A Word About Customer Service

Aside from having great products, the most important aspect of any business is superb customer service. This is especially true of the small, independent arts/crafts based business. People want a personal experience and they want that experience to be a pleasant one! Nobody wants to feel ignored if they express a concern about a purchase. Nobody wants to feel ripped off by shipping prices. People know when they're being over charged. It's one thing to charge a little extra to cover shipping supplies and gas prices for the trip to the post office, but in my opinion, anything over a dollar above the shipping price is just taking advantage. One of my own shipping policies states that any difference of more than a dollar above the shipping cost will be refunded. As Always Angela believes in combining honest business practices with outstanding customer service. I also like to communicate with my customers... letting them know I've received their order and also keeping them updated on when I have shipped their order. People like to know what's going on! And in the spirit of great customer service, if their is ever an issue with anything someone purchases from me, I will do everything I can to make things right. I want to be someone people feel comfortable purchasing from-- not just once, but over and over again!

Now that I've shared some of my basic thoughts on customer service I want to give a mention to someone I recently dealt with who I think exemplifies fantastic customer service. When I recently decided to purchase my Zutter products I found this etsy shop and purchased the Bind It All and wire cutters. I then made another purchase of the DreamKuts, the Zutter Kutter and the Round It All. When my order arrived my Round It All was damaged and defective. I contacted the seller and she immediately set out to make things right. She had me send the item back, but she reimbursed me the shipping cost. When my new Round It All arrived she had included the little pouch for free! Also, the listing for the Bind It All said the Bind It All Around the World book would be included as a free gift, but it didn't come with my BIA. When I contacted her about this she apologised-- it had been an offer for the previous month and she had forgotten to take it out of her listing. However, she made good on the offer and sent it along with the new RIA. Let me tell you... it seemed like something was always happening, but every time an issue came up, she went out of her way to make things right! To me, that is customer service at its best. It would have been so easy to have a negative experience in this situation, but because the seller was always willing to make things right and was also always on top of communicating with me, I ended up having a pleasant experience and a very high opinion of her as a seller. (Thanks, Niki)!

As always

Angela

Two For One Card Share

I couldn't even tell you how long it has been since I've made a card before a couple days ago! Thanks to a friends special request for some flower themed birthday cards I found myself happily creating these two lovelies...

For the first card my friend wanted me to make something with scenery and gardens for a friend who loves to garden, but currently lives somewhere which makes that impossible at the moment. The inspiration for this came immediately. I just recently learned how to make these fabulous little organza flowers so I thought they would make the perfect garden. The card base is from one of Tim Holtz's delicious paper stashes. I printed the sentiment out on translucent paper using my computer. I wanted something that would allow the beauty of the paper to come through while still allowing the organza flowers to be the center of attention.

For this next one, the only specification was that it be a flower themed birthday card. So of course I took the liberty to use one of my favorite techniques along with my favorite paper for this particular technique (basically any gorgeous, large print patterned paper by AC Paper)! I also only rounded two of the corners-- ones opposite each other to add visual interest. I saw this on a couple cards in PaperCrafts magazine and I thought it really added something special!

I just LURVE all the dimension you get from this technique...

Well, there you have it! A lovely little two-for-one Monday special. Feel free to share what your favorite paper crafting technique is! (Now off to fondle my Bind It All some more... we've been spending a lot of time together and I'm pretty sure it's love)!

As always

Angela