Should you provide customers with textures created for their build

Would you supply the textures you applied to a custom build to your customer just in case they needed to fix something due to shifting prims caused by updates or would you charge them to retexture any new pieces added to their build?

I think thats entirely up to you as long as you make it clear up front what they should expect.

Knowing what SL can be like, personally I'd probably provide them to save me the trouble. But thats not to say that your custom mod/copy perms textures shouldn't be factored into the overall price.

Mebbe offer them the choice? Give a couple of quotes; one granting them use of your custom textures, and one that doesn't with the understanding that any change requests will be charged seperately?

Though I think it does sorta depend on what caused the problem. If they borked their house, I'd charge. If 1.7.5 borked their as-sold house, I'd feel pretty bad about charging them to get it back the way it was in the first place.

it is not feasible to provide the textures in some cases. Best I can do is tell the customer where I purchased the texture. TO give away a texture not created by me (although I have permission to sell the build) that was not free is not something I am willing to do.

Perhaps I should have been a bit more clear - it is a texture that you created

None of the above:

I'd happily buy a house with the extra textures over the same house without - it means I can build mods and blend them in more easily for example. I'd pay more for the privilege too, at least a bit.

Most people don't do that though, so there isn't an expectation of it I guess.

Fixing - depends on why it went wrong and how you sell your houses. Quite a few are now sold C, M, NT, so 'fixing' them shouldn't be such an issue, and saying you're not going to give out the textures on at least the same basis is silly - they can do the mods for themselves from what you've sold them anyway.

Although not 100% pertinent I'd be more inclined to not buy it because I found it wasn't Copy, Mod than to buy it because it had it's own textures, with some mechanism to let me buy them as gifts for others.

I do not provide textures for a couple of reasons. First, it's hard to define with words, but I'm a bit emotionally protective of my textures. They're the most time-consuming aspect of my builds and they're unique. I hand paint alomost everything. A lot of heart and soul goes into that. Giving them out just doesn't feel right to me.

Second, I want people coming back to me. I disagree with what was said earlier about "saving the hassle". If someone hired me once, I want them to hire me for life. I'm happy to provide outstanding service to keep the customer relationship alive.

I do the same thing in my RL business, by the way. While the manufacturer of the products I market does have outstanding customer service (they'll do almost anything to make the customer happy), the last thing I want is for my customers to talk to anyone but me. I want them dealing always with me and only me. I don't even give out the company's guarantees or catalogs because they've got their 800 number all over them. I print identical literature of my own with my 800 number on it. If a customer has a problem, they call me, and then I call the factory on their behalf. Does this eat up some of my time? Sure it does, but it's well worth it. Because of the live relationship, I have people coming back to me over and over when they need things, even though I'm certainly not the only distributor in the area. Take care of your customers personally, and they'll take care of you in return, always.

I don't sell builds in SL as modifiable so there's little chance of someone screwing it up anyway, but if something did somehow break, it's simple enough to help the customer out. I don't see it as a hassle to take care of things like that. I see it as an opportunity to keep the relationship alive. If they're in the habit of coming to me with what they need, they'll come to me next time they're ready to buy.

Now you're probably wondering why the no-mod thing. Well, two reasons. First is the dupe script. I've had stuff ripped off before, and lost thousands in US$ over it. Second, we're talking about custom work here, right? If something is built to order, it's built the way the customer wanted it. I never charge a dime until the work is complete. Once the customer pays me, the understanding is that the job has been completed to their satisfaction as promised. There shouldn't be any need for them to mess with it. If they discover they need a change to be made, I'm just an IM away. If it's something small, no big deal, I'll take care of it. If it's a major overhaul, well then it's essentially a brand new build, and for that I would have to charge. I think most people can understand that.

Damani Est provides replaceable textures in a box with many of his builds and not only does his generosity and consideration keep me coming back for his stuff. his quality is asstounding when it comes to textures.

