Unmanned venues – who signs for delivery? - Page 2

This topic is coming up a  lot lately...I never get signatures, but I do take photos to make sure I have documentation that the cake was set up and looks the way it was supposed to. I have a section in my contract that says that's how I prove delivery.

so the signature protects the cake from the time you leave till the time the bride sees it--ohh

when you say it like that   i get it

in 40 years i never wished i had a delivery signature

in all the places i've worked and they be many we never got siggies

but clearly from an accounting and strictly business first standpoint/background i can see where that is important to you and there's nothing wrong with that

but i'm from a cake background--i'm allergic to reports and cahhn't breathe, knees grow weak, when i have to do accounting

the fewer papers i have the better ;)

i would loose it on the way home for real-- i have enough trouble hanging on to the retainer checks from a consult

Quote:

Originally Posted by jason_kraft 

IMO getting a signature on delivery is similar to getting liability insurance. Ideally you will never need it, but if there is a problem you'll wish you had it.

I absolutely agree that getting pictures from multiple angles is important, the problem is the gap between the time stamp of the pictures and when the customer first sees the cake. Having the customer sign a separate disclaimer beforehand if no one is available to sign on delivery is a good alternative.

That makes absolutely no sense. Once the cake is set up and photographed the gap between that time and when the bride sees it is irrelevant. If the venue pushes the cake over, or some idiot sticks their fingers into it, the outcome is the same and the photos would be enough to show that the cake was in good condition on being set up. My experience is the same as a previous poster (I think Jenmat), that nobody wants to sign for something they know nothing about. If someone tried to get me to sign for a cake that I had no part in ordering or designing I wouldn't sign anything.

What people fail to remember (and it keeps getting brought up again and again in these threads) is that customers usually complain about the cake being dry if they complain at all. It's unusual for a cake to fall over, but when someone complains it's usually about the texture of the cake itself, or that it wasn't what they ordered. Having a signature from someone at the venue, or photographs for that matter, don't prove squat when it comes to whether the cake was dry or not. And if the customer says that the cake wasn't what they ordered you can't argue that the venue signed off on it, so too bad.

If the bride has people there who are dumb enough to touch a cake she takes the risk of having fingerprints in it. I once told a little kid who was hanging around watching me a little too closely while I was setting up that she'd better not touch the cake. And that if she did the bride would be really mad and they'd have to call the police to come fingerprint everyone to see who did it. She ran away for some reason.

too funny!!!  

i just whip out my gingerbread boy or girl cookie and a hat pin i take on deliveries

i face the kid but i focus my eyes away on the wall kinda creepy and just stab the cookie a couple times

Technically, a photo doesn't prove that the cake was fine when you left it. It just proves that it was fine at some point while you were there.

Of course it's ridiculously unlikely to happen, but it's possibly that you could deliver a cake, take your photo, then trip over and knock the whole thing to the floor.

I'm not saying that there's any better way of doing it - I've only delivered a couple of cakes, (maybe 4 times?) and never would it have been convenient for someone to be there to sign for it. And like others have said, I wouldn't be signing for a cake I hadn't ordered or paid for.

1. it's also possible that someone could steal the cake after you take the picture
2. it's also possible that you could set it up and get the pictures then box it back up and trot it back out to your car
3. it's also possible to not deliver at all--show up and take photos of the blank cake table and photoshop a picture of the cake into the different angles but you'd have to be pretty good or bad as the case may be

there are lots of possibilities

and with #3 the signature would be your undoing although you could project a holigram of the cake--so never mind after all about the signature

Quote:

Originally Posted by -K8memphis 

1. it's also possible that someone could steal the cake after you take the picture
2. it's also possible that you could set it up and get the pictures then box it back up and trot it back out to your car
3. it's also possible to not deliver at all--show up and take photos of the blank cake table and photoshop a picture of the cake into the different angles but you'd have to be pretty good or bad as the case may be

 

there are lots of possibilities

 

and with #3 the signature would be your undoing although you could project a holigram of the cake--so never mind after all about the signature

That's my point. The photo doesn't prove that you left a cake there. Again, I don't think there's any better way of doing it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mcaulir 

That's my point. The photo doesn't prove that you left a cake there. Again, I don't think there's any better way of doing it.

it proves that a responsible professional ethical cake designer delivered a cake

Quote:

Originally Posted by -K8memphis 

 

 

it proves that a responsible professional ethical cake designer delivered a cake

If all cake designers were responsible, professional and ethical, we wouldn't have Cake Wrecks to entertain us, would we?

And sure, it proves that a cake was delivered, but not that it was fine when the cake person left.

yes of course

The bottom line is that nobody can prove anything,and that you have to do what you can do to show that the cake was there and set up. Having a signature of someone who didn't order the cake, didn't know what it was supposed to look like, didn't know what colors it was supposed to be etc. isn't going to help. Having a photo is more proof that it was what was ordered. Neither will prove anything about the interior of the cake, which is what they usually complain about anyway.

most complaints are about things that a photo and signature can't address. I know people who have had the client themselves sign off on a cake when it was delivered, then call  to  complain   about it later. A signature doesn't prove anything, but if something went to arbitration a photo would at least prove the point that what was ordered was what was delivered, looks-wise, which eliminates one thing.

in general, when I hear about people complaining they start with one thing, then if that is disproved by the baker they move onto something else. It's the meandering complaint and it's often a way to try to recoup some of their costs. A signature means nothing but the photo would at least shut them up when to compare that to the contract. It eliminates one issue, which is the visual part.