On Saturday, we had a new exchange student from Japan move in with us. Shizuka is here studying english for 4 months. The last few days not only has she had an orientation at Queen's but at our house as well. Everything from how to do laundry here, that we have a funny hot water tank in our house, what life with a 4 year old is like, the type of food we eat, etc. It's been fun for all of us, but it did make me relate it to my customers a bit.
When my customers buy a piece of jewellery from me, it is often their very first piece of beach glass jewellery. Which means they don't know how to take care of it; how to wash it, how often it can be worn, what if it tarnishes, etc. So I need to make sure to give them some sort of an orientation. Do you do this for your customers? Maybe with an FAQ page on your website, a little tip sheet given with each sale, or just by showing them during the sale?
The second thing it reminded me about was language barriers. In most cases, the challenge may not be as significant as Japanese to English; but often I hear artists (and other business owners for that matter) getting too technical when they talk to clients. Remember, you know the intricate details and 'lingo' associated with your industry but your customers may not, they may not know what those acronyms mean. You may just get the same crossed-eyed, squished up nose look I got from Shizuka when I said it was 'muggy out on the weekend'. So make sure you are speaking the same language as your customers, they'll appreciate it, Shizuka does.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comments:
We are expecting a Korean student come January. I believe it might be easier for me, as English is my second language, and I'm familiar with language barriers, but I'll take this as a heads up.
Post Link to Twitter Post a Comment