How to loose a client in 10 days!

Text by: Tanya Munshi

Since I have learnt it the hard way, I decided to make it a lesson for life and to share this invaluable lesson with all my readers.

In July this year, my husband had gifted me some really nice fabrics for salwar suits from Nalli's in Visakhapatnam. Having heard of great reviews of an acquaintance who (is from Mumbai), has set up a designer boutique in Visakhapatnam as her husband is currently posted here.

I had given these two fabrics to stitch into beautiful salwar suits as designed by her. She is no doubt a nice lady, and as luck would have it, both our husbands are colleagues. And so we struck a nice rapport.

I was leaving for Mumbai in September end and therefore I gave my dresses to get stitched in July. I was kept on hold as the wedding season was on in full swing and she was flooded with 40 blouse orders that had to be stitched by one single bride in Visakhapatnam. What on earth was that bride going to do with 40 blouses at the start of her wedding, fails me. And so I waited, and waited and waited.

Finally, in end August I got a chance to try out my first dress and by that time I couldn't recall what were the fabrics I had given her (pun intended). The dresses were gorgeous no doubt. Since I too am a professional, to build a rapport with her so that I could get more dresses designed and stitched from her in the future, I bought one sleeveless top and gave an order for a party top which cost a bomb, but I paid with a smile. Mind you, since she was a 'friend', I didn't ever bargain or argue about the pricing, as I didn't want to spoil any relations. I had gone with absolutely no expectations of a discount on price as I sincerely feel, everyone has a job to do and its not fair to ask for a discount. I paid her the money. Though she was nice enough to reduce the cost minimally here and there, so no complaints.

(But now I realise, she didn't want to take further orders from me for the simple reason, instead of employing her tailors to stitch dresses from a rather 'small client', she could utilise her manpower to cater to 'larger clients', like a new air-hostess training academy in Vizag.)

Even after the trials, my dresses refused to fit me well, so I kept returning them to her for alterations. I needed to get two extra churidaars stitched, but due to her lack of time, I succumbed to giving some fabrics to a local tailor who obviously made a disaster out of the fabrics. I did mention this to my friend who offered to correct them for me, if I got them to her boutique. When I did bring them, she refused saying her tailors don't want to do that. Mind you, I smiled and said, 'No problem!' and handed over all those disaster churidaars to my maid.

Maybe as a businesswoman, one should realise that if her main clients are women, then she shouldn't take them for granted. Women talk, so if one lady is unhappy with the service offered, she will obviously talk about that to her friends and do you think others would want to visit her boutique? Secondly, as a true businesswoman, who would want to maintain her clients, if was truly apologetic that she has made me run around for 3 months to get my dresses, then maybe as a goodwill gesture offered to help me re-stich/ repair the two badly stiched churidaars, as she had initially promised.

Finally in mid-September I got my dresses, yet with some more alterations to be done. As luck would have it, I happened to be in the dressing room and spotted a kurta ditto to the fabric I my husband and bought me. I realised, it is a portion of my fabric from Nalli's that was made into a full sleeve kurta, with the exact same embroidery on the sleeves. It was an orange-brick shade of kurta and quite a unique shade, so its hard to forget! 

That hurt me a lot. I wish, this 'friend' had been honest with me and said that there would be extra fabric left and I would have happily paid her extra to get something new stitched. It fails me everytime to think, why wasn't she honest with me in the first place? I would have paid her whatever she demanded and got something new out of that extra fabric, which is technically mine. 

It pains me everytime that something that we had bought out of our hard earned salary is being sold by someone else. More than anything else, I am feeling so cheated by someone, especially since I know her and so I cannot even go and fight for it as it will look poorly on us and sour relations.

Now whatever said and done, I think she has lost one client already (that's me) and maybe a couple of other potential clients who wanted to go to her boutique and now have considered otherwise. So, this is how you can loose a client in 10 days.

Tips before you hire a dress-designer/ tailor:
1. Ask your designer/ tailor how much material they need to stitch a dress for you.
2. Ask your designer/ tailor to return the extra fabric, even if it is a piece of a hanky - take it.
3. Usually all designers use the scrap/ left over cloth to make a new dress/ outfit. Yes, most of us may not like to take back our bits and pieces of our fabric, but if its your hard earned money, then why not.
4. If you're getting a sleeveless top, then ask them what will they do with the extra leftover fabric, especially if the fabric has readymade embroidery.
5. Maintain all your bills of the fabric purchases and the stitching bills.
6. If you find that your designer is taking too long, then ask for your fabrics back and find another designer/ tailor. It may not be easy, but its better than running behind someone for months.