Employee Spotlight: Jennie Hopkins

How long have you worked at instantprint and how has your role progressed?

I’ve worked at instantprint for 8 years now! I started back in 2015 when we’d just moved to our new factory in Manvers (not so new now, 8 years later) as a Junior Graphic Designer in the marketing team. My role quickly progressed into being a Graphic Designer, followed by Creative Lead. As the Creative Lead I was managing the creative team for around 4 or 5 years. In this role, I managed a team of 3 people, including 2 Designers and 1 Content Executive. The day to day role included signing off on all of the design assets across all of instantprint’s online platforms, including web, email and social media. I would also oversee the copy to ensure that it was suitable for the brand along with being involved with the design of the website. After this, an opportunity came up to focus solely on the website, which is where my role as eCommerce Manager came from and I’ve been in that role for 2 years now.

What’s been your biggest highlight at instantprint?

Whenever we release a new feature on the website, I get really excited to examine how it impacts our customer’s experience. When I find that we’ve made our customer’s lives so much easier, it brings me a lot of joy. At instantprint, we think that print should be easy, so our customers can spend time on what matters most to them, their business.

What does the average day look like for an eCommerce Manager at instantprint?

I start my day by checking the previous day's sales, and examining what products sold well. I then use our behaviour analytics tool, Hotjar, to watch customers’ live journeys to spot any potential pain points. Doing this helps me regularly find new ways our team can simplify order journeys, based on different ways people interact with our website. After this, I work closely with the eCommerce team on our ongoing projects and check in with them through speaking and analysing our project management system to ensure that they’re getting on well and see how I can support them.

How does your role fit into the instantprint customer’s journey?

I’d like to say my role is a very big part of the customer journey, it’s at the centre of everything I do! I want to learn more about our customers every single day and I love to evaluate every piece of feedback to make it easier for our customers to buy online. Whether it’s feedback from post-purchase surveys, social media or various other online tools, I love reading the feedback to optimise our website for our customers, this helps me understand what issues customers have and what changes I can implement to make it easier for them. As a company, our main goal is to help our customers achieve success. It’s our job to ensure that ordering print is a seamless process, so ordering materials or re-stocking the essentials should always be just a few clicks away.

What do you think makes instantprint so unique?

Simply put, the people are what makes instantprint unique! We’ve got a dedicated customer service team who are full of print experts. They are constantly undertaking training to further their knowledge of our print equipment and have built an amazing relationship with the production team onsite. We also have a committed Studio team who check all our customers' artwork at no extra cost. Running everything through a 10-point artwork check which is free of charge as standard.

We also value transparency. At instantprint, we take pride in providing our clients with clear pricing transparency. Our prices include VAT, and we explicitly state our delivery costs to eliminate any hidden surprises at the checkout. This helps our customers feel comfortable throughout the whole order journey, from browsing our website, to making their payments. 

What’s been the biggest change eCommerce has implemented in the past 12 months?

Our biggest change is yet to come! We’re currently working on a very exciting project on our website, which we’re deep into. I can’t reveal any information about this just yet, but in 2024, this exciting project will be unveiled! 

One of the major changes we released this year was our new account area, which makes it easier for our customers to track orders and make online payments using their preferred payment method. 

2024 will be a year of continuous improvement through customer feedback. By leveraging various feedback tools and utilising our strong relationship with our client services team, we can gather valuable insights that allow us to enhance user experience and meet our customers' needs effectively. 

Tell us about your downtime hobbies or a random fact about yourself

Recently, I joined a netball team, which I’ve really enjoyed attending, it’s been a lot of fun! I’ve been on several skiing holidays around Canada and Europe with my husband, which has become one of our favourite things to do together. Interestingly, I’m able to write upside down with ease, which regularly blows people's minds when they watch!