by The Embroidery Coach | | Embroidery Business Marketing
People work with businesses and professionals they trust. Building customer trust and loyalty in your embroidery business is an ongoing process. Here are 9 tips for building customer trust and loyalty with both old and new customers.
- Keep your agreements with your customers
If you promise delivery on a particular day, make sure to deliver when it was promised. Even something as small as the time you have scheduled an appointment is an agreement. Each time you break a promise to a customer, you break the trust.
- Create realistic customer expectations
Make sure the customer understands exactly what you will do for him or her and what is included in your service and what is not. What will create extra charges? How and when will you be billing the customer? Living up to the expectations you create helps to build trust with your customers.
- Help customers to understand the process and strategy for their order
If your customer understands how you and your business works and what the process of their order is, the customer can then know what to expect and when to expect it. Trust comes when the customer feels confident and comfortable with the plan and the strategy.
- Never over promise
It is tempting to promise whatever the customer wants to hear without looking at your schedule or asking if it is doable. When you do not deliver on your promise this causes broken agreements and broken trust.
- Carefully explain the customer’s role
When a customer is clear on what his or her role is then he or she gets clear on what progress can be made without their involvement. Getting really clear on what the customer needs to do to move his or her order forward, helps you work as a team and builds trust.
- Discuss potential problems that can happen
Nothing disturbs the trust of a customer more than when something unexpected happens. Guard against something negative happening as a surprise by discussing the potential pitfalls with the customer.
- Review the work order in detail
Any decisions that the customer is going to have to make should be discussed in detail. Relationships and trust are built over a long period of time but it can be broken easily. An unexpected issue that is a surprise to the customer that he or she was not expecting can break that trust quickly.
- Avoid making the customer feel stupid
No one likes to feel stupid. If customers feel that you think they are stupid they will no longer entrust you with their ideas or work. Customers who don’t feel valued by you may stop trusting you. No one sets out to make a customer feel stupid, but it could be an attitude, an inadvertent comment, or a look that gives the customer that impression. Be aware of your inner thoughts. They show up without your noticing. Be very careful with your language.
- Don’t allow interruptions when you are meeting with a customer.
It gives them the feeling that they are not important to you and you really do not want their business. Everyone needs to feel special no matter how large or small their order is. This can ruin the good will and trust that you had with them.
Building relationships and customer trust with both your customers and prospects helps you to build loyalty. Loyalty is something that is very uncommon in the embroidery business anymore but it is not impossible to get. When your customers feel that they are valued and you give them excellent customer service, they will become loyal!
by The Embroidery Coach | | Embroidery Tip
Always give your customer a completed embroidery design sew out sample to get their OK and have them sign off on their design. Creating embroidery design sew out samples is a very important step in your embroidery production process. You need to be able to show your customer a completed sample of how his embroidery will look before you actually embroider the design onto the customers finished garments.
I have discovered that most embroiderers create the embroidery design sew out samples on squares of backing fabric and give this to the customer for their approval. You really do not know what the actual design will look like on the finished products. The settings for the various types of fabrics need to be adjustment correctly for the best results on that fabric.
Having the exact same fabric is not always possible but there are fabrics that work as great substitutes. A t-shirt fabric works for a jersey knit placket shirt, the backside of a sweatshirt is a good substitute for a light weight fleece fabric, and an old worn out sheet is good replacement for a dress shirt or a handkerchief. If you use your imagination you can come up with a lot of close matches that will definitely work when you are creating your embroidery design sew out samples.
A great source for these type of fabrics are old garments that your family has discarded. I cut up various sized squares from old or unwanted garments and store them in plastic boxed that I have labeled: T-shirt fabric, Sweatshirt fabric, Wind shirt fabric, Terry cloth, Dress shirt fabric, and Heavy woven fabrics. When it is time for a new sew out sample these fabric squares come in very handy.
Another good source I found for inexpensive garments was at Goodwill or The Salvation Army stores. I needed some leather for a sew out sample and did not have any on hand. I found a jacket at the Goodwill store that had the lining ripped out of it. It was not selling so I was able to pick it up for $5.00. I have created a lot of sew outs from the one jacket.
