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Thread: What customers want to hear...

  1. #1
    Harry Tuttle phantomflanflinger's Avatar
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    What customers want to hear...

    Customers say:
    "We've already registered the domain name(s) for our site!"

    What you want to say:
    "Oh great, now we have to piss about changing nameservers and paying ransom demands to some ****ty ISP"

    What you have to say:
    "Well done, you know just as much about the Net as we do, if not more!"


    Customers say:
    "I don't know anything about this Net business, I'm afraid."

    What you want to say:
    "Then shut up and let us do your site the way we want."

    What you have to say:
    "Don't apologise, why would you know about this geeky stuff? You're a reputable firm of widget manufacturers. We envy you, because what you make is REAL (etc etc)"


    Customers say:
    "I hear these computer viruses are very dangerous. What chance is there of me catching one from this Website you're making? I'm a diabetic you know."

    What you want to say:
    "Ha ha ha."

    What you have to say:
    "You need Norton Antivirus 2003, go to norton.com.. etc."


    Customers say:
    "I went to the Website you made for me and now I can't make Winamp work. What's wrong with the Website and why have you made such a terrible mistake?"

    What you want to say:
    "Piss off."

    What you have to say:
    "Piss off." (Well, there's only so much you can take.)


    Anyone else want to post one?
    We're all in it together

  2. #2
    proud new daddy! LuxFX's Avatar
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    Customers say:
    "We've already designed the site with PowerPoint, we just want you to put it up online."

    You want to say:
    "Crap, I won't even want to admit to this project, much less put it in my portfolio..."

    You say:
    "Well that's a good start, let's see what we can do to enhance that."

    -----

    Customers say:
    "I want our site to look just like Yahoo!"

    You want to say:
    "Yeah right! Yahoo! is a content-driven page and is full of text and links. Your site has three pages of text and four pictures."

    You say:
    "Let's look around some more and try to find a site that has more resemblance to the content on your site for better comparison."

    -----

    Customers say:
    "I love your portfolio, and we'd really like to hire you. But we always have our freelancers do a test project with us first, so we can really see what kind of output you have. We won't pay you for the test project because it may turn out bad for both of us."

    You want to say:
    "**** off!"

    You say:
    "**** off!" There's no way I'm doing a 'test project' for anybody. You've seen my portfolio, you know what I'm capable off. I don't do freebies. Yet it's surprising how many people ask!!
    For War's a banker, flesh his gold. There by the furnace of Troy's field, Where thrust meets thrust, he sits to hold His scale, and watch the spear-point sway; And back to waiting homes he sends Slag from the ore, a little dust To drain hot tears from hearts of friends

    - Aeschylus, Agamemnon

  3. #3
    Harry Tuttle phantomflanflinger's Avatar
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    Yeah, been there, heard 'em say that. Here's two more I've had recently:


    Customers say:
    "Our Financial services site went online yesterday and it works OK, but I just searched AOL Netfind with "services" and it doesn't come up. What's the point of a site if it can't find it?"

    You want to say:
    "It's a good thing it doesn't. It'll put your customers to sleep."

    You say:
    "Engines do not guarantee placement, except in return for a fee. I'll mail you a comprehensive list of engine placement prices."


    Customers say:
    "I'm looking at our site right now. I want to edit it but when I press the little Edit button on the top bar on IE, it doesn't work."

    You want to say:
    "Aaaargh!"

    You say:
    "I'll have to put you on hold for a second. ... Aaaargh!"
    We're all in it together

  4. #4
    proud new daddy! LuxFX's Avatar
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    The customer says:
    "When I got home I checked the new flash site and it was really slow! I have a Pentium at home, that should be fast enough, right?"

    You want to say:
    "A PENTIUM! As in the one that only goes up to 250Mhz? Do you take your tricycle on the freeway on your way to work, too!?"

    You say:
    "I think it's safe to assume that the majority of our target audience will be able to see the movie at a normal speed."

