Buckle up and prepare for your journey…
Whether you have recently purchased a PCGS Service Bundle for the first time or are simply considering a PCGS Service Bundle—knowing what to expect after a Service Bundle is purchased is important. Please take the time to read this article. It could be the key to your success in achieving your goals.
On other pages of this Web site I explain what I sell and why I sell it this way. Rarely do my colleagues and competitors sell labor quite the same way as I do. However, my clients have found PCGS Service Bundles a quick-start, no nonsense approach to getting things done.
Thanks for making PCGS a member of your team!
Step One is understanding that in addition to purchasing labor (measured in time) and expertise—owning a PCGS Service Bundle means we are entering into a partnership and establishing a teamwork style relationship. This would be true of any contractor or agency you could choose no matter how it was sold to you.
Your participation (or a chosen representative from within your organization) is vital! Please never assume that I know instinctively what you want or need. You will be tapping into your project management skills. When I send something for you to review—it does not mean that all work is complete. I need your feedback. If once you review my work and you see that you want to make edits, that can happen as long as there is enough time left on the books in the bundle you purchased. However, if I did not follow your instructions, I will work with you to resolve any issues. But once more before we move forward—nothing happens in a vacuum and communication and timely turn around with feedback is vital for everyone.
Adding you to the FreshDesk system
If this is your very first Service Bundle purchase Step Two is an important to understand. Once I am informed of Service Bundle purchase, clients are added into my client project portal (currently at FreshDesk) and encouraged to join there (please create a username and password) to login and review my comments, review progress and offer feedback on work submitted. Each project is documented in a “Ticket” which is assigned a number. Future communications will be sent to clients from FreshDesk via email. Clients can review and reply directly to the email ticket or login at FreshDesk to see the live ticket. I apologize but FreshDesk uses painfully small fonts which I cannot control. If you ever wonder whether or not you are receiving notifications, please feel free login and see if the last message appears in your inbox.
NOTE: FreshDesk communications will come to you from a different email address and it works great. You can reply to the FreshDesk email and it will append our job ticket and notify me. BUT if you generate a new separate email message and attempt to send it via that email address, I will never see it. That address is only used with FreshDesk. So if you have my everyday email address, please use it. If you don’t have my email address shoot me a message via my contact form and I will send it to you.
Adding your project to the PCGS calendar.
As a PCGS client, I hope you always feel important—because my clients are important. That said, like you, I need to balance any number of projects as my work load ebbs and flows from week to week. Once you have tasks for me to complete I may not be able to do them immediately but I will do them as soon as I can. So please plan ahead.
Please keep in mind—it is more effective to have all information needed before tackling a task. If you don’t know what I need—ask me! The start and stop of not having everything I need only eats up time against your Service Bundle. It will also be productive to let me know about upcoming tasks that you plan to send even if you aren’t ready to send them. Remember I am a part of your team.
Get the most BANG for your buck:
- Watch your inbox for my FreshDesk communications and getting back to me with an approval or request for edits on the most recent request for review. If your project is fresh in my recent memory I will not need to reacquaint myself with your project. Things go more smoothly with timely turn arounds.
- Please send me a URL link to the page you want to have me fix or change. I will always send you specific links to draw your attention to the subject at hand. I will avoid sending vague messages like, “Please see your contact page.” Rather I will send notes to you like this: “Please review your contact page here: http://yourdomain.com/contact”.
- Understand that words that you assume are understood in your office may have different meaning in mine. Words like templates, themes, copy, content, text, and code could mean something else to a designer or Web developer. So please be open to learning new things as I look forward to learning about your world too.
- Assets like photos are important. Please send them to me via a shared Dropbox account rather than attaching to email. Also the higher the resolution the better. If you need help choosing images or not sure what works best I am more than thrilled to assist you. Especially if your project is a print project and not a Web project. Because often times clients don’t understand what types of images they need. Resolution, orientation, file format, color mode/color space can come into play.
- Limit phone call meetings. I am always open to a telephone meeting but if it becomes a long one, neither of us will find it productive. At some point, I need to bill against the service bundle for my time. So if we can keep it short and sweet you save money.