How to Handle Incoming Enquiries

[gabriela3d]

As a Hub, it’s no surprise that some of the customers on the platform are new to 3D printing. You already know the drill by now: before newbie customers send in an order, they usually reach out to you directly for additional questions or further clarification on printing their model.

Getting in touch with each Hub individually is actually very simple: all they have to do is pick a Hub, then click the Contact This Hub button on the Hub page. Once they leave a message, you will receive it as an enquiry.

Let’s take Ken’s Hub as an example:

Now here’s a useful feature that can be really time saving in the long run! After discussing the customer’s project for a while, you will reach that magical point when the customer is ready to submit their order. Yes! So instead of having to ask the customer to go through the normal ordering process, you as the Hub, can convert any enquiry to an order and set all the discussed parameters for your customer.

The amazing thing about it is that, beside saving your customer time & effort to order at your Hub, the entire history of your discussion will be automatically transferred to the order page. Usually the model in question will have been uploaded as an attachment to the newly created order. From then on, you can handle the order as usual.

Turning enquiries into orders is a powerful tool for Hubs (also quick and easy to use!), that allows for:

• A reduced order time cycle - Win!
• Ensuring the order will ultimately be placed at your Hub - Double-win!

Have you tried this feature before? If so, how did it work out for you? I’d love to hear your feedback on this!

Cheers,

Gabriela

[gddeen]

Nearly tried it. I hate to kinda do it because it ends up being the way the customer learns to submit orders.

Also, clearly someone is aptitude to cancel the order if I create it. (this dings a printer) If they go to the trouble

to create the order, there is less likelihood to cancel it.

–

Is there a way to ‘Practice’ ordering and receiving orders? Can I us a ‘coupon’ to mark it as test only so I can

test my process of submitting jpg mpeg jpg tiff bmp? I’d like to add stl files to see how the customer can remove

ones they don’t want.

Things tend to be ‘forever cast in stone.’ (printed in plastic) and difficult to remove. So, I don’t experiment.

If I know what it does, I try it.

–

What is the difference between a customer reference like ‘AQ’ and ‘@AskueQuestions?’

I assume AskueQuestions is either gmail, yahoo, twitter, hotmail (nearly all of the time)?

(I also assume we are not given customer emails so we don’t advertise to them. Thank Goodness!)

‘AQ’ so that is a maximum of 900 customers or so?

Why are all of my customers following ‘Amsterdam?’ I assume they fly over to pick the parts up! (heh heh heh).

Can I see if customers are students? Professionals? Normal users? Other printers outsourcing to me?

[gabriela3d]

Hi @gddeen, thanks for your comment! Allow me to address your concerns one by one:

• Usually there’s more at stake when customers cancel orders, like higher cost than expected, order completion time, the printer might not be suitable to deliver the best results for that particular order and so on. I do agree with you that going through the process of submitting an order shows commitment, but on the other hand, this also applies when a customer shows interest in getting the print right through an email exchange and you both agree on the outcome. Give it a try though! Next time a customer emails you and you end up moving forward with the order, use turn the email inquiry into an order page and let me know how you go
• I think it’s great you want to experience the platform from a customer point of view! Basically this is why we created the Marvin review system to not only test your skills as a 3D printer operator, but to also for you to experience this from a ‘customer’ point of view and familiarize yourself with the order page. Unfortunately there’s no system in place for you to test this at this point.
• Sorry, not sure what you mean by AQ questions Can you please give me more deets on this one?
• Amsterdam is the default community when creating a user profile on the platform. Indeed very few people update this - we’ll tackle this at some point, but for now your customers will remain Amsterdammers
• Currently, there’s no way to know to see more info on your customers, but sometimes they’re easy to spot from the type of prints they’re after.

Hope this helps!

And do let me know about the AskueQuestions, I’m intrigued!

Gabriela