[Ripcord]

Customer: "Hows everything going?"
Me: "Everything's going fine."
Customer: "OK...So are we still on schedule to finish the job by Friday?"
Me: "Yes we are."
Customer: "Oh, um OK, well I just thought I'd call and double check."
Me: "OK, thanks for calling."
Customer: "Um, OK then, well, OK, um OK bye."

And he seemed a little disappointed, as though he had been hoping to have a longer conversation. But what the hell else was there to talk about?

 

[Panama Red]

You are fortunate that you only have one client that wants to make small talk while you are trying to make a living.

As annoying as this is, you have to find some middle ground to be friendly. You can't have your machines sitting idle while you quack about all the world's problems but if you make a bit of an effort to be nice you could get the repeat business and potential referrals that would come with that. Long term gain as they say.

 

[treefox2118]

My sales contract for EVERY sale specifies a $15 additional fee for every "check in" phone call, and a $5 fee for a "check in" email. I also make customers initial that box that warns them about it, not in small words.

On a recent $180 job, I billed the customer $90 in additional fees on pickup. He refused to pay, so I just told him he will have to pay them if he wants to place an order.

Guess why I do that?

 

[Ripcord]

I can see them asking once, but when you've confirmed it three times and they ask again...

 

[treefox2118]

Since my sales contract stipulates what I return if we are late, there is absolutely no reason for a customer to call or email and inquire. On top of that, our new fulfillment software updates a "tracking page" on the website that lets them see the exact status of the order. We have about 2 dozen status milestones (payment made, awaiting artwork, artwork proofing, awaiting proof approval, garments ordered, garments arrived, etc).

 

[Panama Red]

Since my sales contract stipulates what I return if we are late, there is absolutely no reason for a customer to call or email and inquire. On top of that, our new fulfillment software updates a "tracking page" on the website that lets them see the exact status of the order. We have about 2 dozen status milestones (payment made, awaiting artwork, artwork proofing, awaiting proof approval, garments ordered, garments arrived, etc).

That is very cool. Is this software off the shelf or did you have it created?

 

[treefox2118]

Panama: Off the shelf backend (Woocommerce) plus some tweaking of a paid plug-in. Works really well.

We are working on our own backend code to release after summer, though. I am going to combine ALL online and retail commerce into one fulfillment database.

The reason I'm doing that is because I want to offer cheapskates the ability to take advantage of any slow hours. If we have zero jobs to print tomorrow from 11am to 1pm, I will have a website that offers discounts for people who want to jump in last minute and keep those moments busy.

 

[Panama Red]

Panama: Off the shelf backend (Woocommerce) plus some tweaking of a paid plug-in. Works really well.

We are working on our own backend code to release after summer, though. I am going to combine ALL online and retail commerce into one fulfillment database.

The reason I'm doing that is because I want to offer cheapskates the ability to take advantage of any slow hours. If we have zero jobs to print tomorrow from 11am to 1pm, I will have a website that offers discounts for people who want to jump in last minute and keep those moments busy.

Brilliant actually.

 

[treefox2118]

We already do pricing like this manually, but it isn't worth it. Too confusing.

By moving EVERYTHING into a calendar system, I can handle labor better as well. Plus, if a customer wants a discount, I ask them how much they need off to close the job, and enter that value into a lookup tool. Want 20% off? "I can do 20% off, but you have to wait until March 19th to get that price. Or, for 10% off, we can have it by March 11th. Or if you accept this price, the job is done and in your hands on March 3rd. You pick."

 

[Panama Red]

I can't imagine doing that manually. Looks like I have some homework to do. I could use some of those features.

 

[treefox2118]

It isn't that hard to do manually, just time consuming.

The automated system is really easy. Jobs from e-commerce sites already include the expected print time frame (including pulling garments and packing bags or boxes), so that populates the database easily. Quoted jobs retail will interact with the database in the fashion I mentioned above. Basically, we enter in the garment quantity, print size, WUB or no WUB, and the quote calculator pulls the available dates (under a week, over a week, over two weeks) and reports back a price quote for the customer.

If all positions under a week turn-around are totally full, then we quote it with overtime labor to the client for that speed, because it means we're too busy and need to throttle back.

 

[Panama Red]

So do you have someone chained to the computer constantly updating info? That is my only concern would be keeping up the data.