love your customer, even when you don't

I worked a few jobs in high school that required constant interaction with the public, and I learned-- as did my supervisors-- that customer service was not my forte. People would get on my nerves with their foolish expectation that I should serve them quickly and politely. I would shake with indignation if a customer gave me attitude. Of course I was young and untrained, and I had little idea what the word "customer service" meant, only that it sounded like somebody else's job.

I thought being an artist and escaping into my studio every day was a great way to avoid having too many encounters with the general public. I have learned over the past 14 years that the best way to guarantee that you will be interacting with the public all the time is to be an artist who actually sells their work directly to people who want it.

The great thing about being totally wrong is that I've been given the opportunity to learn to be a person who can gracefully manage all kinds of encounters with clients and give great customer service. It's been a long learning curve, because inside I still have a piece of that teenager that gets very upset when people complain, or want something from me that I'm not prepared to give. I've alienated customers with snappy responses, defensiveness, and irritable behavior. I've learned that just makes me feel just as bad as the customer does, while not solving the problem I've been presented with.

If someone like me-- impatient, snappy, sarcastic, and easily irritated-- can learn how to give great customer service, well, anyone can. Here are some of my personal tips that may help you out:

• People are going to ask you for unreasonable things: Discounts, supersized, faster turnaround, insane glaze colors put together on one piece, ridiculous ideas for pieces that I have no desire to make. Don't waste your time getting irritated with people when they ask you for something you usually don't deliver. The customer probably doesn't understand your business, don't expect them to. I approach "unreasonable" requests with a mind set that while I may not be able to give the customer exactly what they are asking for, I'm going to give them something, a counteroffer, if you will. And I always frame it in the most positive way possible-- I never use words like "can't", "never", "won't", "no", or "are you crazy, Do I look like a freakin' machine?!"

• Don't take dissatisfied customers personally: No matter how good you are at what you do, some people are not going to be happy with what they receive from you. When I get customer complaints, I never get into a debate about how they feel or if they are right or wrong. I just apologize, replace the item if I can or refund their money, no questions asked. I don't get huffy about it, in fact I am relentlessly cheerful because I realize that most people do not want to complain, they are just so unhappy with my work that they have to. They already feel lousy. I don't need to feel lousy too, I need to make them feel better about buying from me.

• Don't be afraid to educate: In the same vein, there are times when a customer is complaining because their expectations exceed what I can actually deliver. A lot of my customers are first-time handmade ceramic buyers, and are used to the "perfection" of factory-made items. If I think a customer is lacking important information about why their piece looks the way it does, I cheerfully and without judgment take the time to educate them about my process. 99% of the time the customer walks away happy, a tad smarter, and with a new appreciation for the "flaws" their piece has.
  

• Never make excuses: There is nothing more boring than listening to people's excuses, especially when the listener is already annoyed with your fuck-up. Excuses are a roundabout way of asking for forgiveness and understanding, but get in the way of accomplishing the actual business at hand. Take responsibility for your lapse with an apology, and if necessary, a brief outline on the way you will avoid mistakes in the future. That's the way to earn forgiveness and respect from your clients.

• Lying is childish, don't ever make stuff up so your customer won't be mad at you: In the pottery biz, there are a thousand things that can go wrong, some of it out of your control: kilns misfire, glazes turn crazy colors, stuff cracks. I also make mistakes: I make things the wrong color or size, I forget orders, I drop things, sometimes pieces just look like crap. It's my policy to always tell customers the truth about anything that is going on with their order, I never try to shift blame by lying about the cause. Infusing any relationship with dishonesty is a way of trying to escape responsibility, and it always bites you eventually. It's pottery, not a heart transplant. It's not worth my own integrity to lie about it.
  

• Lack of gratitude ruins relationships: Always show gratitude to your customer by acknowledging their business and saying "thank you." Think that's obvious? It's not. Frankly, I'm disappointed by many independent sellers who don't take the time to acknowledge my order or thank me for my business. I never order from them again because it seems obvious to me that they don't really need my money. Every customer is precious, they are part of the framework that enables you to do what you want while many in the world do what they have to.

• Final tip- if a customer is being difficult, never answer them until you've given yourself time to think: Even when you think you have a handle on how to deal with a pain-in-the-ass customer, a period of consideration on how to respond never hurts. I had a difficult customer last week who I responded to immediately. A few hours later I thought of a better way I could have handled her, but since I broke my own rule about not responding immediately, it was too late to go back.

