Using a white board when dealing with customers.

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Not your average framer
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Using a white board when dealing with customers.

Post by Not your average framer »

I have just recently made two white boards out of white contiboard and saved a huge amount compared to buying a commercially produced white board. I only needed one, but I had to buy the contiboard as an eight foot length, so I made two.

The edges are covered with red gaffer tape, a bit of a bodge, but surprisingly the red gaffer tape looks quite professional. :shock:

It was only afterwards that I considered the fact that I can site one of these in the public area in my new shop. I'm all for customer participation and I was thinking that this may be a useful way for customers to explain what they want, when I not really getting what they are saying and visa versa.

Good idea? White boards seem to be all the rage today. It's taken me a long time to even think about the idea, but I'm usually a bit behind anyway.
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer
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Re: Using a white board when dealing with customers.

Post by Chris2103 »

Sounds a great idea. Why not frame it too?
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Steve N
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Re: Using a white board when dealing with customers.

Post by Steve N »

We have a white board just for us, with urgent orders on , item reminders when ordering, where we just add items if we are running low, so we can see when placing orders

We find now a days, that when a customer is trying to explain whet they want, they have a photo or website on their phone to show us, not many want to draw anything, if they do, I get them to do it on paper, so I put it with the order to refer back to
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misterdiy
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Re: Using a white board when dealing with customers.

Post by misterdiy »

We had a white board for putting suppliers order requirements on. I marked it out into columns in permanent marker with supplier and account details plus the phone number, then when we needed any supplies we used to add that on the list in removable marker.

Worked really well.
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Steve N
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Re: Using a white board when dealing with customers.

Post by Steve N »

When I got my white board, it came with a kit, that had different colour pens and different colour tape, so you can divide the board up in to columns and rows, plus a 'felt wiper of er' to clean the board :clap:
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Re: Using a white board when dealing with customers.

Post by kartoffelngeist »

I have a few dotted about the workshop walls. Normally use them when I'm trying to explain something as part of someone's training.
Things like offset corners on a mount (or using the measuring guide on a morso) are much simpler to do than to explain...

Never thought to use one with a customer though. I can see the appeal.
Thanks,

andrew
"The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them in to the impossible."
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Not your average framer
Posts: 11013
Joined: Sat 25 Mar, 2006 8:40 pm
Location: Devon, U.K.
Organisation: The Dartmoor Gallery
Interests: Lost causes, saving and restoring old things, learning something every day
Location: Glorious Devon

Re: Using a white board when dealing with customers.

Post by Not your average framer »

I'm looking at how I work and it's going to be very different in the new shop. I've got a new framing job order form, which I prepared years ago, but after a heart attack and a stroke, I never did anything with it. It needs to be filled in on a computer and has been generated using a spreadsheet, this means that details typed into one box automatically appear in other boxes as required.

The A4 sized sheet then get cut up with a pair of sissors and different bits of paper end up being located in different parts of the workshop. There is a master copy which accompanies the customers artwork and a customers copy as well. I plan to have my moulding deliveries arrive and be unpacked on a counter that I'm buying from the previous owner of the shop.

At first the unpacked mouldings will be on top of this counter and a set of cutting instructions on a small piece of paper cut off from the original orders will be in a row of bulldog clips above the Morso. I therefore cut and join moulding in turn, without needing to put the newly delivered moulding away, small pieces of waste go straight into the dumpster and larger bits get stored. The piece of paper comes out of the bulldog clip and is attached to the frame, to indentify the frame with the customer.

Glass cutting, backing boards and mounts are treated in the same way. At each production stage the waste is disposed of and left over stock goes back to the storage racks. I will be deliberately using the dumpster more than before and not keeping small left over bits anymore. I will still stock ready made frames, but I will be much more selective in how I do these. I have already decided to work less days per week, so I have to be prepared to be more discipled about making this happen.

There will be a time plan for each week on white boards and I will know which jobs will be ready for collection at the end of each week. At the end of each day everything that needs to be in the dumpster will already be in there and for the most part, I plan to go home on time. I'm a pensioner now and it's time to enjoy it.
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer
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