Work & Reward

This post is something in between ranting and cheering... I know. I find it hard to explain, so you might find it hard do understand. Just bear with me to the end, please. Read on.

Let me tell you something: We work!

I mean: we really work! Very hard. Every day and every night! We don't usually take days off. We don't take Saturdays off. And on Sundays... Yep! You got it: We work!

We both have our "day jobs", so the time we have for our labor of love - i.e: ArtisIgnis - is rather limited. Pedro, as a Firefighter works 12 hours' shifts, either day or night, and Cris as a Document Manager has a fixed schedule of working from 9 AM to 6 PM (most days it's to almost 7 PM), this means that ArtisIgnis' schedule is anytime we're not working on our day jobs or taking care of our homes and families. For Pedro it's his days and nights off, for Cris it's every night and weekends.

So, let me tell you something: We work our you-know-whats off!!!

It's kind of discouraging when those that are closest to us speak little of what we do, or...when somebody complains that we "always do the same thing. Don't you know how to carve something other than hair sticks?" Or when they come up with great ideas, that we just "have to make": "Hey! I know what you have to do! You must carve a phoenix eating a vanilla ice-cream, while riding an ice-flaming dragon, who's wearing the Thinking Hat and laughing about having taken it from Hogwarts! Then just put a stick under it, and it's a hair stick! Great idea, huh?!"

Yeah... 

Rant over. Promise.
Here comes the flip side of our coin.... Ready? Here we go!

Our customers usually have a much better perception about what is do-able or not. We've had great pieces coming out of customer's ideas and desires. We love everything about them! Working with a customer on an idea, choosing wood color and type to fit it, drawing and sketching back and forth, cutting up the final design's blank and seeing it come to "life" under the knives. It's awesome!

Let me tell you something: It is totally and utterly worth it!

I mean: Our customers really give it all back to us! How do they do it? No, it's not just that they buy what we make. No, it's not the money. It's the words, and the love, and taking the time to tell us we made their day better, their life easier, their skies bluer with our work and the love we put in every piece we make! It's words like these:

"I was wearing the first fork I bought from you, the Celtic Cat the other day and 12 hours of studying passed by before I realized my hair was still in place and I didn't have a headache as it took the weight. Wonderful! I know these are both works of art and functional items, but really, your pieces are a gift and I feel so privileged to have them." - M. A., Canada

Or these:

"Just received it ! It is absolutely flawless. Gorgeous, slides in hair without breaking and holds perfectly ! I am so happy. Will make a great review as soon as etsy lets me !

Thank you again for your beautiful work, I will wear it proudly!" - S.A.C., Canada 

This!
This is what makes our hearts sing!
Praise to our wonderful, marvelous, amazing customers, who always come up with some great ideas, who buy our pieces because they truly and honestly love them, appreciate them, and value everything about them! We say it often, but it's never often enough: YOU ARE AMAZING! Thank you so much!

For more of what our customers have to say about us: Check this out!

Thoughts on Etsy's Reviews

We received this brilliant review on our Etsy shop yesterday, and it got us thinking about customer reviews...

If you're not an Etsy seller you may not know how important customer reviews are to us. The obvious reason for this is that they help build customers' trust and might be the difference between someone who just discovered us in the Etsy ocean buying from ArtisIgnis or not, but the thing is... that's not what matters the most!

Really!

Don't get us wrong! Earning the trust of our customers is crucial and a vital part of ArtisIgnis shop. However we, as the ArtisIgnis team - the people behind the shop, we are just so blissfully happy whenever we get a stellar review that it slips our minds! We work very hard, have loads of fun, we're very passionate about our craft and our shop, and we take customer appreciation very seriously. "We aim to please" might have been our motto, if Mr. Grey didn't beat us to it! ;)

Many hours are spent brainstorming about our pieces, but also about packaging, writing thank you notes, making little gifts (yes, even our gifts are handmade!) to send with the piece someone just purchased, designing our leaflets and trying to find out what else can we do to make you happy!

When you are happy, we're happy! When you're happy, you leave us wonderful reviews, and when you do that... We're ecstatically happy about it! We celebrate!!!
These reviews mean we are doing it right, there's a sense of accomplishment that comes with them, there's this feeling of success that comes over us because that's when we feel that we truly made it! 

Late last year, Etsy updated their review system. Until then we were very proud that over 75% of our customers were happy enough with our pieces and our service to leave us a great review. Most of them were outstanding and left us teary-eyed. With Etsy's new review system we're dropping that ratio fast! We're almost at 50% and we've been racking our brains to figure out why this is happening.

Our pieces only tend to improve with time and experience and we're keeping up with our standard for customer service as we always did. We answer messages and comments as fast as we can and we strive to leave no-one without a reply. We work to the best of our abilities to communicate well, to create those special custom orders we get and we really appreciate all our customers. We haven't changed, so... What's different?!

Etsy. That's what's different! 

The new Etsy review system makes it harder for customers to leave a review, it prevents them from leaving a review until the "estimated delivery date" and the notification that their order is now eligible for review is barely visible. We think this is a very successful recipe for failing at getting everybody's purchases reviewed! It makes it easy to forget all about it if you can only write a review a week or so after you received the purchased piece!

We have had customers asking us how to leave a review, so just FYI: You can leave a review by going to Your Account -> Purchases & Reviews and finding the order you want to leave a review for. Also, here's the link to the Etsy Help page about Reviews: How do I use Etsy's review system?




So, to you, who have left us brilliant reviews on our Etsy shop, who took the time to write them and thought we're worthy of them: Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! You have no idea how big a deal it is for us, and we fail at explaining how perfectly wonderful we feel when we read them. All we can say is... Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!

If, however, Etsy's review trap caught your words and prevented you from expressing yourself when you chose to, or made you forget a review, go get them now! Check out the status of your Purchases & Reviews, recapture the feeling of opening that package and unwrapping that piece and spill your heart out! We're sure we are not the only sellers out there who get a jolt of joy when we receive a review!

What do you think about Etsy's new review system? Post a comment with your thoughts and opinions.