Giving great customer service is not just about serving your client, it's about spreading the love, making people happy, making their lives better and easier so your life can be better and easier. Do you have any advice, questions, or problems around customer service? Post about it right here.

easier than running a pottery studio

My mother likes to send me emails reminding me that it's time for me to post when I've been slacking with my blog. I know I have been increasingly irregular with my posts, and it is not due to waning interest or a lack of commitment, so for those of you who like to read what I write: don't worry, I'm not thinking about giving it up. The irregularity is due to my own internal roadblocks. Lately I feel like unless the topic is GREAT and INSPIRING while also HILARIOUS it's not worth bothering with. It's the perfectionist's curse, and believe me, there is nothing more boring or more tiring than trying to be perfect, especially since some believe I'm already perfect.

I've still been getting back into the swing of things since returning from my trip to Belgium and the Netherlands. We also squeezed Italy in there, which was a mistake, but you never know that going to Italy is a mistake until you are already there. More on that some other time. Everyone says to me, "Oh my god, you must have so much work to catch up on!" Not really, actually. I had Ruth handling the studio and Lana handling the customer service, they both did their jobs the way I trained them to, and I came back to exactly no pending disasters. In fact, the worst fuck-up that came to light while I was away was one of my own doing, which was shipping two orders to the wrong customers, in fact, to each other. I would love to blame that on someone else. If anything, I've been wandering listlessly around the studio, looking for stuff to do.

While I was away, I was mostly able to let go of thoughts and worries about what was going on back at the studio. Every once in a while a thought would jab me and I'd break out into a sweat and start shaking, but as it turns out, that worry was for nothing. It's amazing how a bit of worry can keep you from enjoying the moment, like the moment of seeing a real Dutch windmill for the first time or drinking the best beer you've ever had for 2 stinkin' euro. But I'm not paying attention to that, I'm thinking about the one overseas order that came in right before I left and did Ruth remember to double-box it?

Which brings me to this conclusion: there is a big difference between "vacationing" and "traveling." I've been on vacation before, and when I do, I totally forget what I do for a living, what little issues have been biting me on the ass lately, and all the work-related tasks I assign myself while on vacation (yes, I do that, I don't know why.) Riding your bike around Belgium and the Netherlands, while highly enjoyable, is not a vacation. It's travel. Here is a checklist of items that will tell you when you are traveling as opposed to vacationing:

• You ride your bicycle from a major international airport in a foreign country after a 15 hour plane ride. With no map.
  
• You must consult with a country-wide map several times a day to know where you are (bought while realizing you have no idea where you are).
• You have don't know what to expect from the waitstaff when you walk into the restaurant, or how to order food.
• You don't have hotel reservations anywhere.
  
• You find yourself in a shouting match with an Italian train conductor over the fact that you have hidden two bicycles in the bathroom.
• An Italian train conductor calls the cops on you.
  
• You are happy it's just sprinkling as opposed to downpouring on your 3o km ride through some woods.
• The high point of your day is a meat and cheese sandwich in the midst of a cow and corn field.

Lest you think I'm whining, let me assure you that part of the reason my husband married me is because I don't whine, or complain, or grouse, when faced with the above situations. I'm totally game for all of it. Because no matter what, when you come right down to it, traveling is so much easier than running a pottery studio.

Sandi Dihl 1953-2010

Right before my husband and I left for Belgium, I received word that my former boss and mentor, ceramic artist Sandi Dihl of Santa Cruz, California, died a few days before after being hospitalized for a week. She had been ill and diagnosed with a terminal disease, but I was unaware of this. It made me feel very sad that I was not able to say good-bye or offer her any comfort at the end of her life. I was even more troubled because I had been thinking of her and wanting to stop in for a visit, but did not have the chance to do so before she died.

I was still a beginner student when Sandi hired me as an assistant in 1994. I often think of the strange coincidence that brought me to her. I was a member of a gym where I struck up a random conversation with another member, who told me she was helping a friend with glazing her pottery. "Really? I would love to do something like that!" I said to this person, who was not as enamored with pottery as I was. She introduced me to Sandi, and I soon had a job that saw me through the next two years as I finished my education in Anthropology at UCSC.

Working for Sandi had as many rewards as it did challenges, and our relationship could be in sister-like harmony or fraught with tension, depending on the day. Sandi was generous, demanding, tempestuous, exacting, and often unpredictable in her moods. Her studio sometimes had the aura of a sorority house with afternoon glasses of wine and giggling stories about her past; other times the grim feel of a factory work floor as we churned out her trademark "wishkeepers" and she reproached herself--and me--with criticism and fault-finding when she found her work to be less than satisfactory.

Sandi was my first model of a self-supporting ceramic artist, and I soaked up every aspect of her achievements so I could create it for myself. Her shortfalls were just as important to my education, and I often joked that working for Sandi made me learn what not to do as much as what to do. The most lasting thing I learned from Sandi was the importance of generosity in the ceramics business: paying employees as well as you can afford, sharing techniques and tricks with others, and encouraging emerging artists as she did me. I would simply not be where I am today without her support and education.