You also want to choose a color of fabric that is closest to what the customer will be using. If this is not possible use a light color or neutral fabric for garments that will be a light color and a dark colored fabric for garments that will be a dark color. Create your embroidery design sew out sample in the correct colors that your customer will be using.
Giving your customer a completed embroidery design sew out sample on the correct type of cloth and in the correct colors shows him or her exactly how the embroidery will appear on the finished garments and it instills within them a level of confidence that you as a professional know exactly what you are doing.
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Joyce Jagger
The Embroidery Coach
by The Embroidery Coach | | Embroidery Business Management
Keep A Close Eye On Your Inventory Costs
Keeping close track of your inventory and supplies is a must when you are trying to control your supplies inventory costs in your embroidery business. Keeping a minimum on hand of all of your basic embroidery supplies is very important. You do not want to run out of a supply when you are in the middle of a job. Keeping a running inventory record is a must.
Planning ahead so that you are not ordering for overnight delivery is one of the ways to hold down shipping costs. Ordering in quantities, if at all possible, will reduce the costs of both the supplies and the shipping. Early payment discounts also helps to reduce the cost.
In a small shop the extra supplies can be stored in the actual work area. In a larger shop they must be stored in a separate Supply Storage area that is strictly for supplies or inventory. This will remove the extra clutter and keep the production and prep area more organized and cleaner.
Have One Person In Charge Of Inventory
Make sure that you have one person in charge of your inventory. When supplies are removed from the supply storage area, they must be accounted for so that they can be replaced before they are actually needed. Keeping a running log is very important in order to have this information at your fingertips at all times and it deters others from picking up supplies when they are not authorized to do so, controlling employee theft. In some areas this is a constant problem and one that is hard to pinpoint.
You as a business owner must do everything that you can to prevent losses to your business, and employee theft of supplies is an area that can be prevented. It is up to you to control supplies inventory costs in your embroidery business make sure that employee theft does not happen.
by The Embroidery Coach | | Embroidery Business Marketing
I want to congratulate Howard Potter! He is a very successful student of mine! Howard started with me about 12 years ago when he purchased his first embroidery machine. I worked with him when he was working out of his home with a single head Tajima and the Tajima by Pulse Embroidery software! He has since gone on to purchasing 2 more machines, digital equipment, screen printing equipment and much more. Howard now has his own building with a beautiful showroom and very well organized workrooms for each of the different types of applications that he offers.
He is very young man with a wife and 2 children. He and his wife Amanda have worked very hard in this business, turn out top quality work and have taken their business from zero to almost 2 million dollars in this short period of time.
I trained his main graphic artist, to digitize their designs and have since trained several more digitizers as the business has grown. They have worked very hard at producing high quality embroidery designs and on time delivery.
You can visit his website MasterYourImage .
Congratulations Howard, keep up the great work!!
Joyce Jagger,|
The Embroidery Coach
by The Embroidery Coach | | Embroidery Education
When you are thinking of purchasing Embroidery Design Software, it is a large investment that you make for your embroidery business. You want to be assured that you are getting the most embroidery software for the least amount of money! There are 3 primary scenarios that will cause you to be searching for new embroidery software.
- New to embroidery and this is your first business!
- You already have a business, such as a screen printing business and you are adding embroidery to your product offerings!
- You been in the embroidery business for a period of time and you upgrading your current software?
When you are new to embroidery, thinking about adding embroidery to your current business or upgrading your services you have to make a big decision as to which embroidery software you are going to purchase. The main questions on your mind are how can I get the most software and tools with the least amount of money and how do I know that I have the right software?
Do Not Choose The Most Inexpensive Embroidery Software
Many new embroiderers make the mistake of looking for the most inexpensive embroidery software on the market, thinking that embroidery software is embroidery software. They all work the same! This is what I thought and with such a tight budget, I did make the wrong decision and as a result, I spent a lot more money than I would have if I had done some more research on my own.
