Policy for edits of the design

agreed. i've always thought that if someone sends a design to a big company that consistency could be an issue too. if its a team of digitizers, some are going to be better than others. it seems like you'd never know what you were going to get. i'm contact by overseas digitizers all the time wanting to do my designs for a couple of bucks and then have me resell them. won't ever happen. i'm too much of a control freak.

I could see that years ago when the majority of embroidery shops had mostly large multihead machines... but today? not so much MOST clients are small mom and pops...

When I moved to San Antonio there were 9 embroidery shops in the yellow pages... today there are 139 listed on Yelp! Most of our large clients have gone offshore years ago! the only way we could survive was to adapt to the changing landscape of small mom and pops and maybe 1 design per month from most, etc.

and I see that as an advantage.... for example I do about 95-99% of all the designs that come to us that have bordered letters... satin or running borders... I do most of the cars, trucks, machinery... etc. I like those designs. My business partner does 95-99% of all school mascots or realistic animals with fur effect, etc... He likes those designs.

I think a digitizer is naturally better at the designs they like to do.

So the client IS getting consistency... but different digitizers depending on the logo.. does that make sense?

years ago we used to do "assembly line digitizing" but that is another thread... but it got us to our first 1,000,000.00 year! (actually our ONLY 1m year.. lol)

makes sense. i'm with your partner. i HATE doing cars/trucks/tractors. just finished up a dodge truck. hawwww! that's a lot of dang designs!!

so today a client sends in an edit request for a design they claimed we digitized. we did not. (digitizers will agree, we can look at a design and KNOW whether it was done in our style or not... remember NO SCHOOL FOR THIS, so we all have our unique methods and idiosyncrasies.) there was a design using the same project name for them done 27 months ago.. but it totally was not the same design.

Client seems upset that we would not fix the new design for free as it has the same project name.. .even though they are different logos. So I quoted $25 to redo the design that we had nothing to do with ... they were like, Fine.. but fix the one done in 2014 because it is now puckering. lol

so sorry, has the fabric changed or has it always puckered since 2014? may we see an image of your current sewout as that would show us what changes we could do?

That's very much true, now i see designs are sent by home machine owners operating from home which request PES formats mostly

Hi Robert

Lot of information for me as how to deal with clients, i am new in freelancing. I will offer free edits in start.

I always ask to attach file for which they need edit, usually it is size change most of the time

just this week we have had two requests for edits for designs that are over 5 years old. we did, they were for quality.. but my internal mini-mind question is.... "so you sewed this how many times in the past 60+ months without this change being needed? "

so in that case they are asking you to edit a file you did not digitize? those I always charge for, sorry. If it is our file we will do the best to make you happy but I feel no compulsion to guarantee OTHER digitizers' work.

Agree... but how if he started using us and left old digitizer

It depends on service ?

i edit designs that i didn't create all the time, and a lot of the time i don't charge for it. sometimes its a customer that i've had for years, and THEIR customer brings them a disk that needs resized a bit or needs a few changes. if they're quick edits, i don't charge for them. even if i didn't create the design originally. wilcom does a pretty good job resizing dst files, and if it does ok, i send them the design...no charge. sometimes it needs redone, and i will charge for that....or if the edits are extensive. it just takes a minute to do...and i don't mind doing it. i consider it good customer service.

Edits should not be charged, i too consider it good customer service

Leave their old digitizer? probably not.. BUT the more times their "old" digitizer is unavailable or cannot do something and the client comes to you.. well , a seed is planted and who knows. one day you might be their "old" digitizer!

if the "edit" is to improve quality then we would not charge. So if they want a larger version to help the small lettering sew better then I would consider that an edit and there would be no charge. But if they wanted a larger version of a left chest to now sew on a towel, to me that is not an edit, but a "revision" and we do charge for those. (underlays had to change, densities, etc)

Changes to improve quality "edits", no charge
Changes in the actual design, new lettering, new years, etc are "revisions" and would incur a charge.

there are all kinds of reasons that people leave their old digitizers. i just picked up a pretty big company because their old digitizer took two weeks to get them a design. i've had to edit/resize a few of their old designs....and the quality of the designs should have been enough reason to leave. :0)

but, people don't want to wait that long to get their work done. i try to end every day with a nearly clean slate so i don't keep people waiting. even if it means starting way early, working really late and occasionally on weekends. i don't believe in backlog.

To me if it is for something to help with quality then there should be no charge. I guess the real question is... " Is the embroiderer AND the digitizer still in business for a time limit to matter"?

We have been around since 2001. A lot has changed since then with people and their companies.

i wouldn't charge them. especially if it was something that was my fault....but most of the time i don't charge for minor edits, even if its a design i didn't create. i figure if i can make the edits faster than i create an invoice then it doesn't make sense to charge for it. i just consider it great customer service.