Bracelet Fix

I've been busy with taxes, custom orders, a new job and my mother coming to visit and all the cleaning that entails! But I thought I would share a quick post on a not-so recent order. I sold this bracelet to a blogger buddy at my August trunk show.

 

I always list the sizes of my bracelets and my friend liked a looser fit than this one had. She asked me to resize it. Here are the measurements before on a bracelet sizing cone... this is one handy apparatus if you make bracelets!

 The original was just shy of 7" and my friend needed 7 1/4". When designing a bracelet, I never like to put really bulky beads at the back of the design. I find I have a hard time taking notes or writing or typing, so I added some 6mm crystals to the back of the piece. Of course the whole thing had to be re-strung to make it even.

This bracelet has a sturdy magnetic clasp. I live alone and just love  a clasp that I can close by myself! Here it is after the addition:

For my last trunk show, I left a few bracelets with one end un-crimped so it would be easier and less wasteful to adjust.

Resizing is a PITA but...it's also great customer service.

Silly Me

Do you ever feel like you are in some perpetual classroom of life... that there are always lessons to be learned? I do. I never seem to feel like, "I got this. I KNOW what I'm doing." No, there is always a lesson and sometimes I don't like it.

Such is the case with this bead:

The Blue Goddess

She was commissioned on Etsy (really, do I need to say more? My thoughts on the value of Etsy drop almost daily!) by a survivor. I made SEVERAL beads...first wrongly assuming that the customer wanted pink flowers. I've since learned that many breast cancer warriors come to hate the color pink. But pink is one of those moody colors that does NOT play nice with ivory.

She was also the first customer that wanted a flower and a CZ... I finished the piece. I think she's lovely. And I sent pics... weeks went by, then months. No response to several emails. 

I know, I know...you are wondering why I didn't get a deposit. I make these beads in honor of my sister. They are so personal to me and, like my cremains beads... they touch my heart. And while it is a lot of work to make a bead with cremains...much prep goes into those, these really are "just a bead*!"  There is no excessive prep time, so I do what I always do with custom work. I make a few and hope the customer likes one enough to buy it. 

So maybe I should ask for a few bucks deposit...but I hate the bookkeeping that goes with refunds and Paypal keeps their cut no matter what... sigh.

But that leads me to Lesson #2: I rarely share beads anywhere but my Fan Page. Even though I'm a member of MANY bead groups on Facebook. I don't know why... I hate to feel like I'm spamming friends?? But I did share this bead yesterday and... as I started writing this post, it sold! Wow!

I HAVE to get better at promoting my work... sigh... Any suggestions? What's YOUR best promo tip???

{Update 7/15 - *This phrase hit a nerve. I didn't mean to imply that I don't value my work. I was only saying that as the goddesses are a basic bead with very little prep compared to the work that goes into a cremains based bead. Hence, I didn't feel I needed to ask to a deposit}

When Things Go Wrong

I was unhappy with a retail experience this week and how that retailer handled things is, to me, a course in what NOT to do!

My bestie and I LOVE cupcakes! We are endlessly fascinated by all the cupcake businesses that have sprung up around the LA area and even more fascinated that no less than three cupcake shows are now on television. Since there are so many cupcake vendors in So Cal and the fact that the show Cupcake Wars is filmed here in La La Land, we often know some of the shops on that show.

Cupcakes are some of my best sellers - in glass!

It's fun to see shops we know and love do well and we marveled at the one shop that made it through a couple of rounds when we think their icing always tastes like soap! So it was with great anticipation that we read one of the local winners of the show, Goodie Girls, was opening a shop. It was to be a big shindig with celebs and a pink carpet and press and a 5 p.m. opening party.

Knowing that I'm handicapped... numerous foot surgeries make it impossible for me to stand in long lines... I wrote on the store's Facebook Fan page "What time do you open?" My thinking was... what business opens at 5? Surely they are opening earlier and I can avoid the line (and the prizes and the celebs) and just pick up some tasty cupcakes if I go earlier in the day.

The owner quickly wrote back... 3 pm. Great! We had a plan.

Only it was pouring down rain Sunday, making our journey down our mountain treacherous and scary. We arrived early and waited a good half hour in the car... a block away. We got soaked getting in the store that was already full of people. But no one seemed to be shopping or eating. We asked the person up front where to buy. We were told that this time was for celebs or press ONLY. I was made to feel like the gum on someone's shoe.