There have been times over the past 5 years as I have been employing my own assistants that I have fully appreciated the crap Sandi had to deal with when she dealt with me. I was not always an easy employee; I bossed Sandi around, told her how she could do things better, and threw it right back at her when she was critical. I was young and a know-it-all. I often tried her patience and she would have jumped at the chance to paddle me on my bottom on many occasions, but she was very proud of my success and her contribution to it when I moved on to open my own studio.

Sandi's health deteriorated noticeably the last few times I saw her, and this picture below is how I remember her and how she looked when I worked for her: pretty, vital, smiling, and always with her dog, Arrow. Rest in peace, Sandi. I never thanked you enough for what you did for me.

the ups, the downs

I have been traveling for the past two weeks through Belgium and Holland with my husband, solely by bicycle. I wish I could post some images for you right now, but I'm using the computer at my hotel, and my brain simply cannot deal with details like transferring images from my camera to a strange computer. Many things have been going through my mind as we pedal pedal pedal, finally landing in Amsterdam a couple of days ago where we are taking a well-deserved break. I have a rash on my ass, which is very unattractive on anyone over the age of 3 months. Mostly, I've been thinking about all the things I want to write, and how difficult it can be to go on a vacation when really, all you want to do is stay in bed and read a book, and how traveling abroad is nothing but a series of ups and downs. The Downs are when you can't find a hotel for under 100 euro in a town you don't even want to be in (Rotterdam). The Ups are when you find your lost bike path in the middle of a field of cows after pedaling back and forth for 30 minutes, looking for the teeny-tiny numbered sign. The Ups are so up, the Downs so down. So, as much as you may want a vacation, a vacation is still life, just with a different set of problems and worries. That being said, I'm having the time of my life.

august doldrums

I've been reminded that I have a blog and people like it when I post every once in a while. It's not that I don't have anything to say, there has just been a lot going on. I'm getting ready to leave for a 3 week trip to Europe in 7 days, and there's a lot of prep that has to happen because I'm leaving my helpers to manage things. Which makes me nervous. And testy. To deal with my testy nervousness I've been making martinis that are so strong they make my face numb. Martinis are really not a drink you should get into the habit of drinking. I wake up in the middle of the night apologizing to my liver and to the brain cells that I just killed, I feel so guilty when I drink like an alcoholic. And the most unfortunate thing of all is that it helps not at all for long-term relaxation.

Despite the hectic schedule, I feel like nothing is getting done, which is my default emotion for when I'm trying to do too much with too little time. People have been getting on my nerves, but I manage to maintain a superficially sunny exterior so no one gets hurt. I had my first negative feedback on etsy a few weeks ago. I already know there are unhappy customers out there, because I usually hear from them. This one, I heard nothing, just an ugly red "negative" post on my feedback page, with no commentary. I wrote the person immediately to ask them what was up, even though I was inclined to just ignore them since they already left negative feedback. But that would be poor customer service, and I never intentionally give poor customer service. Unless you are being such a bad customer that I have no choice. They wrote me back to tell me the creamer cracked-- or something, it was actually not totally clear what happened-- and it wouldn't hold liquid, so they were disappointed. I was so irritated by their total lack of recognition that they had other ways to deal with this--like maybe contact me so I could send them a new creamer--that it took me 4 days to respond. Taking that long to write a customer back broke my 24 hour rule, but every email I wrote was so hostile that I couldn't send it. I finally managed something bland and inoffensive:

I can't say for sure what happened with your piece unless I looked at it. Clearly, it seems you received a very rare defective item since all of my work is made to be useful and functional, not just something pretty to look at. I will replace the creamer, I hope that will resolve the issue. Let me know if this solution works for you and we will go from there.

Never heard back from the former customer, so fine, fuck off. Live with your cracked creamer.

