The customer base that you build for your business is the most precious item you have. Without your customers, you would have no business at all. The different types of customers that will cross your path has quite a variety. A difficult variety to deal with is the Friends & Family Customers.
There are the advantage seekers. You know the sort, that woman you have known for 30 years. Never mind the fact you haven’t actually spoken in the last 20 years, her son is getting married now and needs a wedding set. She wouldn’t dream of sending that work to anyone but you! She knows it’s a short notice thing, but you’ll do it for her, after all, you’ve been such good friends for decades!
Not a problem! Happy to help an old friend who wants to give her son the best! Days of back-and-forth discussions and design layouts have finally crafted the perfect set design. The cost is laid out clearly and even adjusted with a reasonable % Friends & Family discount. Then the outcry begins.
“I THOUGHT WE WERE FRIENDS! WHY ARE YOU CHARGING ME THAT MUCH?” In the end, they thought you would do the work for next to nothing because of your friendship. Their value of you, your work, and your friendship is equal to the value of the order they don’t want to pay.
Then there are those well meaning family and friends that truly have no idea what you do. They ask you to fix some broken item that has nothing to do with anything remotely related to the jewelry industry. They ask because you have a workbench and in their mind, that means you should be able to do it. Or they think you don’t know anything at all, but since you work with jewelry, perhaps you might know who they can go to when they need to have a ring made or bracelet fixed. They may be well-meaning, but they have no value or appreciation for the work they don’t know a thing about.
Those that do understand what you do and have an appreciation for your craft are willing to make sure you are compensated for your time and labor. These friends and family will gladly bring the work to you and be genuinely appreciative of the Friends & Family discount you offer them. They will be the ones proudly showing off your work to others and telling them how great you are. Their value of you, your work, and your friendship can not begin to be measured by a dollar value.
It’s basic human nature in us to want to do something extra special for those friends and family we care about. However, it doesn’t have to be the huge problem or challenge that it can become. When a friend or a family member comes into the business for something, they are a customer first. Apart from offering them a Friends & Family discount on the final bill, they are treated just like any other customer.
It’s a simple concept to just follow our normal procedures even when it is a friend or family member. We have an intake procedure for new orders. We have pricing approval requirements. We have a schedule for the workflow. We have down payment requirements and expect a payment in full at the time of delivery. We follow the same procedures for any other customer that walks in the door.
When we redirect and guide the friends and family members through the same customer process as everyone else, there seems to be fewer complications. There have been many occasions when the thought of “It’s just (fill in the blank with name of friend or family member). I’m sure it will be fine if I just (fill in the blank with variety of work requests).” Those occasions have rarely gone well for our business. Our normal procedures are put in place not only to ensure our customers receive a timely processing of their order and the quality we promote, but also to ensure our business functions smoothly and efficiently. It is with a great deal of painful experience that I have learned the lesson that the value of my work, my time, myself, and my business, should not change because it’s a friend or family member that is asking.