Many embroidery software companies will tell you that their software is the best and that you can create any type of design with it, but when you take a closer look at it, you may be in for a real surprise! Most embroidery software suppliers offer several levels within their software. If you purchase their highest level, it may do everything that you want, but you may not need their highest level to accomplish what you want to do.
You Do Not Need The Highest Level Of Embroidery Digitizing Software
After several years of editing designs I decided that purchasing embroidery design software was the right move to take so that I could digitize my own designs. When I was shopping for digitizing software I was told by salespeople from 2 of the top embroidery software suppliers that I needed to have the highest level of their embroidery software, which was their most expensive software level. If I had any plans for digitizing for other people I would not have enough tools in the lower levels to do everything that my customers would be asking for. I believed them thinking that they definitely knew a lot more about it than I did.
At that time, I was not sure if I was going to be digitizing for anyone else or not, but I thought that I should be prepared to do so. That was a big mistake!
Before you start shopping for your embroidery software, there are several questions that you need to ask yourself and have firmly thought out and written down in your business plan. Each brand of software will offer different tools in their various levels.
- Do you plan to offer digitizing to your customers?
- Will you be sending designs to a digitizer?
- Do you plan to do your own digitizing?
- Are you going to offer stock designs from the stock design companies?
- Will you be editing stock designs?
- What is your budget for the software?
If you are just starting out with embroidery and are planning on learning how to digitize right away, you will need that capability within your software, however, you do not need to purchase the highest level in order to be able to digitize. In many of the embroidery software packages they have most of the basic tools that you need to learn how to digitize. You need to learn the basics and thoroughly understand them before you start working with the more advanced tools.
Too many people want to jump right into the advanced steps of digitizing before they have learned the basics and when it comes to solving a problem with a design, they have no idea as to how to approach that problem.
Upgrade Your Embroidery Software When You Are Ready For The Next Level
You can upgrade as you progress through your learning curve and are ready for the next level in your education. Some of the embroidery machine suppliers offer a discounted price for the embroidery design software when you purchase a machine and software at the same time. At this point it makes sense to purchase a little more or a higher level than you will be using at the beginning.
If you plan to send all of your designs out to a digitizer you will only need an embroidery package software that will allow you to set up lettering and add stock designs to it. You want to make sure though that you have good editing capabilities within that software. This is extremely important. This is something that is not always covered when you are talking to salespeople about which software you need to purchase. I just want you to be fully aware of that fact.
Look For Design Editing Capabilities
Some of the embroidery lettering packages will not allow you to edit the lettering; you can only create your basic lettering. If you want to do any editing, then you have to purchase additional software. I have found that some embroidery design lettering packages do not even offer editing software. You then have to purchase another brand in order to do any editing and they are not always compatible. This is a very inefficient way to create your designs and a huge time waster.
You are better off purchasing embroidery design software at a lower level of one of the higher end software packages that will allow you to upgrade as you grow your business and increase in your editing skills. You want to stay within the same brand of software for each one of your levels. This will give you a better end result for your designs.
It is great to have all of the bells and whistles in your embroidery software but if you are not going to be using them, it is a waste of your money. I found though years of experience, that I did not use the advanced tools until I had been digitizing for many years. I only used them as a source to speed up my digitizing, but they did not increase any of my skill level. Without that basic knowledge and skill level along with the thorough understanding of the embroidery process, all of the extra bells and whistles were totally useless to me.
Before you think of purchasing embroidery design software, thoroughly analyze your situation and do a lot of research. Ask other embroiderers and digitizers their opinions. Do not just take the word of the software salespeople. If you have an embroidery coach or mentor, get their opinion. They can usually help you to make a decision that will save you time and money based on their relationship with you and their knowledge of your situation.
It is easy to get caught up in all of the hype from each of the software companies but when it comes down to making that final decision it can a tough one. You always want to get the most software tools for the least amount of money, but in the end, that wrong decision can be very costly in both time and money!
