Customer Care Cards
Offering a tuber or seedling sale to the public? Reduce customer service-related labor, questions, and frustrations with a step-by-step care card.
Be sure to take a moment to describe what your product should look like on arrival. I’ll never forget the super angry phone call I got form an irrate home gardener upon the receipt of dahlia tubers she thought would be coming as full grown plants (despite the product names and descriptions on my website).
A simple care card sent in the box with the tubers would have prevented the situation. We’re shipping bare root roses soon to many farmers who are new to rose growing. They may have avoided growing them because they were too expensive to buy retail or too large a commitment with wholesale minimums.
Things to include on your care guide:
What your product should look like upon arrival
How you prefer customers connect with you if there is an issue
The time window for reporting a problem (should not be unlimited, keep it tight)
Short term storage suggestions for the product (if your customer can’t plant it right away)
Planting guide to increase success
An additional way to access support (a web page with more info.)
A nod to other products the customer might like. Maybe an upcoming on farm program or workshop or other products that you offer in different seasons
I started this project by looking up the dimensions of the cards I wanted to print from Moo.com. I’m going with large postcard size. They are 6 inches x 9 inches and I’m going to make the design vertical, so that a digital file can also be shared. It will be easier for my customers to reference on their phones if it is in a vertical format.
Then, I went to Canva and started a custom size document that is 6'“x9”. I looked for some design help by searching “instructional guide”. I updated the guide with my own brand standards: colors, fonts, and general look. I swapped out the hand-washing illustrations with plant-related illustrations — and I used multiple design elements to help me communicate the processes.
I download the the field as a .pdf for print and then upload to Moo.com.