Sunday, May 2, 2010

Felt meets the world! Communication with customers in the world

It's about 10 moths since I have opened Aika Felt Works Webshop last year. It took some time to be noticed, but gradually I am getting orders worldwide. The map shows where and which product I have shipped. It's always exciting to see where my customers are from, in the ordering e-mails. You may think that internet shopping is tasteless compared with face-to-face service in conventional stores. I use automatic confirmation e-mailing system, but otherwise everything is manually operated. As one-woman company, each customer is memorable, because I often start making products after getting orders thinking about who are buying the goods and where my works are going.

Direct communication between customers is a great thing that I appreciate so much. There were 2 customers who bought Felt Slippers for the second time. They bought the first ones some years ago in Finland when they were traveling. They loved and used the slippers until they were worn-out, and still remembered my company name and came back to my webshop to get new ones..! There is nothing happier than this as a designer. I was really glad that they kindly wrote about the stories in the answering e-mails about their purchases. I am amazed how much personal the communication in the internet shop is, and how one customer's voice can influence on my motivation.

Customer's voice is precious, both happy ones and hard ones. I have been reflecting customers' suggestions for improving products as much as possible. Give me just one sentence of your message, to enrich our communication and shopping experience!