    -------

    The customer says:
    "Wow, I like this design!! It's nice how the whole site revolves around the logo. You might want to hold off for a while though, because we just changed our logo."

    You want to say:
    *hands around client's neck*

    You say:
    "Ok, that's good to know. Just keep in mind that I charge by the hour."

    -------

    The customer says:
    "We're still trying to work out the company's name, we should have it finalized in a week or two. We want to get everything we can finished as soon as possible though. Can you have the logo finished by Friday?"

    You want to say:
    "No, dumb***, you can't design a logo without knowing the company's name first!!"

    You say:
    "No, fool, you can't design a logo without knowing the company's name first!!"


    That last one was the funniest thing a client has ever done to me. He then fussed at me on Friday, asking why the logo wasn't finished. He said, "We assumed you would design the logo, and then plug the name into it later!" ack... how do you respond to that?
    For War's a banker, flesh his gold. There by the furnace of Troy's field, Where thrust meets thrust, he sits to hold His scale, and watch the spear-point sway; And back to waiting homes he sends Slag from the ore, a little dust To drain hot tears from hearts of friends

    - Aeschylus, Agamemnon

  5. #5
    they call me the_jump... le_saut's Avatar
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    My favourite
    Client says:
    We've collected all our content from the owners and put it in Excel files. Will this be ok for you?

    I want to say
    No thanks something that exports crap html would be better than this.

    I say
    Yes, I can work around that issues but in the future could it be done in Word.


    What happened to me once
    I completed a large relational db in mysql for upwards of 6000 respondents as per the client brief.
    Just after deployment client says, "We need the database to download to Access" (not in original brief) change details and upload to the web (not in original brief) Will this be ok to do by next week?

    What I wanted to say
    That's fine, although I'll have to reconfigure the entire db to now be a flat file which will significantly increase the amount of time it takes to perform queries and update details via the online system I provided. This is outside the scope of the original brief agreed to, I will charge you $xxxx

    What I said
    That's fine, although I'll have to reconfigure the entire db to now be a flat file which will significantly increase the amount of time it takes to perform queries and update details via the online system I provided. This is outside the scope of the original brief agreed to, I will charge you $xxxx * 2.

    What I got
    $xxxx * 2

    Cheers
    James

  6. #6
    proud new daddy! LuxFX's Avatar
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    Originally posted by le_saut
    What I got
    $xxxx * 2
    sounds like a successful project then
    For War's a banker, flesh his gold. There by the furnace of Troy's field, Where thrust meets thrust, he sits to hold His scale, and watch the spear-point sway; And back to waiting homes he sends Slag from the ore, a little dust To drain hot tears from hearts of friends

    - Aeschylus, Agamemnon

  7. #7
    An Inconvenient Serving Size hurricaneone's Avatar
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    Customer says: OK, I want a site that has tons of animations, graphics, photos etc but I really need it to be lightning fast - I'm really concerned about download times.

    What you want to say: Did you fail arithmetic as a child? Can you not logically see that if you have more content, it will take longer to load?

    What you say: We too are concerned about download times, so we go to great lengths to balance content, quality and speed.



    Customer says (after demo approval): Don't you think that the buttons should be more 'fun'? And don't you think that this color is better? And don't you think that we need to add this here?

    What you want to say: If you're so freakin' design savvy, make the freakin' site yourself, you pinhead.

    What you want to say (2): You are a pillock. You couldn't pick a shirt and tie combo, let alone design a website. Cut these waste-of-time-meetings out and I'll get my work done twice as fast and perhaps break even on this project.

    What you say: The changes you've suggested are a stroke of brilliance, and they'll only take a few minutes.


    Customer says: I don't like it.

    What you want to say: Why don't you like it? Can you be more specific? Or do I have to waste my time coming down to your office (again) to sell you on a perfectly good design, simply because you are an artistically challenged imbecile.

    What you say: Let's get together and go over your points one by one.
    Stand by for emergency synapse rerouting

  8. #8
    Harry Tuttle phantomflanflinger's Avatar
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    Pillock? they have that word in Brazil? Wow.


