Any of you guys have customers like this?

[Anonymous]

Check this out:

http://video.msn.com/v/us/v.htm?g=4ADD5 ... f=06/64&p=

I'm friends to quite a few LFS owners here and I have not heard of any customers like this :?: I guess I'm definetely in the wrong business. :roll:

 

[MartinE]

IMO as a hobbiest. As these people obviously like aquariums and no doubt spend enormous amounts of cash on them, I am not sure they really appriciate what goes into the care and maintenence of the animals and aquariums they own. Nor would I guess do they know what to do when something fails, or if the animals are sick and dying without their employees who actually maintain them.

 

[Anonymous]

Thankfully, that news clip wasn't about us "average" Joes.

Though, in all reality, we're pretty damn far from "average" ourselves..

 

[JennM]

I didn't get to bid on that one in the ATL

I do have a couple of customers for whom money is no object. One customer has spent well over $25,000 with me and her tanks include a 200-g reef and a 685-g saltwater pond in a room she had built just for that purpose - the room cost her about $50K I believe.

AND, she's quite knowledgable about the hobby, and she frequents some of these boards.

I could stand to have another few customers like that But alas, most of my customers are average hobbyists.

I have *yet* to sell one of those "Living Color" tanks - way too rich for most people. I'm not big on the fake reefs but as they go, those are some of the nicer ones.

Jenn

 

[Anonymous]

I like the wet bar one. That would be a sweet addition to a house.

 

[Anonymous]

Would that many consumers spend $125,000 for a tank full of fake corals? I can see anybody spending over 25,000 in a nice 300+ gallon tanks, but 125,000 for fake is just beyond me. I guess that when you have money you stop worrying about stuff like that.

 

[JennM]

Those Living Color systems are mucho expensive. They are good quality, nicely made, but not my cup of tea. Still if one was gonna go that route, that's the Cadillac of setups.

Jenn

 

[fishinchick]

Those people only want pretty furniture. Very very few of them are hobbyists but keep the tank as a 'status' symbol like one would an airplane, horse or fancy silverware.

Most of them don't even specifically care about the fish - other than the fact that if there arent enough or if the tank isnt wall to wall fish they call and yell that they have a dinner party on friday and there are only 70 fish in their 200 gallon tank and they want more so their friends can see all the pretty fishes. (ok ok I'm exaggerating of course...)

And then when you give in and give them 150 more fish for their 200 gallon tank (after you tried to explain bio-load and that their tank is only 4 months old) they whine that all the fish died.

Or even better, it gets stocked perfectly, everything lives, until he buys some diseased 3 buck damsel at a local fish store and pitches it into the tank and kills everything off.

Well big ol duh on you spanky.

 

[JennM]

Actually, Adrienne, you nailed that pretty accurately

I've had a few customers like that, and the relationship usually doesn't last long.

I even wrote into my maintenance agreement that if the customer buys fish someplace else, that voids any warranty we provided on the fish we sold - I've had that happen where they buy something stupid or it's sick and the next thing you know, the whole display is riddled with ich.

I even had a customer do that once - bought a sick fish someplace else, infected their previously healthy tank that we cleaned every other week, and then they got MAD when we charged them for an extra visit and to treat the sick fish. We dumped each other by mutual agreement at that point. :roll:

I have to say that many (most) of our maintenance clients are also hands-on in a good way - we encourage them to read and research and most of them do. I like those customers

Jenn

 

[Anonymous]

I had a customer add a live coldwater oyster to their FO tank. Sushi restaurant. Luckily I caught it the same day. I was not pleased. "What the hell is THAT, and who put it there?" :lol:

 

[JennM]

Well if it's a typical Asian restaurant tank, its inhabitants would likely have eaten it My restaurant customers typically keep FOWLR with triggers and puffers and such.

Glad to know I'm not the only one who is anal and protective of 'my' tanks - just because they're in somebody else's home or business... they're still 'mine'!!!

Nothing pisses me off more than to have spent hours and hours grooming a tank, only to have the moron that owns it, drop something stupid into it...makes me feel... violated somehow! "How DARE they mess with MY tank?!"... of course being the consummate professional, I can't rip into them the way I'd like to sometimes, but I can finesse a jab on occasion

Jenn

 

[fishinchick]

I even wrote into my maintenance agreement that if the customer buys fish someplace else, that voids any warranty we provided on the fish we sold .........
Jenn

Yeah we have that in the contract too. Doesnt mean that they don't TRY. LOL

 

[Anonymous]

"WTF, who put that trigger in here?"

