Hold Messages – What They Are and How to Avoid Them

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Hello Everybody…

For those of you who have followed my blog these past 5 years, thank you!  This past month I have had more customers tell me they read these messages and find value in them.  Thank you! Thanks for reading and thanks for letting me know you have found value in my comments and the Blog content.

Some months I like to stray from the technical embroidery world and speak to you more about how to get the most from your Qdigitizing experience.  This is one of those months.  I want to speak to you about HOLD MESSAGES, what they are, how they are generated, how to best reply and how to avoid them.
What is a Hold Message – Hold Messages are the primary method my team has for telling me I may need to reach out to you for additional information to process your order.  Before I tell you how this works I want you to understand that every single day we need to put about 15% of the orders we receive on hold for any number of reasons (see top 5 reasons Side bar).   

Once it is determined a design needs to be put on hold my staff sends me a message to further review the order.  If I can solve the problem before a hold message is generated, I will.  If I can’t,  I (or Flora) will generate a Hold Message and it will be sent to you once a day for 5 days until we receive a reply.  If we do not receive a reply in 5 business days we will delete the order.  Furthermore, you may log in to your private account at www.qdigitizing.com and check current order status.  If an order is On Hold you will see it flagged in your Order Archive where you are also offered the opportunity to reply to the hold message.   If you need help learning how to navigate or log in to your account please contact Customer Service and we will be happy to show you how use your account. 

How is a Hold Message Generated – A Hold Message is generated by the digitizer or artist (let’s call them Talent from here forward) who is assigned to work on your job.  The first thing Talent does when they receive your design is to compare your order comments to the art received and your size requirements specified.  If Talent determines a design cannot be programmed they request a Supervisor review the order.   If the Supervisor agrees with Talent a preliminary hold message will be generated and sent to me (or Flora).   It is then up to us to determine if we need to contact you or solve the problem on our own.  If we cannot solve the problem we will modify the Hold Message as necessary and send it to you.

There are two very important things to understand about the Hold process: 

  1.  I might not see a hold message for up to 20 hours after you submit your order.  As I am sure you have already figured out this means that in a next day service environment we might already be deep in to the day an order is due before I generate a message requesting additional information from you.
     
  2. Our Internal Service Clocks do not start until we have enough information to start working on an order.  Because of this, Next Business Day service might not be possible when an order needs to be put on hold. 

    Example:  You place your order at 7:00am Monday, I receive a Hold Message from Staff at 6:00am Tuesday morning and determine I need to contact you.  You do not see/reply to the hold message until 2:00pm Tuesday.  In this scenario Qdigitizing is 31 hours in to your order before we can even get started on the work.  Your reply is our green light to GO and (in this example)  your order will not be scheduled for delivery until Wednesday.

As you can see a Hold Message can add a significant amount of time to an order.  If you are working with tight deadlines it is always in your best interest to provide a quality source image and at a very minimum the following information:  Is the order for Digitizing or Art, What is the size for the finished design, What will the design be printed/embroidered on.   Additionally:

  • If an Art project, do you require any special art processes like half tones, simulated process, vinyl cutting, etc. 
  • If Digitizing – are large white areas filled with stitching or left negative.  Are we allowed to take creative license to modify a design to allow for the highest quality embroidery.  May we simplify complex fonts.  May we delete (if determined necessary) borders from lettering.

The Best way to reply to a Hold Message – Is simple.  Reply to the email we sent you with instructions and if necessary any art we are requesting.  You do not need to give long flowery explanations.   IN fact, it is best to give short, bullet point  replies.  What is most important to understand is we need more information to finish your order.  Do not use a Hold Message to “ask questions” back.  Asking a question (by email) as a reply to a hold message will only further delay your order.  If you do not understand our hold message please call us so we can clear up any confusion right away.  More than anything, Qdigitizing wants to complete your order as quickly and correctly as possible on the first pass.  To do this we want to avoid an email loop.  If you don’t understand what we are asking and cannot reply in a few simple comments, please call us.

What can you do to Avoid Hold Messages – If you want to avoid the delays caused by hold messages the single best thing you can do is provide us with enough information to process your order (see above) and a quality source image.  If you have any doubt, call us BEFORE you place your order that way we can get in front of any issue before the order is placed and can advise you in a proactive manner.  If you do this one thing, I can virtually guarantee you will never have an order placed on hold.

It is in all of our best interest to avoid putting orders On Hold.  For us, it is a last resort.  We want to finish your order your order accurately in the time frames we promise.  But to do this we need enough information to process your order.  All of us at Qdigitizing want nothing more than to offer you the best service possible.  However, doing so is a team effort and you are part of the team.  We never put an order “On Hold” to buy time because we are busy.  If we are reaching out to you I promise it is because we feel we need to.

As always, thanks for reading.  If you have any suggestions for topics or simply want to add your thoughts please do not hesitate to reply here or send an email to steve.freeman@qdigitzing.com.

I look forward to hearing from each of you soon,

Steve Freeman
Managing Partner
Qdigitizing.com
877-733-4390