The primary owner of the company I work for, my boss, had used See More Signs for interior office…read moresignage from long before my employment. But when he passed away unexpectedly, as his only employee, I became responsible for placing the orders. Since he was very familiar with what they offer, had been to the shop many times, and knew exactly what he wanted, things seemed to go smoothly.
My experiences have been less so, in part because of not being able to communicate with the same person in this small shop each time, or as each stage of an order progresses, whether by phone or email. I also didn't have the opportunity or freedom to just go in person. And they don't have any kind of printed or online catalog to see the options available, and there are hundreds of options available in every part of sign making!
I discovered that the type sizes used on our tenant directories with stick-on type so we could change or add lines when our occupants changed were not consistent. So over the years one line or even part of a line was different in ways that were noticeable to me, as I had worked in advertising print production for years. But that had no bearing on my responsibilities or duties in this job.
I had assumed that from one order to the next over the years See More Signs had a record of us and our orders, as a long-time customer, and knew exactly what we needed each time on the few kinds and sizes of signs we used, and that needed to be kept consistent in our small office building. That was definitely not the case, which has made it much more difficult for me to order things and have confidence in what I'll get. They do fix things when they get them wrong, but we'd have to do our entire wall directories over to make them consistent at this point.
Also emails are missed or not responded to for fairly long periods of time, even in the middle of an order, and the next person I may talk to is not familiar with it. So ours might have been pushed behind other jobs, so we're delayed in getting ours. Or samples/proofs may be sent and I can measure and/or just see they're not the same, or don't match the lines above or below them, or from one tenant's office door to another. And we may go through multiple proofs by email.
Their prices are generally reasonable, and the people in the shop I have spoken with, and finally got to meet when I went there on one of my days off, are all nice and personable. As are those who are sent to replace the removable changeable type on our directories, but even those folks didn't notice the differences, and use less definitive measuring tools than I did in advertising.
The front part of See More Signs is impressive and a fascinating place, jam-packed with ready-made and made-to-order signs, samples of their work, and displays of some of the many, many background colors, surfaces, typefaces, sizes and colors, etc., available. It's almost overwhelming..