 

[fishinchick]

Real conversation ... no bull...

Client: What do you mean that clown trigger eats shrimp?
Me: They eat shrimp. Yes. What have you been feeding it all this time?
client: Well I got some of that cocktail shrimp stuff that's frozen.
me: Ok that's shrimp, right?
Client: Yeah but these are frozen. They arent alive.
Me: Personally I prefer fresh to frozen, why not the trigger?
Client: Stunned silence.



I have a list of stories like this that go on and on and on and on and on.......

 

[JennM]

I have a customer with a 225. Among other things, he had a HUGE pair of Tomato Clowns that he'd had for a number of years - mean as hell .

One day I went and his wife was there... she mentioned that all the fish her husband bought at the grand opening of Petco, had died. They had Ocellaris clowns for $8 apiece - so he bought 8 or 10 of them. 8O Needless to say that Ma and Pa Tomato picked them off one by one. We service that tank every other week - I never saw one of the Ocelllaris.

Another one I love is "well the website that I bought it from says it's easy to keep, reef-safe and won't outgrow my tank". Client bought a spotted sweetlips. Once he realized the error of his ways, then he tried to get me to take it off his hands - but alas it didn't live long enough to foist off on me :roll:

I've got a list of those stories too You and I should write a book!

Jenn

 

[fishinchick]

I have a whole website somewhere dedicated to stories like that.

One of my FAVORITES is this lady calls in to one of the internet fish stores I worked for. She was angry because her plate coral died and she wanted credit.
Common procedure is to ask for a digital image of the animal to verify 'death'. Oddly enough a lot of people don't know the difference between a dead coral and a not dead coral.

Can you guess what this case was?

So I get the picture and repeatedly bang my head on the keyboard. I pull up her email and politely ask her to please turn over the plate coral as it is upside down. The kicker is the coral is sitting on top of a tube anemone.

I was totally nice about the reply. I didn't even put one *LMFAO* in the reply. She calls my boss and said I was rude and laughing at her. I told my boss that I was NOT laughing at her in the email at all. What I did at my desk on my own time is my own business :p

So if it wasnt dead before, it is now.

I've had clients call to cancel an order for a friend or relative because they ordered saltwater fish but only have a freshwater tank.

I can go on and on and on

 

[JennM]

I have browsers in the store ask if specimen X is freshwater or specimen Y is saltwater -- AND THEY ARE IN THE SAME TANK!

I had another older man come in expecting to pick which fish he'd have for supper. "You mean these are PET fish?" He'd never heard of such a thing (I think he needs to get out more).

My service tech was helping out in the store one day as I was busy, and I tried to keep one ear on her conversation with her client as she bagged up some Mexican Turbo Snails. When the customer got to the register, I asked how long her saltwater tank had been running or some other benign question but making sure I referenced a marine tank. "Oh I only have a freshwater tank"... I re-tanked the snails ("Here's your sign") Dunno - just had a feeling that wasn't right and I'm not afraid to ask elementary questions to be sure. Saved a lot of critters that way....

Jenn

 

[Anonymous]

So I get the picture and repeatedly bang my head on the keyboard. I pull up her email and politely ask her to please turn over the plate coral as it is upside down. The kicker is the coral is sitting on top of a tube anemone.

:lol: that's as bad as claiming shrimps molts as DOA

 

[WayneSallee]

There was a lady that purchased some live rock at a pet store, but when she got home she discovered that there were bugs crawling on her live rock. So she took the live rock out of the tank, and sprayed it with raid, and then put it back in the tank.

No more bugs. And nothing else alive either. :lol:

Wayne Sallee
Wayne's Pets
[email protected]

 

[fishinchick]

There was a lady that purchased some live rock at a pet store, but when she got home she discovered that there were bugs crawling on her live rock. So she took the live rock out of the tank, and sprayed it with raid, and then put it back in the tank.

No more bugs. And nothing else alive either. :lol:

Wayne Sallee
Wayne's Pets
[email protected]

Wayne wins!!!!!!!!!!!! OMG I'm drop jaw'd and wide eyed here!! LOL

I know that years and years and years ..... and years ago I was a newbie but I SWEAR I was never that dumb.

Raid.

OMG LOL