Happy October!
Can you believe, the fall school and sports season is half over?
While everyone at H&H is “heads down” to take care of our customers and honor promises made, we want to slow down for a second, take a step back, and share where we are and what we see for the rest of the year in production, customer service and the industry.
Production Update:
H&H production made several important changes in preparation for this fall’s busy season. They tripled our equipment and staffing in the school and sports specialty product area, expanded our digital press capacity, and continued to hire and train seasonal production staff all the way through September. This allowed us to continue to expand our capacity to turn work faster.
The next 3 weeks will be our peak receiving time for this year. Lab service time is expected to lengthen by a day or two for package orders. Knockout, retouching and service items like ID cards and admin products should maintain their standard service time.
As always, our encouragement to you is to work up your school and sports jobs within 24 hours after you photograph them. This not only provides you with timely feedback on photography quality, but allows you to answer any questions while your recollection of the shoot is fresh. H&H customer and educator, Jeff Edwards, says, “If you find yourself 1 week out from picture day with the job not sent to H&H, then you are in the danger zone and things can get out of hand quickly. Focus on your latest work and chip away at it until you return to less than 1 week in studio time. You’ll also feel the joy of opening payment envelopes and depositing your sales into the bank quickly.”
Customer Service Update:
Our customer service team also made several important changes in preparation for this fall season. In order to serve you better, customer service hours have been expanded through December 17, four new team members have been added to the customer service staff, and new tools and systems are being built. These new systems will help provide better communication history, plus accurate, seamless personal service, even when individual reps are at a show or in a meeting.
You can reach us during our expanded customer service hours through December 17:
Monday – Friday 7am to 6 pm CST
Saturday 8 – 12:00 noon (except holiday weekends)
We are so proud of our new customer service team members, and want you to know they have been working hard as training and knowledge is poured into them. The heart and motivation they bring with them to H&H, as well as how fast they are learning, is encouraging and fun.
H&H customer service is not a typical customer service call center, since we spend so much of our energy and time coaching businesses on healthy season preparation, workflow, and sales. While many companies’ customer service is there to answer stock questions that can be handled from a decision tree, H&H has focused on helping our customer to be successful in their business. Our investment in programs, education and customer service is quite high because we believe that if we build our team members, then they can help you better and add value to your business. We see this going beyond everyday questions, but improving our families, our businesses, and even your clients’ lives. (And maybe we can improve our small portion of the world just a little!) We hope you can see this commitment. We appreciate you making the journey with us as we continue to build our customer service team and the systems and tools that support them.
Thanks to all who have already sent encouraging and thankful notes to our customer service team for National Customer Service Week! We have printed each one of your notes and posted them in the customer service area and are also sharing your kind words with our production teams. (Everyone, no matter what they do at H&H, has the focus of providing exceptional customer service to you!) If you haven’t sent a note yet, but still wish to, you can send it to H&H customer service manager, Vicki Gregg at vgregg@hhcolorlab.com
The Photographic Industry
Last year, most of the industry received a “post-covid sales lift” in buy rates and average purchases. So, this year we were prepared for a “return to normal”. But we are hearing good, early reports of overall sales and buy rates for this fall. And while we continue to hear good sales reports, studios have expressed concern about the cost of labor and losing critical people at inconvenient times. Labor costs have certainly increased, but overall studio owners have been pleased with the quality and number of employees they’ve attracted—especially when they take the time to communicate early who they are and what they expect. We think the topic of hiring for the studio is an important one and we are gathering some of the best ideas to share with you as the year goes on!
October in the School and Sports Business
While we are all busy, the next few weeks are a great time to touch base with your current clients to see how they are doing. Stop in and visit those organizations you want to do business with. Ask if they are 100% satisfied or if there is something they would like to change. This sincere care and concern for how they are being taken care of is a genuine way to show who you are and how you treat your clients. Often it provides a very natural opportunity to ask for the business!
Thank you for trusting us to work for you this fall. The H&H family is working hard on every print and book and photo gift, so that you can be proud of the quality, service time and value you provide your clients.