I repeated that the owner herself told me they would be open at 3 and couldn't we just buy a few. Instead we were shown the door. I was pissed, wet and embarrassed.

And what happened next is a Marketing 101 FAIL.

I took to Facebook and Twitter to voice my concern and embarrassment. The owner did apologize, but she and her father and her friend all made excuses:

• Dad:  Starting your own business is very costly. And shes doing what she can to move up to the next level.
• The owner: The girls that were up front were just getting started and they knew we were only doing press/media until 5pm and then we were selling cupcakes after 5pm .
• I had chose to start at 5pm so the talent/media would be done with there [sic] part and it would make it easier for my fellow residents to get some.
• they didn't know if they were allowed to sell as we were supposed to start at 5pm.
• it is my first store and I can only do so much and it's all a learning experience 
• not one person other than yourself had bad reviews or a bad time.
•  I am a small local business trying and contributing to the Glendale community, helping people have a few more jobs, and I contribute a TON for charity. It's a shame that you have so much anger.    
• I can't control what they did.
• Her friend: Mistakes happen in life and it takes a bigger person to forgive and forget.   

 To me, the very WET person who was made to feel like a second class citizen after wasting an hour and a half of my time and gas, this is nothing but excuses and INSULTS. Never once did the owner say why she told me, a fan page person, that her business was open at 3.

What IS a business owner to do in this age of facebook and twitter??? Here's my guide...

1. Publicly apologize - on the selected media... Facebook / Twitter, et al. Keep it brief and sweet!
2. ONLY apologize or offer to make it better - don't insult someone and tell them they are too angry (it only makes them angry whether or not they were before!), don't point out what a good time others had or how nice the gift bags were. Just apologize, ask sweetly for another opportunity and leave it at that. 
3. Keep others out of it - While you can't do anything about legit customers coming to your defense, keep your parents and close friends out of it...even if you have to delete their messages. It can make a customer feel attacked!
4. Take it offline - Send them a personal and PRIVATE apology. If you offer a coupon or discount, do that privately as well. This may prevent other public attacks if there is no public payoff.
5. Drop it - if all the comments stop, there is nothing more for them to respond to. Most people just want to feel heard. That's IT. Hear them, let them know you hear them with sincerity and it will go away. 

If It Weren't for Bad Luck...

It's a good thing I can laugh at myself...otherwise, I think I'd cry all the time! This week's adventure is a lesson in why Holly MUST wear her glasses when working with beads!

It all started when I sold this little seahorse:

I was so excited... he was going to Germany! His owner makes lovely sea themed necklaces!

Only, this guy had been to a few bead shows and I had him wire wrapped on a copper stand with more copper loops coming out of his head. I grabbed my wire cutters in my darkened shop to cut off the copper on his head, because I couldn't get to the loop below his belly. And, wouldn't you know it? I cut off his "hair do" / upper fin thingy!

There was nothing to do but sit down and torch one up! And since I HATE just saying, "I broke it. Here's another." I could NEVER say that to a customer mainly because I know how that would make ME feel! I made TWO.

Here they all are together... the one I broke is in the middle:

Luckily, she liked the one on the left! Yay! The one I broke spent a bit of time with a diamond grinder and is in my Beads of Courage pile cause the kids will give him some love. And the one on the right??? He needs a good home. And I promise my wire cutters won't go anywhere near him!

Also, today is the LAST DAY of the 50% off sale on Artfire. Thank you, as always for l@@king!

A Public Flogging for Etsy

Believe it or not, I'm actually in the midst of writing a post comparing Artfire, which I'm 90% in love with to Etsy, which I run hot and cold for. But this issue is SO BIG, I can't hold my tongue or wait for my clever muse to finish the other post!

The subject is SICK buyers on Etsy! I have encountered my actual first - as opposed to the nut job that hit many of my friends. Someone bought my Tiger Eye bead yesterday. As this is a bead I loved and it took a LONG time in the flame to get it right, I had serious doubts as to whether it would EVER find a home!

 Tiger Eye Bead Relisted Here

And I was overjoyed when I got the email it had sold...but there was no payment. I foolishly sent her a convo explaining how Etsy works. I have had customers not make it all the way to check out in the past - so I assumed.

But last night, something told me to check her feedback. She had 109 and negative and 21 neutral feedback! In all my years on ebay, I only got one negative (from a seller who changed the list of items AFTER I auto bid. I stopped payment through PP and she stopped taking PP!). As I read her feedback, my heart sank. She clearly buys stuff and doesn't pay FREQUENTLY. But her rating is still 95% positive thanks to over 2100 positive transactions.

