Team Colours adapt for greater customer satisfaction
Having just passed their 10 year mark, Hertfordshire based Team Colours’ continual effort to meet specific customer demand has kept them fresh and relevant in modern sports fashion industry.
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Team Colours quickly found their niche in bespoke clothing. The benefits of UK manufacture, as well as being able to meet small and large scale orders with a variety of custom options, continues and has established Team Colours as a leader in fully bespoke football, rugby, netball, hockey, cricket and basketball kits. The company is as committed as ever to its essential ethos of sports and leisurewear, and has kept the business in the family with three generations now working within its walls. The past year has seen massive changes in all departments and some exciting new challenges. The constant adaptation and evolution in customer services has continued to focus on the core ideas of providing a flexible and made to measure solution. Firstly, the ongoing Involvement with the EU Servive project has allowed investment in a design plotting software to increase unit production and efficiency. There has also been growth into new sports and disciplines and renewed focus on sublimation printing. The move to meet no minimum quantity on most custom items has given more flexibility for customers and helped develop a market for one-off custom clothing. Finally the development of a unique website to create automatic quotations on custom clothing has changed the way Team Colours interacts with customers. The adaptive qualities of custom clothing have made it easy for Team Colours to move into less popular sports and provide fresh and distinctive alternatives. Variations of classic polo shirts have been developed for rounders, orienteering, bowls and volleyball, while other sportswear items have also easily converted to create a market for korfball, squash, martial arts and roller derby. Another increased recent interest has
ounded in 2000 with aim of recreating netball dresses made popular in Australia,
been for sublimated clothing, the printing process that allows a design to be dyed into a garment. Team Coloursʼ specialisation in unique clothing fits naturally with such a creative process, and so particular focus has been given to sublimated netball dresses, rugby shirts and basketball jerseys, with a set of sublimated designs on show at the British Basketball League (BBL) Cup Final in January. In March, Team Colours unveiled their new website and automatic quotation system, completing nearly a year of development and redesign. Previous versions of the site (www.team-
colours.co.uk) had allowed enquiries and contact forms, but have never allowed direct orders because the various custom options incurring different costs.
Industry first
This stood as the main obstacle to online customer service, but a remarkable new achievement, using complex programming and a new content management system, allows greater customer service and support than ever before.
For any bespoke garment ordered online a clever series of calculations can note the custom options and provide the correct and accurate price instantly rather than relying on vague estimates. The site is an industry first when it comes to customer control; new features for customers to request fabric samples prior to placing an order, or to upload images of their team badge before specifying personalisation details, mark a significant change in customer relationships and demonstrates the modern capabilities of internet shopping. A complicated order, which would previously have depended on sales staff availability, can now be carried out any time day or night, with additional one-to- one help available via the siteʼs chat feature.
BESPOKE: Examples of Team Colours’ bespoke sports leisurewear.
Customer feedback and interaction has been one of the other key improvements in online marketing in the past year. The first Team Colours blog, set up last August, provides commentary on different sports in the media while showing high resolution images of recently made team kits, all designed to give more information and encourage a dialogue with the public. The move into social media sites like Twitter and Facebook has also created a great forum for questions and requests, and through a greater understanding of the customer an improved service can be supplied to meet demand. A series of recent projects have even resulted in nationwide TV coverage, such as tracksuits produced for Channel 4ʼs Famous and Fearless and ITVʼs This Morning, a further boost and showcase to the appeal of specifically made garments. This is the continual aim of Team Colours, to meet customer expectations and to provide unique solutions on request. Whether it is a specific netball dress style, a custom colour tracksuit or performance baselayer, the aim has always been towards high quality bespoke sports and leisurewear, and the ability to adapt to the changing needs of the market.
■ Call 01920 871453 or 877270; email
trade@team-colours.co.uk; fax 01920 872278 or visit
www.team-colours.co.uk
www.printwearandpromotion.co.uk August 2011 | 65 |
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