Again with the time wasters...

I've always had this assumption that customers who make an effort to schedule an appointment to come down to the showroom to meet the designers are customers who are worth spending time and effort on.  But the last few customers of such that I have been getting are starting to prove otherwise.




 The very first 2 customer that I managed to close a deal with were customers who made the effort to schedule an appointment to meet me, and so when I was once again presented with 2 such customers, I really wanted to make an effort to impress them and get them to hand their project over to me to run.



Both customers were a pair of young couple, roughly my age,  who still had quite a while before they actually get the keys to their flat, they were in no rush, so after our first appointment, instead of telling them...

"I will email you the quote."

.... because that is what I say to customers I have no interest in dealing with, I decided to schedule a second appointment with them, seeing how it has been a while since I actually closed a new project, I was really itching for them.




Both customers scheduled the second appointment at least a month later, normally customers would schedule a follow up appointment a week later, but since they won't be getting their keys until the end of the year, they weren't in a rush, and for that a while, they went silent.




During that period of silence from them, I decided to do up a quotation, a space planning proposal, as well as a Sketch Up of my design proposal for them, all in the hopes of impressing them with my sincerity a month later.




About a week ago, one of them drops me a text message reading...

"Hi Tim, could you email us the quotation instead so we don't have to meet again?"

 .... just straight to the point. There really isn't anything I can do if a customer loses interest, so I  just emailed a copy of my quotation to them, feeling really dejected. luckily I did not spend a lot of time doing their sketch up, so most of my efforts were only wasted on their space planning proposal.



I wasn't too sad about it because I still had the second customer to rely on, I even prepared a Sketch Up for the second customer to see, but today, the second customer drops me a text reading...

"Hi Tim, you will be dropping us the quotation first right?"

... and that text message just made me feel so fucking demoralized, all the time and effort I have put into their proposal, and they won't even confirm the follow up appointment, I wasn't going to just say...

"Yeah sure, I will email you the quotation."

... and then never hear from them again, so I recommended that they actually drop by so I can run through the quote with them in detail and show them my 3D drawings, at least let me show you the 3D drawings I have prepared so my effort won't be wasted.

No response. They even made it a point to turn off the blue ticks on their Whatsapp, so I don't even know if they have actually read my text.

Which is why I just deleted the chat. 

Normally, I would send the quotation out if they ask for it, but I am feeling a little spiteful about all the wasted effort spend on them and just customers like them in general, and they also texted me when I wasn't exactly in a very good mood, with all that had happen on Saturday, the last thing I wanted happening the day after is for a customer I have put in so much time and effort on to suddenly tell me that they wanted to see the quote first, a.k.a "I'm going to compare the price and then go for the cheapest one which won't be you", so they won't be getting my quotation anytime soon, maybe if they actually bothered to reply to my text, I will consider emailing them, but as of right now, I am not even going to bother reminding them about their appointment next month, you don't want to reply to my text, fine, then I'm also not going to treat you as a sincere customer, simple as that.



Never am I ever going to invest so much time and effort into design proposals for homeowners who aren't getting their keys anytime soon, just honestly getting really tired of all this type of customers.

I actually have a third customer who did something similar to me, but with him, it really wasn't because he was insincere, it was more of a scheduling conflict. He was down to meet me a second time, but every time something will get in the way of the appointment, like it's some sort of freaking sign that we were not meant to work together....

First time was due to a last minute cancellation on the client's part, which was fine because he rescheduled a second appointment a few hours later.

That reschedule did not go through because I had to attend a roadshow event, which as it turned out, wasn't even worth my time, was there literally from morning to night and I only got 1 customer who didn't even want to be there, they were pulled in because their cousin was involved in the administrative side of the event.

The third time I tried to reach out to schedule another appointment, I had to be a little careful with my dates because of the possible mobilization that was due to take place in the first half of July, which has forced me to reschedule so many fucking appointments with my existing clients, it was fucking horrible the amount of inconvenience that was caused by it, and then I had to run someone's feet over with my car on the day of the mobilization. But by this time, the client has obviously lost interest at the idea of having a follow up appointment with me, naturally, so I decided to just drop him a text to let him know I will email him the quotation and also inform him that I have prepared a 3D for him for his viewing should he be interested, he passes me his email and thanks me for the quotation.... that's the last text I got from him.

So about a week later,  I decided to check up with him and see if he was still interested, because I was interested to actually run his project for him, so I drop him a text message asking him if he would be interested to come by our company event to discuss his renovation project in detail, doesn't reply to my text, double ticks go blue means you have read the message and typing out a simple...

"Hi Tim, we are still looking around."

or

"We are no longer interested, thanks for your time."

... would suffice, I will get the message and not disturb you anymore after that, it's really upsetting how so many clients don't have the basic courtesy of informing us that they are not interested when we ask them, they just choose not to reply to the message.

How much does a WhatsApp message cost?  

Probably less than a cent in data charges.

How much was I paid by you for the consultation, the quotation and design proposal? 

Cheaper than a WhatsApp message because I am literally being paid NOTHING for offering those services to you.