If you’ve been following Bamboletta for some time you have probably heard me talk about Brandi. Brandi has been with Bamboletta for over 4 years now, working part time – coming into the shop around lunchtime after other job at the post office. Everyone lights up when she comes in .. she’s such a ray of sunshine. For years I’ve been begging her to work with me full time – I LOVE Brandi and she loves Bamboletta. She’s seen Bamboletta grow and grow and understands what it is I’m trying to accomplish, she gets it. Anyhow – I am so excited because as of September 1st Brandi is joining us FULL TIME! Whoo!! So – in ‘house’ there will be me, Brandi, Rachel, Nicole and Shauna (Jessica will be working from home on dolls as of September – she’s trying homeschooling – amazing lady!) It’s all worked out so well 🙂
Brandi will be in charge of customer service and shipping. I’ve been the one dealing with most of the emails (as well as all the faces, dyeing yarn and running things – phew) I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed now with how much there is I have to do. I’ve been reluctant to hand this job to anyone because I’m so picky about customer service. That being said I feel like sometimes emails come in so fast that it may take me days to respond or something get’s buried. Then I lay awake at night thinking ‘OMG – did I totally forget to reply to so and so?’. I’m also so incredibly sensitive to things – an innocent email like ‘I’m missing the care instructions from my doll I just got’ gives me a pit in the stomach – I shouldn’t have this sort of response/feeling to something like that but I do – I just feel so bad. It’s the worst when I’m getting ready in the morning and grab my phone and check emails and something comes in about a doll taking too long to arrive (or whatever)- and bam – my stomach lurches. And of course customers will email asking questions – and people are nice – it’s just me! You know, when I was a kid my mom would write notes to my teachers at the start of the school year about how sensitive I was .. I don’t think things have changed much. So – creating a little ‘space’ where Brandi will deal with customer service questions and it will free up some of my time so I’m not feeling panic-y if I don’t check my email for a few hours. Long story short – there is no one more perfect for doing this job than Brandi – seriously ladies, when we talked about this happening I felt like pinching myself.
Also in the fall we will be setting up a separate clothing Big Cartel shop called ‘Bamboletta Frocks’ and I just had to share the illustration done by the amazing Melissa Contreras. Big Cartel only lets you have so many listings at a time so we find with having just the one ‘shop’ we are always deleting and then recreating the same sort of listing every single time – annoying. LOL. This way it will all be in one place and easier to manage. We aren’t planning to expand clothing more then what we are doing now – these once a week uploads are perfect for us. I do know that Thamar has been working on a few bits at home that she may want to put up .. but she’s keeping it a secret from me. Crazy lady! More info on this when we have it up and running – few weeks yet…
Thanks for listening to the ramble!
Christina
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