Protect your business – Proof ALL orders!

Oops! University Misspells Its Own Name on $70K Worth of Canvas Book Bags

I read this article today on Yahoo http://news.yahoo.com/oops-university-misspells-own-name-70k-worth-canvas-153200695.html  and I thought I would share it with all of you.  Anyone and everyone in the imprinted apparel or promotional product industry should read this article  because I promise you, sooner or later this happens to all of us.  It will happen to you.  It is not a matter of IF, it is a matter of when and you should have a plan in place to minimize as best as possible this unfortunate eventuality.
One time I embroidered an order of 1,200 shirts where my in-house digitizer (employee) misspelled the word millennium and I didn’t catch it.  I presented the proof as “millenium.”  This was entirely my fault.  I should have caught it but I didn’t.  Neither did my customer.  Neither did her customer and he signed off on the project.  My customer then came back and signed my work order and we did the job.  The mistake was caught by the very first person to receive a shirt.

So what then should you do to protect yourself?  Below are my suggestions.

1. When you first obtain a customer you should explain what your policy is on proofing orders.  Your customer should be aware it is their responsibility to final proof an order before it goes in to production.  You must be firm on this.
2. Explain and show your customers how WORDS are not seen as WORDS in programs like COREL DRAW and Adobe Illustrator.  Show them how spell checking does not work in applications like this as WORDS are seen as ART and not as words.  ESPECIALLY once a font is converted to curves, then all bets are off.  Or what about the case where a word like CAR is intentionally spelled as KAR for a marketing or branding reasons?
3. If your customer tells you it is your job to be perfect you must remind them such a demand is unrealistic and unreasonable.  However, it is reasonable for you to request your customer review a proof before you begin production.  It is in everyone’s best interest and I would say it is best to go beyond your buyer and have a third party review the proof…someone who is not too close to the project.
4. Show your customers examples of how easy it is to make mistake.  In the Yahoo article I had to examine the art three times before I saw that university was spelled wrong.  Often times your eyes see what they want to see and it is very easy to miss something like univeristy.
5. Implement a policy where your customer must sign off on a proof for all orders before they go in to production and adhere to that policy strictly, no excuses.  This is easier said than done because to be valid the document should be drafted by an attorney and softened to the point where it does not scare your customers away.  Again, no so easy a task but this is to protect both the vendor and the buyer and should be presented as such.
6. Post a sign in any location customers have access to that explains your policy on proofing orders.
7. Before you go in to production have one final quality person proof the project and they must be held accountable for their actions.

You have to protect yourself and if possible maintain the relationship with your customer.  In my example I had to embroider all of the replacement product at no charge but at least I didn’t have to eat 1,200 shirts and I didn’t lose the customer.   In the end everyone was satisfied even though no one made any money and the buyer ended up spending a lot more than they should have.

I understand it is easy to blame a mistake like this on your customer after you ask them to sign off on a proof.  And maybe you will not get stuck holding the bag for replacing the product.  But unless you handle it correctly you will almost certainly lose the customer.  Because of this you need to be prepared for this eventuality and have your plan in place for how you will handle this.  While each case is different one thing that remains consistent is unless you have your paperwork in proper order you don’t have a leg to stand on.  So the most important thing you can do is:

1. Hold yourself accountable.  It is your job to get all jobs approved by your customers prior to production, in writing.  Period.

If you are not prepared to take this step then you must understand sooner or later you are going to end up eating a major project.  It can be an uncomfortable conversation when your customer asks you, “why don’t stand behind your work.”  You need to think about how you want to answer that question and be prepared, becuase it will come up more than once.

Once upon a time one of my employees told me, “lazy men work twice as hard.”  And to borrow another aphorism, “measure twice, cut once.” Every time I find myself wanting to take a professional shortcut I remind myself of this phrase.  It seems like every time I cut a step to save time (even as a favor) it will come back to haunt me and I will end up doing a job twice.

Please let me know by dropping me an email or commenting here for any topics you would like to see me cover.

I hope you all had a great start to the year and I hope to hear from each of you sometime soon.

Steve Freeman
Qdigitizing

steve.freeman@qdigitizing.com

877-733-4390