    Customer says: "Our business strategy is based on our streamlined busines model. The business model seeks to deliver a superior customer experience through direct and comprehensive relationships, cooperative research and development with partners, custom-designed to customer specifications, and our service and support initiatives tailored to customer needs."

    What you want to say: "It's 2002. Got that? Not 1992."

    What you want to say <2>: "Yeah. You don't actually have any customers, do you? You're up to your arse in debt and wearing a ten year old Hugo Boss suit. And no, I won't start a partnership with you, or pay your alimony."

    What you say: "Hey, our business convergance policy has many simiilarities to your command strategy - let's touch base."



    Customer says: "My friend tried to go to my site and says he couldn't. What do you think went wrong?"

    What you want to say: "Does he have a computer?"

    What you want to say <2>: "Does he have someone who looks after him?"

    What you want to say <3>: "You met him."

    What you say: "It was his ISP. An ISP is an Internet Service Provider. No, not like us, we're designers. Well, the difference is..." (and so on, explaining every IT term, acronym and phrase in existence).



    Doctor goes to patient and says: "Doctor, I can't feel my legs."

    The Doctor wants to say: "You've had your hands cut off"

    The Doctor says: "You have bad circulation. That'll be $95. Would you like to sue me?" (In the US)
    We're all in it together

  9. #9
    An Inconvenient Serving Size hurricaneone's Avatar
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    Originally posted by phantomflanflinger
    Pillock? they have that word in Brazil? Wow.
    [singing]

    I'm an Englishman in Brazil...

    [/singing]
    Stand by for emergency synapse rerouting

  10. #10
    Waaambulance Pilot sk8Krog's Avatar
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    Originally posted by LuxFX


    The customer says:
    "We're still trying to work out the company's name, we should have it finalized in a week or two. We want to get everything we can finished as soon as possible though. Can you have the logo finished by Friday?"

    You want to say:
    "No, dumb***, you can't design a logo without knowing the company's name first!!"

    You say:
    "No, fool, you can't design a logo without knowing the company's name first!!"


    That last one was the funniest thing a client has ever done to me. He then fussed at me on Friday, asking why the logo wasn't finished. He said, "We assumed you would design the logo, and then plug the name into it later!" ack... how do you respond to that?
    that has happened to me. still waiting for their name.
    It must be obvious day at camp stupid

  11. #11
    proud new daddy! LuxFX's Avatar
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    Originally posted by phantomflanflinger
    Customer says: "Our business strategy is based on our streamlined busines model. The business model seeks to deliver a superior customer experience through direct and comprehensive relationships, cooperative research and development with partners, custom-designed to customer specifications, and our service and support initiatives tailored to customer needs."
    You want to say:
    "If your business strategy is anywhere near as 'streamlined' as what you just said, you're in big trouble, you big hippocrit"

    For War's a banker, flesh his gold. There by the furnace of Troy's field, Where thrust meets thrust, he sits to hold His scale, and watch the spear-point sway; And back to waiting homes he sends Slag from the ore, a little dust To drain hot tears from hearts of friends

    - Aeschylus, Agamemnon

  12. #12
    Senior Member
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    Along a similar theme to this thread is this website:

    http://www.derailer.org/clientquotes.php

    <warning>extremely addicting</warning>

  13. #13
    Harry Tuttle phantomflanflinger's Avatar
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    Never seen http://www.derailer.org/clientquotes.php before. great stuff, I just read through 200 of them. Shame the random quote button always gives you 323(?) and the off-site links are dead.

    The great thing about this is it made me feel I'm not tough enough on clients.

    "Can you put a landlord hat on the landlord?" - that's classic. The tosser must have meant a top hat, must have been a Rachmanesque landlord. It reminds me of a David Niven quote:

    A director was filming a sequence with a chariot race, (Ben Hur I think) and the horses shat everywhere. So he said "Bring on the empty horses!"
    We're all in it together

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