Here + There

the ramblings of a client services director, designer and artist of sorts

[seriousfoxlabs]

[allisonhadland-blog]

Recent blog post I did for Serious Fox...  seriousfoxlabs:

One of the biggest issues that can plague a support team is the difference between what you and your client deems a ‘business critical’ bug. As touched on in my last blog post ‘client transparency - when to respond’, what a client may see as business critical may not be your definition.

...

[allisonhadland-blog]

Over the weekend, I decided I needed to get a bit crafty with the house. I have always wanted a simple, graphic table cloth but could never find one at a reasonable price. So I made one myself.

It was quite simple really. All you need is:

+ 1x Cotton Table Cloth + 1x Roll of Large Sellotape + 2x 25ml of Dylon Black Fabric Paint (more if a larger cloth, less if smaller) + 1x Potato + Tape Measure/Ruler + Sharp Knife + Drop cloth + Paper Plate

First, I measured the table cloth and marked a grid pattern on the edges of the tablecloth. Pencil is quite difficult to get out of fabric, so if you don't have fabric chalk like me - make little ticks at the edges and use this to line up the sellotape. Sellotape is great to mark the grid, because like painting tape it protects the fabric without harming it, and is easy to replace. (See the second picture for the grid.)

After making my grid I measured and cut out my cross shape on a piece of paper. Cutting a large, uncooked potato in half (the long way) - I placed my paper cross on the potato to use as a template. The potato will become the stamp. I then cut my cross shape out of the potato. Easy!

Then it's time to get stamping. Ensure you have a drop cloth or towels under your table cloth when you start stamping, the fabric paint will run through. One thing to note, the fabric underneath will affect the stamp - so if you want a smooth print, and not textured, be sure to use a smooth drop cloth. I used towels as I liked the idea of texture.

Pour the paint onto a paper plate and get stamping! Just keep inside your grid. Don't worry too much about being perfect, this is home-made and little imperfections make it unique.

Once you are finished stamping, leave the tablecloth to dry for at least 4 hours, or overnight if you can. Once dry, use a old (but clean) t-shirt and iron over the top of the crosses. (So lay a tshirt over tablecloth and iron.) This will help the paint set.

I have yet to wash more than once, but according to the label of the fabric paint it should last awhile. An easy one day project so spruce up your home!

Ax

[seriousfoxlabs]

The other day I was doing some research on what other companies do for ‘timings of response.’ At Serious Fox, we have a few different project types that range from development to support and maintenance. This broad range of product puts the company in a interesting position when it comes to...

[allisonhadland-blog]

Check out my latest blog post for Serious Fox.

[allisonhadland-blog]

Company - Client Transparency, is it a good thing?

One of the reasons I started this blog was to open discussions around the ‘best practices’ of Client Services I’m implementing at Serious Fox. One thing that I’ve always believed in, maybe to a fault, is client/company transparency - complete openness about the good and the bad things that come along in a project. As far as I can see it, there are three main areas of transparency: Price, Timings and Development Progress. Being open with a client around these three areas builds trust, and as most people know trust is the key to happy working relationships and creating workplace based in collaboration. 

Obviously there is a lot of risk with complete transparency with clients. A lot of agencies I’ve worked in run from this kind of open/frank communication because with complete honesty comes the risk of having to admit that your company did something wrong, charged too much, or perhaps even worse - promised something that couldn't be fulfilled. However, in my eyes with this risk comes some pretty significant benefits. There is something to be said about gaining a clients trust, knowing that you can be honest with them about the good and the bad. By being honest about a project that will take little time and money (versus trying to milk the client for more money) means that when that timely, expensive project shows up - the dreaded time/price negotiation is minimal because the client trusts you are being honest.

This sort of transparency does put an Account Manager into some pretty difficult positions. Just the other day, I had to throw my hands up and admit a company mistake. We under-estimated the time it would take to fix a bug, and in turn we were going to go over on budget and miss the deadlines. While in the past I was coached not to admit blame, or try and dodge the subject, I took it upon myself to expose the real cause of the problem, which was our estimate. If you work in the development world, you know these things happen almost too often. Estimates are based on little investigation, and it isn’t until you really get into the code that you will realise how much time it will actually take to fix a bug - or create that new feature. It’s also one of the hardest situations to explain to a non-technical client. Normally in these situations, you either damage client relations by demanding more money for resource - which is above what you quoted and approved. Or, you end up fixing it for free - which means you have lost revenue and potentially set-up the expectation that these things will be fixed for free going forward. What was the outcome of this conversation? While the client was disappointed, we both agreed that estimates needed more investigation time - and a better, more efficient work flow was established for the two companies. 

Now I do realise that this is a bit of a ‘in a perfect world’ theory. Just as developers and account managers have been burned by clients - clients have been burned by companies. It will take quite a lot of work to earn the trust of some clients, and some trust may never be earned. But at the end of the day, I can always walk away from a situation knowing that I did my best and told the truth - and whether or not the client wanted to believe me, that was the situation. In my experience, this has worked more times than not, and I have several life-long friends who used to be clients (or even still are). My hope is that through implementing this way of working with Serious Fox, we stop arguing over timings and prices, and can walk away at the end of the project with both parties feeling that they got a fair deal.

Over the next few weeks I'll be taking a look at the pros and cons of transparency in the areas of Timings, Pricing and the Development Process. 

[allisonhadland-blog]

A New Blog

Just a few weeks ago, I quit my agency job and entered the land of start-ups. It’s my first venture into setting up client services in a company and I'm quite excited to be running the department how I always thought it should be.

During my first week, I started reading a lot of blogs on the ‘dos and don’ts’ of client services in the development world. Recently I've been reading about advice on how many hours to wait before responding to support requests and how to handle angry/unreasonable clients. I found quite a lot of the information useful and the other half incredibly… interesting .. as I stumbled across blog after blog of account managers or developers who have clearly been burned by client after client. Some of the blogs boasted about some pretty strict rules, such as ‘don’t respond within 8 hours or they’ll expect it forever’ and ‘red flags of a crazy client’. I found myself wondering what horrible client experiences have happened to these people to make them so tainted towards the world of clients? They seem to live in a world where work has become a battle, rather than a collaboration. 

So, I’ve decided to write my own blog on my adventures of starting a client service department in a growing company. I’ll speak about our successes and failures in client services, discuss ideas that I’m thinking of implementing, and comment on things I’ve found during my research. My hope is that it sparks discussion, which in turn will benefit my new team… or, if all else fails, at least it’s a place for me to record my learnings so I can reflect on how far I’ve come in a years time. 

Hope you all enjoy. 

[allisonhadland-blog]

Sunday art attack.

[allisonhadland-blog]

A week or so ago, I made this little ditty for my friend in Colorado. She has always been a source of inspriation and motivation for me - and always someone I can count on to remind me to keep in touch.

'Never Stop Exploring' hand-stitched in white canvas, with a little nice evergreen at the end.

...I also sewed a curtain last week, but that was definitely 'underwhelming' to say the least.

[allisonhadland-blog]

With life getting in the way of... well life, I've recently realised I don't do enough 'stuff' outside of work. So, I'm starting a new project - one 'crafty' thing a week (for as long as I can keep it up)... whether design, crafts, sewing, gardening, baking ... all avenues count.

So here's the first of my adventures, a little secret santa present for the office christmas party. Hand-stitched on canvas.

Fa-la-la-la-la