Customers | Orders | Business Suggestions

Having received a message from one of my lovely students very upset it prompted me to write this blog…

My student had piped a beautiful bouquet for a customer but the customer wasn’t happy with the colour?  Queue that awful sick feeling you get.. I’m sure you can all empathise! She wanted to stop and not carry on with her business.  There is a reason for this, it’s personal! You feel it’s a personal slander on your work that you’ve worked so hard to make.  It’s not like you can pass the blame on to anyone because it’s just you.  

When this first happened to me, I was ready to jack it all in because I couldn’t stand the stress and what if it happens again?  It will happen again because I’m afraid there are lots of difficult people in this world, the likes of,  if you’d even piped it in gold they’d still have something to complain about.. those sort of people you make a note of don’t supply again 🤣 I have quite a list now..

It is vital that when you start a cake business that your T & C’s are airtight!  Cover every scenario!  In other words cover your arse. Within your T & C’s you need to state that you cannot guarantee the colour! For example: 

I have an E-shop similar idea to  Interlfora where there are pictures of all of my bouquets and they choose the size.  I CANNOT guarantee that the bouquet they have chosen,  colours will be exactly the same! It’s impossible.  So this is written in my T & C’s.  

This is down to:

•How yellow your buttercream was?
•What the temperature in the room is?
•The lighting when I took the photo?
•The amount of colouring I used?

Another problem you may face:

What is your idea of pink?
What is your idea of lilac?
What is your idea of mauve?
We all perceive colours differently!

I’ve had this happen!  Customer sent to me two pictures of my bouquets that she loved! One was cerise pink and one was a paler pink.  So I said which one would you like because these are both quite different?  She replied Purple and Yellow!

So I piped this (As above)

A purple and yellow bouquet.  She was outraged when she picked it up saying she asked for pink! She absolutely did not! Now getting back to the colours, she showed me the picture she sent me of the cerise pink bouquet and said I wanted that? It was pink but she perceived it as purple.  Obviously out of common decency I offered her a full refund.  She was more than happy to take the bouquet and said it was still beautiful and didn’t want a refund.  3 hours later I had an email saying she was so disappointed and I’d ruined her Mum’s birthday 💐 and I would like a refund! Of course I did this, but never again! You learn from every awkward customer and move on.. the only reason I was so miffed about it was because I think it was probably the prettiest one I’d ever made 🤣🤣 

I recently went to an award ceremony where the guest speaker was Sara Davies (Dragons Den) I learnt so much from her speech about not allowing your heart to rule your head.. it’s not personal it’s business.  This is very difficult I know but I have learnt to do this over the years and trust me I brush everything off now.  

So please take a deep breathe, brush it off and carry on piping.

Lots of love 

Jane xxx