great. Make sure you include a real assessment of tim spent. If you're making a small profit from him, consider whether you have the option of using that time in other ways: either become more efficient at doing the work for him (which may include working with them to change how things are done) or deciding that you can ditch him and use the time to make more profit from other customers.

ronjeramy

iTrader: (1)

Sounds like your doing half his work and not getting paid for it. Even if you are making £12-15k off him, what does it cost you to employ a member of staff to do his 3-4 hours a day? Getting onto half that £12-15k you 'make' off him paying staff wages he's on a good thing, tell him to **** off and charge him for the work you do

mykp

being a business man myself I can appreciate you need to keep customers but you need to up the costs to him, if he values what you do, he'll stay and if not he'll go else where.

Win, win situation for you.

Snazy

We have many customers like that, and they annoy the hell out of me. All expectation from packing to delivery before its been sent.

Sadly even with a company of our size, no one makes any effort to set these people straight.

Try and educate them, so they know what you expect of them.... If they refuse or cant do it, then try and compromise..... if no joy.... can you afford to lose the business?

j4ckos mate

i have spent an hour and a half so far tonday on him and he is wuerying an invoice for £65.

even after telling him at ther time of shipment this would be the cost,

i susupect he wont be educated he just has his head down and has set proceedures, that work for him,
to give you an idea, we messed up a sea job didnt send all of it and offered to send some by air for free he told us which to send, and then a week later realised he told us the wrong boxes and wants some more going by air for free.
all of my day is spent firefighting, i now have to go and collect 1500kg free of charge and pay the hasulier for it, and hope i send it out so i can get some money back. the whole exercise is pointless.
in the meantime, accts have put customers on hold and we have lsot them as a result.
it pisses me off so much i ahve been looking for another job.

jaytc2003

iTrader: (1)

suppose it depends on the contract he has though with your company. When they tended for his business times may have been hard so your company jumped through hoops to land him. He also probably told a few porkies by promising £x amount worth of business with current and planned future ventures (lying basically)

With things like this there is generally a higher meaning, I have similar where I work, my customer has a customer and in the uk they lose a fair bit of money on this customer however elsewhere globally they do make money

Matteeboy

If you were making sod all I'd say bin him but that's enough to make it worthwhile - unless it dips under a set %age profit margin you must make.

Had it many times before - do something to get business (cut prices, delivery costs, etc) and then struggle once you have it. Much "easier" to drop prices than raise them. Sounds like he's taking up a lot of time - can you work out what this times costs you/your company? Easy to just look at margins without factoring in your work time - you'd be surprised how it adds up. If it's not happening, up your prices, make life a bit difficult (so he doesn't have you jumping through hoops) or let them go.

j4ckos mate

i think its going to be handled by someone else in here

but im going to out the squeeze on him.
just do it by the book, eventually it will get on his nerves.

j4ckos mate

we do loads of things we shouldnt for him

classic Subaru Si

Pass the cost on to him - at the end of the day, your working like a dog for him for nowt! Who else would he get to do that for him?? My guess is that he will pay the extra charges, bet he know's he's taking the p1ss too which would wind me up even more!!

vindaloo

Shame you stated what you did for a living... My first 1/2 formed thoughts were... "I wonder if he works for Scoobyclinic?"

StickyMicky

some advice from me,
sometimes you need to "sack" a customer rather then run around going toooo far out of your way, for no gains.

i have seen this countless times, and infact had to deal with it today, with one "regular" getting to cheeky and trying to get the lads to to throw in freebies when i am not around with the threat of "well i am always in, and you will lose the business" he has now been barred

**** them types IMO

never done us any harm in the past 4 years, always seam to have to have a "purge" of bad customers every now and again, it means you are left with decent ones, who dont take the **** and are a pleasure to deal with.

j4ckos mate

sticky mate hes a mong
ive been making a note of what i do for him on my second page now.

just given another hauiler two boxes that we collected from two seperate places, and we dont charge him and someone sends them out and makes money on that

Boro

iTrader: (1)

Are you in a position to bin this guy?

al4x1

not sure your capacity whether you are the owner of the business or just working there but in my opinion and I'm in a similar game what you need to do is make sure you know what you're doing for him for "free" and gauge whether its worth it to keep the account. Now if there are errors he is making then make sure the whole chain of ordering is documented, any changes to it make sure he is invoiced for it as long as you have the supporting documents then he cannot argue as its his **** up. With the extra stuff you are doing introduce a handling charge per con for sending them out with other people, its standard practice through the industry if you're into pick and pack etc, this is the point you have to consider putting these on a separate invoice so any queries don't hold up the bulk of your payments. Only a mug works for free but on another side its usually harder to get a customer than it is to loose them, its about educating them rather than pissing them off altogether and its a difficult line to judge.

j4ckos mate

i dont think he will stand extra charges al,

to give you an example we sent a job to ???????, he wanted the costs to go forward, but it couldnt be done so i made a note of telling his oppo on the file and he agreed, to pay it, i sent the freight then it gets queried, so i had to explain to his accts dept they didnt understand so i had to explain again, still didnt get it, so i explained to him and i ended the conversation saying he oppo agreed to pay for it, and he said "ok, right well can you just credit me,"
i was like jesus, how hard is that to understand.
im not the owner but second im command of my section, hes just delivered three big loose pallets in, with various movemnts on thats going to take me an hour to seperate. on the other side of my desk is a big consignment with v healty profits on and im pising around with this for hardly anything at all

nixxon

Seems obvious , to me, what you have to do.

Boro

iTrader: (1)

I take it thats a no?

al4x1

depends how much it worries you and whether you can justify it for the lucrative work. The alternative is to detail in a letter / e-mail to him and to his boss if there is one the work you are doing in effect free of charge and say that unfortunately it cannot continue put down some outline charges for doing the work and if he refuses to pay I'd drop the goods back to him. You've set a sort of precedent by doing it for him and we're guilty of doing the same you just have to be diplomatic about getting out of it in order to keep the work you want. I don't know how competitive your rates are but you will know what he will get if he offers the work elsewhere and if he does then odds are the new person won't be doing extras for free.

MMT WRX

I would be hi-lighting all these points prepare some solutions for them and having a meeting with whoever is 1st in command of your section.

SlimJ_2005

I think he's quite blatently using you as he knows he can get away with it, you are being taken for a fool. Tell him about what you are actually doing for him and how much time it's taking you, then say with all this in consideration you need to charge more for your services!

If he doesn't like it he can go elsewhere, but then he will probably reaslise a similar service to what you are currently providing for him will cost him an arm and a leg (or they will not do so much), then he will come back to you. He sounds a problem customer, your better off binning him if he doesn't agree to your terms.