DTP gone bad!
Bill –
GOD, that's frustrating.
Back when I used to run a department, and had 6 people working for me, I
hired a lot of beginners. They'd come in with these GREAT freelance jobs,
that dropped in their laps, and would have to as me how to do them. Being a
nice guy, I'd help them… but I always wondered why the least-experienced
artists got the best jobs.
Incompetent competitors are probably a fact of life in most professions…
hopefully they get better or go away. It is annoying to loose work to them.
It appears to me that this particular customer was in some way dissatisfied
(whether it was design style, price, turnaround, your shirt color, or the
phase of the moon), or they wouldn't have looked elsewhere. They didn't
"keep it in-house", they jobbed it out to a freelancer.
Because they seem to have made a poor choice in alternatives, you have a
second chance to address their dissatisfaction.
I don't think that approaching the corporate comm person <neccessarily> has
to be a challenge to her ego, if you present it right.
My personal philosophy is: the more my customers know about the process,
the better they'll like my service — 'cause I'm good at it.
Last december, a customer for whom I had done a couple of catalogs, decided
to use someone else. After $2000 worth of charges from this "cheaper"
source, they were 3 weeks late and only a quarter done. They called me in a
panic, I charged them $1000 more to fix the mess than I would have to do it
right the first time, and got them back on schedule (just barely). I don't
think I'm in danger of them going elsewhere again.
— don