Practical experience in any realm of study has always enhanced the results of the course teachings. In this instance, Service Quest has gained valuable knowledge regarding teamwork and the procedures involved in problem solving and critical thinking. Our task led us to assess a specific problem for the community �client� of our choice, Ghostdance Designs, and to implement an effective solution. For this particular assignment, we chose to improve the selling process, which had two undesirable effects. Using causal analysis, Service Quest was able to identify the root causes of the problems at Ghostdance Designs. Improvement has been recorded since the project began.
To begin with, an understanding of the history of Ghostdance Designs may be useful. Ghostdance Designs, a sole proprietorship started by Haywood Thomas, sells artistic T-shirts created by the owner, himself. Haywood Thomas first became involved with T-shirt printing at his place of employment, New World Graphics, a local partnership. New World Graphics is a screen printing company that designs and prints T-shirts, posters, and other marketing tools for regional businesses and organizations. Presently, Thomas, who was hired as the art director, is still working there. Thomas and the owner of New World Graphics have an agreement whereby the owner permits Thomas to use his screen printing equipment and computer software in his free time for the benefit of Ghostdance Designs. While Ghostdance Designs may seem to be the same operation as New World Graphics, it is important to notice why it is not. Ghostdance Designs was created by Thomas with the intention of allowing himself room for artistic growth. Not only that, but Thomas saves the net income received from Ghostdance Designs as a means to pay for college. His plan is to obtain a degree in graphic design from the University of Georgia. Therefore, his company adds practical experience to his wealth of knowledge revolving around graphic art. However, realize that Thomas has no desire for Ghostdance Designs to grow any larger than its current size. It was created purely for the purpose of supplemental income.
When Service Quest first approached Thomas at Ghostdance Designs, he explained where the market lies for his T-shirt business. Surprisingly, Thomas targets college students, which is the makeup of our team, Service Quest. Besides marketing to college students, he concentrates on designing T-shirts for the needs of music fans and athletes, especially those active in the extreme sports. Thomas makes contact with his customers at regional events. These events include venues such as concerts, festivals, and other gatherings.
Although this seems to be a lucrative business because of the low production costs, Service Quest took notice of two problems in the selling process. The first was the high selling expense in comparison to the expense of actually producing the T-shirts. The cost of traveling to the events, which includes food, lodging, transportation, and licenses to sell at the venues, adds up to roughly one hundred dollars per weekend. Since Thomas tends to make an average of 2 sales trips a month, it is obvious how much the expense of this travel is cutting into his profits.
The second problem that also stood out was the amount of time Thomas was losing be this constant travel. Thomas recently returned to school and continues to hold his position as art director at New World Graphics. He has considerably less time to manage the affairs of Ghostdance Designs. Plus, in a meeting with Service Quest, Thomas stressed a need to develop a different selling technique that would allow him to set aside weekends to catch up with his school work.
After the meeting with Thomas, Service Quest analyzed the problems at Ghostdance Designs with the help of a fishbone diagram, which may be viewed by clicking on the link marked �fishbone diagram� on the home page. The analysis revealed several facts to be the roots of the undesirable effects of Thomas� selling process. Ghostdance Designs is not operated from a storefront and has little capital. The only method of customer interaction that has been implemented is the contacts Thomas makes a the various concerts and festivals that he attends. He doesn�t employ help because he lacks time for management, a steady work schedule, and money for wages and payroll taxes. Since his return to school, Thomas has less time and money to travel due to tuition and less working hours at New World Graphics. Our analysis provides a more in depth view of why selling directly to the customers is consuming more time and money than Thomas can provide.
Therefore, Service Quest voted to implement a new selling process that would allow Thomas to have exposure in a new marketing arena. Starting by designing an on-line T-shirt catalog on a trial web page, Service Quest realized excellent feedback from Thomas. He was pleased that the service was free with his Arches account. Time and travel expenses from the old selling method were cut out completely, while his product was seen by a much larger marketplace. Although he will continue to run the trial web site at no cost with his Arches account, Thomas will eventually need to switch to another server that provides more memory space. This will be necessary if he plans to provide this on-line catalog permanently as it continues to grow. Research obtained by Service Quest estimates that the average business will pay twenty-five dollars each month to operate a web page.
In addition to this service, Service Quest also provided Ghostdance Designs with free advertising of this new web site. We are aware that it will take a while for Thomas� old customers to become familiar with the new on-line catalog. In order to attract attention, Service Quest took the initiative of registering the site with various web guides and search engines. These included Lycos, Excite, Infoseek, and Yahoo. On the other hand, simply adding Ghostdance Designs to a search directory will not necessarily bring new customers to you. Thus, Service Quest sent flyers advertising the on-line catalog to several college representatives in the Southeastern area. They hung the flyers, which included the web address and the Ghostdance Designs logo, around their respective campuses. Colleges that participated include University of Alabama, Ole Miss, Wake Forest, University of Richmond, University of Virginia, University of North Carolina, Washington and Lee, and Sewannee.
Because of the positive feedback received by Thomas and passes on to Service Quest, we believe that our solutions were evidenced to be implemented effectively. The selling process was improved by reducing the expense and the time consumption. Sales trips are no longer necessary for Thomas, and he now has an inexpensive method of marketing his product that will take its place. His free time may now be spent on creating new designs for the catalog and filling orders. Not only that, but he no longer leaves town on the weekends, which leaves Thomas with more time to pursue his academic career.
The data Service Quest received from Ghostdance Designs confirms the positive verbal feedback. Success was achieved in that new clientele were created. In the past two weeks, Thomas has received six orders and three inquiries. Both Service Quest and Thomas believe that orders will only increase because of increased awareness of Ghostdance Design�s on-line catalog, stemming from repeat customers and word of mouth advertisement.
Graphical representation of the projected decrease in expenses through December accompanies this report. The link to the graph can be found on the home page. It shows the recorded selling expenses of Ghostdance Designs from April to July and incorporates the twenty-five dollar cost per month of maintaining a web page plus any expenses incurred for advertising, such as printing out additional flyers. Although these are projections, they are used from estimates that represent an average cost.
After executing the project, Service Quest feels that lessons in communication, leadership, and professional behavior have been learned. Our community client, Ghostdance Designs, was pleased with the effective implementation of our solution as were we. When we began, Service Quest aimed at improving the selling process at Ghostdance Designs. The undesirable effects of the outdated process were that the current marketing methods were consuming too much time and money. Causal analysis done by the research team at Service Quest traced the root of the problem to be the inflexible schedule of the proprietor of Ghostdance Designs, Haywood Thomas. Thomas benefited from Service Quest�s solution through the improvement recognized with the decrease in time and money exhausted on selling T-shirts. We are happy to be mutually responsible for the results of our project.