Meanwhile, I've been working on this cool project for the Gamble House Garden in Palo Alto. The Gamble House is having a 25 year anniversary event and one of my good, long-term customers asked me to design an exclusive vase for them that would be sold as a fund-raising thing. Time to call in the Hector! All of these images are of the prototype vase I slaved over. The only unfortunate thing about this order is they want it glazed in the "bad boyfriend" glaze. I almost immediately started thinking about the brain cells that are serving me well today, but will die tomorrow as more rivers of vodka pour down my throat while I wait for kiln loads of vases covered in matte green glaze to cool down. I attempted to talk them into something else, but it's true that this vase will look best in the matte green glaze, so I had to concede. And then I immediately recruited Hector to do the glazing part too. I am merciless.

blog paparazzi

I was at the Renegade Fair last weekend, selling my work. My college degree is in anthropology, so craft shows are prime ground for studying the culture and human behavior in action. I like to take notes. I am mostly interested, occasionally annoyed at what I observe. Nowadays what I see constantly are parents who bring young children to shows, and then spend the whole time telling their kids not to touch anything. I consider that child torture. I watched a woman scold her six year old daughter: "Look at how cute that is-- don't touch it! Isn't that cute-- don't touch it!" If I have time, I will walk up to these poor children and teach them how to pick up pottery. I know parents think they are doing me-- and by extension themselves-- a favor by not letting their children touch my stuff, but really, they are just totally annoying me and everyone else within earshot. Take some time to help your kid touch and pick up stuff, you'll both have a lot more fun.

Also on my list of annoyances are people who talk on the phone while idly wandering around my booth, like they're in their own kitchen or living room. Feel that gentle pushing on your side? That's me, nudging you out of my space. Most people are so caught up in their phone conversations they have no idea what I'm doing to them until they are out in the middle of the aisle, getting buffeted by the crowd. And then there are the people who have no intention of buying a thing from me but want to tell me what I should be making. When these types start talking to me I make my eyes go really wide and start making a "grrrrrrrrrrr" sound under my breath until they get scared and run away.

These annoyances pale in comparison to a new scourge that one my friends dubbed the "blog paparazzi". These are people--mostly bloggers, some just plain old rude people with cameras (rpwc)-- who think nothing of coming up to your booth and photographing anything they please without so much as a "hello" or bothering to ask permission. This is a trend that I've been noticing more and more the past couple of years, and this last weekend I was inundated with people and their cameras. I had a number of people who didn't even make eye contact with me as they snapped away. I finally busted someone after glaring at them for a good solid 30 seconds while they took images. How anyone could ignore my patented weaponized glare is beyond me. I think they may have been an alien made of Teflon. This person was so surprised and defensive that I could possibly have an issue with them taking images, and didn't understand why I would want them to ask for permission. It could have been an educational moment but since I was pissed, it was probably just more frightening.

Here's the deal, blog paparazzi and rpwc: My work is me, and before you take pictures of my babies, you ask first if it's okay. If you want a picture of my work, you can go to my website or image library and look at all the pictures you want, and even download if you want to. I spend a lot of time and money on having beautiful images of my work out there, and an unattractive snap of my work at a show with bad lighting posted on your blog does not get me excited. If you must take a picture, you can show some basic common courtesy and respect and ask for permission. Why? Because it pisses me off when you treat my work like a public commodity that anyone has a right to take a picture of. Just because people have started documenting every moment of their lives does not mean I want to be a part of your personal archive.

Despite the rpwc and blog paparazzi, it was a really good show and my customers were awesome. I stopped doing any show but Palo Alto because of the poor sales at most of them, but I'm happy to make an exception for Renegade, even if I have to deal with some clueless people. Don't be one of them!

new vases

I made these vases for the Palo Alto Clay and Glass Festival, and I really love them. They are a take off on the "lichen" series, with their thin, uneven edges. I added the veining for some textural interest and to give them an organic edge.

It's weird where ideas come from. These vases started because I was throwing a bottle prototype for a company and the bottle needed to be very tall and skinny. I don't really throw tall and skinny so it was a bit of a challenge. I had to make a go at it three times to figure out how to throw a tall, skinny thing that didn't look all lumpy and crappy. Once I figured it out, I was in love with the process. It requires a bit more patience. I usually throw more open things that take me a few minutes to form, but to get the profile I wanted with these I couldn't push the clay around too much, too fast. It's slower, but you must remain engaged or you lose the straight lines. It's good for my brain to experience what it's like to be patient every once in a while. Such a rarity.

So when I got the perfect bottle I continued on with some vases. They came out to be about 6" for the smallest, and about 15" for the tallest. I sold most of them at Palo Alto but I do have the white one and the green one pictured here. The green one never made it to Palo Alto because I forgot to load it into the kiln, a fact I realized at about 3 AM. It's my "bad boyfriend" glaze, and I must say it's on very bad behavior here. A few bubbles, which I generally just have to accept, and it turned an ugly brown on the inside with a rash of bubbles all over. Oh well, who looks at the inside of a vase anyway? The white one is just lovely, it floats.

I'll put these babies up for sale on Etsy and on my website as soon as I figure out a good name for them. I've been calling them "Asparagus Vases" because of their shape, but that name is not holding. I have a little contest happening on my facebook page right now for naming rights. Put in your ideas and maybe you'll get a free one!