Help Wanted

**Dutch** · 08-18-2015, 23:58

I am in desperate need of help. Our growth has far exceeded my ability to hire and train personnel. I have to spend 4 hours a day doing emails explaining that Zing it is yellow and how whoopee slings work. I have not spent any serious time designing and drawing new products for months. My biggest problem is, it is too hard to teach hammock camping to those who really don't have a love for it. Right now I have 4 positions to fill but the two I need the most are...

Customer service/e-commerce-- This position will answer emails and help customers make purchases and follow up with the customer service my customers have grown to expect. Also, this person will do website work updating descriptions, weights and picture. The only real prerequisite for this job is to know hammock camping and speaking Canadian is a plus. Real Canadian and not that funny Quebec, New Orleans sounding stuff.

Industrial Seamstress- I have Industrial Juki sewing machines and all the high tech fabric you can imagine. I need someone who can put those two together and make some of the coolest stuff on earth. Must have 1 year experience working on an industrial sewing machine.

Please don't fill this tread with 25 posts of well wishers saying they wish they lived closer or offers to work remotely. Be willing to relocate to central PA and share my passion for hammock camping and developing new products. Dutchware is in its infancy and you could be getting in on the ground floor. This is an absolutely serious offer, actually a plea for help. I have 6 employees currently and I just expanded the work area. Send Resumes and work history to [email protected]

**Ratdog** · 08-19-2015, 01:11

I have 2 people in Lancaster looking for work last I heard. Will call them in the AM. At least one of them may be a match.

**Debi Jaytee** · 08-19-2015, 06:41

im unable to relocate however, I'm more than willing to help your choice learn how to speak Canadian eh? ��

**TominMN** · 08-19-2015, 07:42

Dutch,

Just wondering if you really need that customer service person to be on-site(?) If not, I'm guessing one of the many knowledgeable people who participate here could maybe fill the bill for you.

(I'm not that guy...)

**Dutch** · 08-19-2015, 09:47

Originally Posted by Ratdog

I have 2 people in Lancaster looking for work last I heard. Will call them in the AM. At least one of them may be a match.

Please do.

**Gresh** · 08-19-2015, 10:46

Originally Posted by TominMN

Dutch,

Just wondering if you really need that customer service person to be on-site(?) If not, I'm guessing one of the many knowledgeable people who participate here could maybe fill the bill for you.

(I'm not that guy...)

Having done PR/Social Networking for a few different cottage vendors (both here on this forum and on Facebook) I can attest to the fact that it's far better to have somebody in-house for this sort of role than to have somebody doing it remotely. It CAN be done (as I've shown) but there are some times when people ask questions that you won't have an immediate answer to and the idea is to act as a buffer between the customer/end user and the HNIC of the company. On-site you've got far greater access to the tools you'd need to accomplish those tasks (questions about shipping, changing an order, etc) than you would have remotely.

Just my completely unsolicited $0.02 there, though. If it CAN be done remotely, it's a great gig and a lot of fun to be "in the industry" as it were.

**NeighborhoodGuy1983** · 08-19-2015, 10:53

Have you considered investing time in building a page on your website to explain Hammock 101? Also, the Zing it and Lash it thing is confusing to a newbie for no reason. What if you called those materials your own names to eliminate the questions? In my business I always try to use technology as much as possible to eliminate the need for more people.

**KBr00ks** · 08-19-2015, 11:11

Having done some customer service-type tasks for others remotely, I agree for the most part with Gresh... however, some of the more basic questions could certainly be answered by a remote person. "explaining that Zing it is yellow and how whoopee slings work" types of questions. Perhaps someone on-site could just hit the forward button on those to someone else who could answer (and point customers toward the relevant YouTube videos, forum sticky posts, etc.).

**Gresh** · 08-19-2015, 11:30

Originally Posted by KBr00ks

Having done some customer service-type tasks for others remotely, I agree for the most part with Gresh... however, some of the more basic questions could certainly be answered by a remote person. "explaining that Zing it is yellow and how whoopee slings work" types of questions. Perhaps someone on-site could just hit the forward button on those to someone else who could answer (and point customers toward the relevant YouTube videos, forum sticky posts, etc.).

I agree, but those two particular examples are easily enough remedied on the product pages themselves. Throw up a whoopie sling video or point out that Lash-It/Zing-It are essentially the same thing but with different colors. The meat of customer service isn't in answering inane or dumb questions (though more often than not, it seems like it is) but in solving problems...actually providing a service to the customer.