Question on communicating on art

[whitewater]

So how we are set up is i communicate with the customer about their order. So they may email me what they would like for art. Then i have our graphic designer work on the art and mockup.

So my question is, how do you communicate with the graphic designer. How do you give them the info the customer emails to you?

I used to type it into our google sheets. Now we use monday.com , and i still do the same thing. BUt its sort of a pain to type all the info, mostly if there is a lot of it.

I start a folder for the customer and drop in what ever files they send us if they send any at all.

Do you think taking a snapshot of the email and dropping it in their folder would be a good way?

[Dottonedan]

I think about this a lot. The reason being, people outside of the artist position often don't convey exactly what they customer is leaning towards.


This however, is a problem even in emailing what the customer said exactly, because the customer doesn't always communicate that clearly enough either. After all, our business is "reading the customer needs" and making the customer truly happy, not just following an email verbatum. I know, whatever comes out in their email won't be perfect either depending on the artist and personality type. Some are good with people and some aren't. You might concider a "point person"in the art room. Most often, they are called Artist Director".  You may only have one person and is art director by default.


I have my own issues here. Both the Operations manager and myself handle sales. He doesn't provide specific details and doesn't convey in the emails and conversations what the customer really felt and directions they wanted to go. He might toss in his own personal opinion and choices that might be off target.  Happens a lot actually. In just about every shop or Co I've been doing art for.


In the end, The best method of course, is to have it all documented in an ART REQUEST form.  That is the artist bible. If we (artist) follow that to the letter, The artist can't go wrong.  You can, but we did our job.


The best "customer results"came from having the artist in on the initial fact finding stage of the design process being physically present.


Here, we do everything in email and I'm copied on the email correspondence with customer. Everyone is copied (unless it's to the sale people only).  This seems to be the way most do it. Even in my freelance, my customers copy or forward the email conversation from their customer so that I can get a better read on what they are saying and not 2nd hand getting lost in translation.


I do keep my own copy of each email in a customer folder as well.

[GraphicDisorder]

Here is how we handle art.

Whoever is selling the "art", must understand art and what the artists are capable of doing. In my shop that is me. So I probe for the customers idea and ask them to use examples of art they do or don't like as that helps. We rarely just "fire from the hip". The customer needs to have at least a rough idea what they have in mind or like/dislike. We handle 100% of this communication via email. Once I have a good idea what the customer expects I quote them to create that. Payment is required in full up front. Puts them in the que which we use Monday to keep up with and I send all of those emails to my in house artists. They handle the design/proofing/changes if any directly with the customer.

IMO shortening up or not having actual access to exactly what was said by the customer will result in a communication issue.

[whitewater]

So each person has their own email then?

and you would forward the string to them?

Yes, im the one responsible to get the info from the customer to pass it on to the artist.

I used to have the artist go back and forth with the customer, but then a few times the customer sent the artist sizes and the order and then i was never told. I always caught it at last minute so we made our deadlines.

Also i found out that the customer would email the artist at a later date inquiring about another order, because they just replied to an email they had. So it was sort of getting confusing.

Rob

[GraphicDisorder]

So each person has their own email then?

and you would forward the string to them?

Yes, im the one responsible to get the info from the customer to pass it on to the artist.

I used to have the artist go back and forth with the customer, but then a few times the customer sent the artist sizes and the order and then i was never told. I always caught it at last minute so we made our deadlines.

Also i found out that the customer would email the artist at a later date inquiring about another order, because they just replied to an email they had. So it was sort of getting confusing.

Rob

Yes each person has a company email.

[whitewater]

So each person has their own email then?

and you would forward the string to them?

Yes, im the one responsible to get the info from the customer to pass it on to the artist.

I used to have the artist go back and forth with the customer, but then a few times the customer sent the artist sizes and the order and then i was never told. I always caught it at last minute so we made our deadlines.

So if a Customerr happens to send an order in to your artist, they just forward it to you?


Also i found out that the customer would email the artist at a later date inquiring about another order, because they just replied to an email they had. So it was sort of getting confusing.

Rob

Yes each person has a company email.

[Dottonedan]

Yes,  very convenient and simple for everyone to have an email also. If you have 5 artist, I'm sure they each have their own computer...and would have an email.  Same for 5 sales reps.  Shipping, Prod Mgr, Screen Rm Mgr.  everyone.


But of course, you only send the needed info to each person that it pertains to.  Then, none of them need to or should be permitted to reply back to the customer. Thats on you, but the art department can get all info from that.  It's totally fine to have the artist only send questions back to you also...and you field all of that.

[CBCB]

We do almost no custom design in-house but I would love to offer it.

So I don’t have much to add here except that Brandt’s reply hit home for me. The person talking to the customer needs to understand the limits and capabilities of the screen printing process, and the limits of the client too.

My customer service guy does all of his own art and mockups from client files. This is relatively easy to train if you have good templates in Photoshop. I showed him how to prepare basic files in Illustrator and use those to create the mockups.

So that right there skips a ton of the headaches. I could not imagine getting an email from a client with a decent file and having to send it to someone else for an often 60sec process making the mock-up.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[GraphicDisorder]

Yes,  very convenient and simple for everyone to have an email also. If you have 5 artist, I'm sure they each have their own computer...and would have an email.  Same for 5 sales reps.  Shipping, Prod Mgr, Screen Rm Mgr.  everyone.


But of course, you only send the needed info to each person that it pertains to.  Then, none of them need to or should be permitted to reply back to the customer. Thats on you, but the art department can get all info from that.  It's totally fine to have the artist only send questions back to you also...and you field all of that.

My artists work directly with the customer after the sale for proofing, art creation or changes and so on. Sales start with me and come back to me.

One wicked break down in many shops is the artist never directly communicates with the customer. Context is lost and the path forward is more muddy. So we don't do it that way.

[Sbrem]

Yes,  very convenient and simple for everyone to have an email also. If you have 5 artist, I'm sure they each have their own computer...and would have an email.  Same for 5 sales reps.  Shipping, Prod Mgr, Screen Rm Mgr.  everyone.


But of course, you only send the needed info to each person that it pertains to.  Then, none of them need to or should be permitted to reply back to the customer. Thats on you, but the art department can get all info from that.  It's totally fine to have the artist only send questions back to you also...and you field all of that.

This is pretty much the same here, except we do allow our artist to communicate with the customers, and we have a rule about being polite. I or my partner do all of the customer contact and conversation to get started so as not to bog the artist down with all of the permutations at first, but once we have it narrowed down, it goes to the artist and she sends the proofs with all the pertinent info, and we have the line about IT MUST BE APPROVED VIA REPLY TO THIS EMAIL TO MOVE FORWARD.

Steve

[3Deep]

I wear many hats here, but I don't do sales, art comes straight to me in emails or if a customer is in the shop we sit down and I try to get in there heads so we don't be all over the place with ideas, I will even let them do some kind drawing and keep that for my reference.  Even when I sent out art to other artist to do I try and have it nailed down so they know what to do, like I tell my customers with custom art I need to know what road to get on before I can get to your destination.

[twins]

Dottonedan would you be willing to attach a pic of your art request form?

We currently use a sales order (products, quantities, due dates) and include a design info area, but the design info part is willy nilly...