Honesty – The best policy
We received a rather interesting call the other day, purportedly from a prospective client. This client was asking about a specific image they had seen on our website; they wanted to know how much it would cost them if we were to reproduce the same decor for their function.
Well, we delivered the usual spiel, trying ascertain what the client was really after, as well as find out the location of their proposed function – the location obviously impacts on balloon delivery and logistical set up costs, (you know, we are really creative people and love to prepare bespoke decor for each client). When we found ourselves being steered in the conversation towards divulging every last detail of how we put the decor together, we began to get rather suspicious.
Finally, we told the client, ” we work based on trust, expecting our clients to trust us to deliver what we have agreed with them to deliver (we love to add our own extras too – just to delight our clients even more!) while we trust them to honour our terms and conditions; and as it became clear to this “client” they were not going to get any more information from us, the conversation ended.
Anyway, imagine our surprise when about half an hour later, we received another call from the same “client” who finally decided to be straight with us.
It turned out that they really wanted that decor, but had decided it wouldn’t be cost effective for them to hire us to do it for them as the function was a few hundred miles away; so they were on a fact finding mission and wanted detailed instructions on how to implement the decor.
Well, to cut a long story short, they did realise their objective, but not before they were on the receiving end of a rather stern reprimand from us and had apologised for their deceit!
‘Tope Abulude is a well known balloon decorating instructor who enjoys teaching others, so had this person been straight from the start, they may have got what they sought much earlier and without the “earful” they received.
We would love to hear from you, what would you have done and do you think our caller was male or female?
Please leave your comments below. Thank you.
Well, we delivered the usual spiel, trying ascertain what the client was really after, as well as find out the location of their proposed function – the location obviously impacts on balloon delivery and logistical set up costs, (you know, we are really creative people and love to prepare bespoke decor for each client). When we found ourselves being steered in the conversation towards divulging every last detail of how we put the decor together, we began to get rather suspicious.
Finally, we told the client, ” we work based on trust, expecting our clients to trust us to deliver what we have agreed with them to deliver (we love to add our own extras too – just to delight our clients even more!) while we trust them to honour our terms and conditions; and as it became clear to this “client” they were not going to get any more information from us, the conversation ended.
Anyway, imagine our surprise when about half an hour later, we received another call from the same “client” who finally decided to be straight with us.
It turned out that they really wanted that decor, but had decided it wouldn’t be cost effective for them to hire us to do it for them as the function was a few hundred miles away; so they were on a fact finding mission and wanted detailed instructions on how to implement the decor.
Well, to cut a long story short, they did realise their objective, but not before they were on the receiving end of a rather stern reprimand from us and had apologised for their deceit!
‘Tope Abulude is a well known balloon decorating instructor who enjoys teaching others, so had this person been straight from the start, they may have got what they sought much earlier and without the “earful” they received.
We would love to hear from you, what would you have done and do you think our caller was male or female?
Please leave your comments below. Thank you.
How refreshing ! I have been in “the business” for a little over 18 months now and having worked in the cut throat world of tv media and advertising am astounded and have my faith restored in human nature with the people I have met in the balloon world . They never have a problem I sharing tips advise and best practise and I for one would like to say a huge thankyou – I shall be watching Tope with great interest and look forward to all the new “airfilled” designs
This is so funny…I bet the caller was a lady..