6 Warning Signs that Your Embroidery Shop Needs Management Software

Business Advice Embroidery Shop Management
October 7th, 2016

Running an embroidery shop effectively takes a lot of trial and error. Some tools and techniques have worked very well for you, while others have not. Also, sometimes the tools and techniques have been great for your shop, but they were used improperly. Then, there are times that your shop is in disarray and you are unsure as to why or what the solution may be to get your shop running effectively. Here are 6 warnings signs that your shop needs better management and can benefit from management software.

  1. Customers are not satisfied - Many customer complaints, products returns, customers are not returning and bad feedback are all signs if unsatisfied customers. If you have a high percentage of customers that are not satisfied, this is a clear sign that better management tools are needed. Better management tools will make sure that products are done on time, customers are followed up on and updated, proofs are approved and less mistakes happen. 

  2. Low sales - If potential leads are not being followed up on, if potential sales leads are calling you back to see if you received their requests, if you do not have a effective system for tracking leads, and leads are not assigned to specific sales person you may be unnecessarily losing sales. It's vital to have a sales lead management system in place if you want to make the most out of your sales leads.

  3. Lack of staff communication - If your production team, design team, sales teams and customer service team are not communicating effectively with one another, this can lead to many shop disasters especially with timing of product completion, inventory concerns, sales leads, and other shop concerns. With shopVOX, you can assign tasks, create notes and more so that team members are in the know. This system improves the communication and collaboration of the entire shop. 

  4. Products are not being completed on time - This is big. This shows that production is not being managed properly. Either the machines or staff are being overworked, inventory is not stocked properly, jobs are being overbooked, or other issues. You can properly manage jobs and projects with shopVOX software. Easily track projects and not overbook jobs. Within seconds, every employee can see what is due and when, as well as know which tasks are theirs. 

  5. Too many finished product mistakes - If you are seeing that the designs are not being produced as requested over and over again, there usually are one of two reasons why - the embroiderer is not well trained enough and/or someone is not proofing properly. Usually, it’s s the latter. Proofing management is included in shopVOX. You can easily send proofs within your shopVOX account and receive the approvals or requests for changes. Each proof change is kept safe within shopVOX in case there are concerns later. Having an effective proof management system can certainly help your shop reduce these mistakes. 

  6. Too many unnecessary staff questions - Of course, questions are good - unless there are too many about things your employees should know and can have access to on their own. Deadlines, details about jobs, customer questions, inventory status, and so on - these are all available in shopVOX. Since shopVOX is on the cloud, all of this information is available even when away from the office. You can save a lot of time when your staff has access to all of this information on embroidery shop management software. 

Do you recognize any of these warning signs in your embroidery shop? If you do, then you need to make a change quick. You can try shopVOX Express for free by visiting www.shopvox.com.