Clearly Etsy is making money because this woman shops A LOT! So they have no reason to care.

But let's look at the issues created by someone who puts an item in their cart and mere SECONDS later, decides not to pay for said item.

The seller has to:

• waste time trying to contact a buyer they may think is legit (if they haven't read her feedback).
• lose money in Paypal fees if she initiates payment and asks for a refund...which this buyer has done! 
• lose hits and views while the item is not listed, therefore missing potential income. 
• has to cancel the sale and explain to Etsy why the listing fees and sales fees should be refunded.
• Relist the item
• All previous hits and, more importantly, hearts from LEGITIMATE customers are lost! REAL customers assume incorrectly their hearted item is gone!

The woman who did this to me stiffed another seller yesterday for FOUR items. She does this all the time!

So, this is the letter I wrote Etsy. I implore other sellers to beseige them with similar letters.

I am writing to you in regards to my most recent sale!

Etsy, you MUST give sellers the option to BLOCK A BUYER. This woman has SERIOUS impulse control! With over 100 in negative feedback for non payment issues, she should be permanently blocked by you. Since you make money off of her, you won't grow a pair and do it and protect your sellers!

But you should give us the option to BLOCK such sick people!

There are mere SECONDS between purchase and payment. This woman KNOWS she has NO INTENTION OF PAYING!

But it is us lowly sellers who have to take the time to relist - LOSING ALL OUR HITS, VIEWS AND HEARTS!! (Hearts from LEGITIMATE PAYING customers)

Then we have take more time to get our LISTING FEES AND SALES FEES -she caused us to pay - back! Who has the time to deal with such sick people!

Seriously, if you were a seller and saw her feedback, would you want to risk doing business with HER? I DON'T! It's hard enough to make a living without dealing with this crap!

PLEASE LET US BLOCK BUYERS!

Custom Order | Being a Good Customer

Happy Monday! I've been dealing with website mishaps and the rubber stamp orders are rocking this morning. I'm so full of gratitude... The orders I've gotten today will allow me to breathe into next month! Whew... One day at a time, right?

I also have a jar full of glass beads to take off mandrels and another cup waiting to be cleaned. Why do I do this to myself???

But I wanted to write about the other side of customer service. I've done my share of harping on what it takes to deliver good customer service but sometimes... we have customers who make that VERY difficult!

I've been working (and working) on a custom bead order for months now. I would get an email asking about it...could I do this or that. I would answer within hours and ask a question or two and then...NOTHING. Weeks would go by. I would get another email answering my question which lead to another question and I would answer quickly, hoping the customer might still be online and... nothing.

I made preliminary sketches and even a small prototype. And I waited. Weeks later, another email. But at that moment, I was busy. And I was rather shocked to receive another email the next day!

Let me get this straight: You can take two weeks + to answer me but I can't have 24 hours to reply???

FINALLY, she suggested we connect by phone and we worked out the details. But overall, it was a bit frustrating. I know I don't fit in the normal world...people don't move at my pace. I come from the world of television commercials. I need it fast, I need it NOW...make that YESTERDAY! But still, in the age of constant contact... there is no excuse. If you contact a vendor by email, they assume you are checking yours.

I've had similar things happen in the stamp shop. Someone writes to ask about a custom order, I answer and nothing. Days later, they call and inquire about the same order and I ask, "Did you get my email???"

"Uh, no. I don't go online that much?"

WTH???

It makes me want to say something I found so offensive when said to me. While looking for work, I've become sooooo frustrated at getting an HR person on the phone. It's damn near impossible! One website went so far as to say this:

    "Absolutely no phone calls. If you calls us, we will not consider you for this position. The Internet is your friend. USE IT!"

If you contact a vendor by email, CHECK YOUR EMAIL. If you are not comfortable with this form of communication, STEP OUT OF THE DARK AGES! Or, I'm a nice person, really...just ask me to call you! I'll be happy to!

Still Harping on Customer Service

I know I sound like a broken record lately but I'm amazed that in a relatively small sector business, one that is so close knit, it's almost incestuous, that a vendor can afford to treat anyone poorly.

The frit vendor (there, that narrows the curiosity down to less than 10) I've been dealing with is a crystal clear vision of how NOT to treat customers!

Things to consider:

1) Your receipts and letterhead - is your contact info on there? It should be! Make it easy for customers to contact you!