I sell my Drider AVs with thier original texture that they are sold with in a seperate box for this very reason, People do like items that are versitile in function and look to thier needs without hassle period, and I for one don't like getting IM's all the time to go fix something (i'm not the maintenence man).

Versitality is one of the reasons we have so many color and texture change scripts and even those can screw up a prims look permanently from time to time given SL's history or smoothness.

I 'hand paint' my textures and have to agree a certain amount of pride goes into it but so does customer service and the first rule for me is the customer is always right, so if they want thier Drider AV prims to have a hair texture they may have uploaded or bought, then so be it, who am I to argue.

Alot of business are based on Do It Yourself and alot offer tutorials on "How to" so everyones happy.

For an entirely custom house I might take a different approach, I was thinking of an out of the box house like most of them you see.

For a custom house I'm also less likely to be saying 'Ah, this is nice but...' after the event, if you're building a custom house then it goes up how I want within reason after all. An out of the box house I'm much more likely to want to alter.

I'm not sure exactly why you quoted me. Was your post meant to be a rebuttle to my comments, an affirmation of them, or what? The relationship between what you said and what said doesn't seem clear to me.

Anyway, correct me if I'm wrong, but everything you're talking about is mass production stuff, not unique custom jobs, right? If that's the case, then I can see the benefit of providing the textures and having the items be modable, although I personally don't do it that way. However, for one of a kind custom builds, which is what this thread is about, I see no reason to do that. As I said, the customer would have gotten exaclty what they hired me to build, so there's no reson for them to need to modify it. If for some reason they ever want to, they're free to contact me, and I'm happy to help.

What it ultimately comes down to is what does the customer want. If they want something made to exacting specifications so that they'll never have to mess with it, and a builder who's happy to provide personalized service at all times, they should hire me. If they want something that they can screw around with, they should hire someone else. One of the nice things about SL is there are plenty of creators to choose from, each with different styles and philosophies, and there are more than enough customers to go around for all of us.

For what it's worth, I turn down most custom jobs anyway. I've got so many projects going all the time, I have to get really excited about something to be willing to put the time into it that it will take for it to be top of the line build.

The point of the quote is simply because reagardless of Custom or enmass I was looking at the overall impact on return business. and yes i have had custom requests later ask for a change on items , I don't do alot of custom requests though for the same reasons and they do tend to stifle the easy flow of SL at times when you feel you might have a deadline or specific requirements that have to be met, in other words, you have a temporary boss...uggg, so by giving them the texture they can be thier own boss

Okay, gotcha. Thanks for the explanation.

Thanks for all the responses. I do wonder one other thing. If you give the custom texture to the customer, what permissions would you give them. Personally, I'd give copy, no mod, no transfer. But that's just me. The no transfer/no mod to protect from unscrupulous people selling MY texture (yes I do know there are ways around that) - copy, so they could feel free to place it on anything they own to match the build (or if they wanted to add to the build on their own). Copy, for obvious reasons

If you are catering to the Kit-bashing crowd I applaud you for it for I am a kit-basher myself . I would market the product as such and provide all the prims as mod, copy, no-transfer. The textures included would need to be no-mod, copy, no-transfer so they can’t get downloaded or passed out.

I myself don’t give out my textures with my products or homes. My textures ARE my homes and like Chosen, with my homes the real work is in the textures not the prims.

For me the textures I make are not just something you slap on a prim wily nilly. Giving specialized textures out so people can do whatever they wish with them just sends shivers down my spine.

That they are rare and can only be found on my homes makes them more unique in the world. My customers tend to appreciate that. They don’t want what everyone else has, they want something different. But then, I am also catering to a different market, the turn-key crowd.

Another reason for me to not to give out my textures is that I want my name on my textures so when someone sees them in world they know exactly where they came from.

I guess for me, I think of my custom textures as more than just stucco and wallpaper to be mass produced. Instead, I treat each homes textures as unique artistic creations.

KX