Every shop gets these. What separates the shops that handle them well is that they decided the policy before the phone rang, so the conversation is calm and consistent.
Two questions, kept separate
- Is the complaint valid? Is the garment actually wrong or faulty?
- Who pays? That depends on what was approved, not on how the complaint is delivered.
Conflating them is what produces either a defensive argument or a reflexive free reprint. Both are expensive.
The script
Acknowledge fast and without conceding.
"Thanks for letting me know. Send me a photo of the print and the inside label and I'll look at it today."
Get evidence. A photo of the fault, the garment label, and the quantity affected. If it is a wash issue, ask how it was washed.
Check against the approved proof. Position, size, colour, garment, spelling. This is the moment your recorded approval earns its keep. See cutting approval time for why the timestamp matters.
Then say which it is, plainly.
If it is yours:
"That's our error, the placement is 30mm low against the proof. I'll reprint the full run and have it with you Thursday, no charge, and I'll collect the originals."
If it is theirs:
"I've checked against the proof you approved on the 14th, and the spelling matches what was signed off. I can absolutely reprint them. Because the artwork was as approved it would be chargeable, but I'll do it at cost on the garments and drop the setup, so £X rather than £Y. Do you want me to get it running?"
No lecture, no "as you can see", no implication of blame. A fact, a solution, a number, a question.
What is yours and what is not
| Situation | Who pays |
|---|---|
| Print position or size differs from approved proof | You |
| Wrong garment, wrong colour, wrong quantity | You |
| Under-cured print cracking after washing | You |
| Registration or opacity below your own standard | You |
| Spelling error present in the approved proof | Customer |
| Customer supplied low-resolution artwork, warned in writing | Customer |
| Customer changed their mind about the design | Customer |
| Sizes ordered wrong by the customer | Customer |
| Garment mill fault | Supplier, handled by you |
Mill faults are worth calling out. They are not your fault, but the customer bought from you, so you handle it and you claim from the supplier. Never send a customer to your supplier.
Publish the policy
Reprint window, what counts as a fault, what a chargeable reprint costs, and how wash durability is treated. On the quote and the invoice. A published policy converts an argument into an administrative step.
Learn from the pattern
One reprint is noise. Three of the same kind is a process fault. Track the cause: blanks, setup, cure, artwork, or approval. Then fix the check that missed it, using the QC checklist.
Cost the reprint, then decide
A reprint decision made without a number is made on mood. Work out the cost before the conversation and it becomes a business decision with an obvious answer.
| Line | 24-piece rerun |
|---|---|
| Blanks | £58 |
| Ink, film, consumables | £11 |
| Setup, if screens came down | £54 |
| Press and finishing labour | £62 |
| Freight, expedited | £18 |
| Total | £203 |
Against an original order value of £265, a free rerun does not reduce that job's margin, it removes it and takes a bite out of the next one. That does not mean never do it. It means know what you are giving, and give it deliberately to a customer worth it rather than to whoever complains hardest.
Log a cause code every time
Five codes are enough, and they should be recorded on the reprint, not in a conversation: artwork, setup, material, cure, handling. A quarter of coded reprints will tell you something specific and usually unexpected, and it is very often not the press.
What the codes typically expose:
- Artwork faults cluster on customers who supply their own files. That is a file standard and an art fee, not a quality problem. See cutting approval time.
- Material faults cluster on one blank line. A sourcing decision, covered in choosing blanks.
- Cure faults cluster on one garment or one dryer setting. A settings card problem, not an operator problem.
- Handling faults cluster at pack. Usually a layout or bench-space problem rather than carelessness.
Track what reruns really cost you in a quarter
Raise the rerun as its own job linked to the original and the cost becomes visible: materials on the rerun order, plus the hours, if staff clock on to it like any other job. The job costing report then shows reprint labour as part of margin after labour, which is the only way to see the full number. Most shops discover reprints cost somewhere between two and five percent of revenue, and that the same three causes account for most of it.
With that figure, two decisions get easier. Building the measured rate into your unit cost stops the occasional rerun from wrecking a job's margin, and spending money to remove the top cause becomes an obvious return rather than a hopeful one.
Handle the wash-failure conversation carefully
Wash failures are the hardest category because the evidence arrives late and partially. Ask for the garment, ask what temperature and whether it was tumble dried or ironed on the print, and test a retained sample from the same run. Keeping one garment per job as a retain sounds excessive until the first time it settles a dispute in a single message.
If your own retain fails a stretch test, it is yours: reprint it and fix the cure. If the retain passes and the returned garment shows heat damage on the print surface, say so plainly, offer the goodwill rate, and move on. Neither answer requires an argument, and both are impossible without the retain.
Printer's Friend keeps the approved proof version, its timestamp and the full order history on the order, so answering "what was approved" takes seconds, and reprints can be raised against the original job so the cause is recorded rather than forgotten.