2) Email - Do you answer it promptly??? You better! Someone may order from you once but if they feel ignored, they will shop elsewhere.

3) Problems - Do you address them head on or ignore it? See #2.

4) Shipping confirmation - Do you send these to your customers? USPS will do it if you add the customer's email. Paypal also does it. Artfire allows you to post the number into your customer notes, which the customer sees. All of this reassures the customer that the package is coming.

5) Processing orders - Do you fill them fast or take your time? All sorts of issues here. It's ILLEGAL to take money before you ship but Paypal suggests turning orders around in three days. A few days is forgivable...weekends, holidays, lots of orders... things happen. More than that is NOT.

6) Out of Stock / Custom work - If something is out of stock, how do you handle it? If you make the item you sell to order...how long does it take to ship it? Again, you can get into murky legal water here. If you can't ship that order in three days or less, you MUST let the customer know AND give them the option of a refund or waiting. If they opt to wait, to protect yourself, keep a copy of the email where they say that they are willing to do that.

With custom work, I never take payment upfront unless there is a large outlay of cash. Then I ask for a deposit against final payment.

There's a lot to think about with good customer service but it's not that hard! Bottom line, how would YOU like to be treated if the shoe were on the other foot?

Customer Service

Do you have a customer service policy for your business??? Or do you just handle things as they come up? I fall into the latter, usually with the attitude of doing my level best to make my customers happy.

And yes, there are times when I don't feel I even come close. A lady ordered a fondant smoother from me (my food safe rubber stamp biz). I shipped it in the sealed container it came in from from the manufacturer along with her other items. When it arrived, she called to tell me the smoother was "soiled."

Now seriously, it could not have picked up more "soil" in the USPS provided box than could have easily been washed off. But nothing doing... she had to have a new one.

This presented two issues for me... a new vendor. 1) That was my last one and I would have to place an order for $100 more of them to satisfy a $10 customer. Not to mention wait two weeks for them to arrive. 2) The whole ordeal just felt "wrong." Like she was looking for something for free.

I would gladly have cleaned that smoother and used it in my classes... but then I would have to refund her and pay to ship the thing back. UGH!

In the end, I was right. I offered a free stamp for her "trouble" - washing a new item to be used on food which any cake professional in their right mind would do anyway. She left happy and yes, she did return. And from that day on, I package fondant smoothers in a way that would survive an apocalypse!

Customer service is on my mind because I had a transaction with a vendor go wrong and I'm still not sure what to think about it. I ordered some items knowing I would have time to play over the long Easter weekend. I ordered on the 26th, knowing that the priority mail I paid for would surely have them here by the 2nd.

Sure the vendor was having a sale... but there was no notice of a shipping delay on the website.

Days go by. Another item I ordered the same day arrived. And more days. I wrote the vendor last Wednesday. No reply. (WTH???) I wrote them again on Thursday. I waited a few hours and put a message on their fan page: "Does anyone know how long it takes to receive a package?"*

I finally heard from the vendor and then they did something unconscionable - They LIED. They told me my package should arrive in time for my play session the next day. It didn't. It came Monday. It was shipped on Wednesday... no way for it to arrive by Friday.

Had the vendor used Paypal shipping or even typed in my email to the USPS shipping module, I would have known this. I would have known my order was on the way. Yes, I would have been disappointed but, the communication would have helped.

But then the package arrived and... my order was not right. I had ordered a large amount of two items and instead got a few samples. I was ready to get out my scale to see if the sample measured up to a full size when I finally looked at my invoice. Scribbled across it was this:

"Holly, I ran out of X & Y so I'm sending you our last little bit. I will send the balance of your order ASAP!! Thanks, V"

WTH??? You know... this is getting into gray territory here. As a vendor, you are not allowed to take money UNTIL you ship. Paypal states no more than three days. The fact that they didn't even give me the option of a refund or replacement items is beyond me!

The fact that they have MY money for product I haven't received is astounding. I now have to sit here and be sure the 45 day refund period allowed with paypal does not pass before I get my items.

Had this vendor simply communicated with me - about when my package was REALLY shipped and the fact that they were out of product - the whole thing wouldn't have left such a bad taste in my mouth. But they did not. And even if I get my product, they have lost a customer.

*After receiving the deceitful email, I left a friendly note on the fan page, "It's on it's way! I'm so excited to play with this product!!" Both comments were deleted by the vendor.