Few businesses in the printed photo goods industry (custom photo books, prints, and related gifts) can say they’ve been featured on the Today Show and InStyle Magazine, not to mention being selected as one of Oprah's Favorite Things. But Artifact Uprising is a standout in this sometimes-unsexy industry. The company has successfully combined an elevated design aesthetic with responsibly-sourced materials and a passion for customer service, which together have earned the company a strong and sustained customer following, and, in 2014, led Artifact Uprising to be acquired by Oakland Based Visual Supply Co., with both co-founders staying on since then to helm the brand.
Micah Solomon: Tell me a bit about the concept behind the creation of Artifact uprising.
Katie Thurmes, Co-Founder of Artifact Uprising: My sister Jenna and I – along with her husband Matty – had been working as professional photographers for about 8 years when we started to see this shift in the way photos were being shared and stored. What was once the habit of printing doubles and gathering around the table to page through albums had turned to hard drives upon hard drives and scrolling through a feed.
We began to realize our documented lives were sitting on our phones and computers with no true place to live on. And it begged the question, “What are we leaving behind?”
And so, step by step, we landed on printed photo goods you see today – driven by a mission to move stories “Off Your Device, Into Your Life.” Prior to launch, we created so many different versions of Artifact Uprising until our hearts felt aligned with our heads. What resulted? Products we believe in. This is why you see 100% post-consumer waste recycled pages in our photo books. This is why you see fallen Colorado Beetle Pine in our wood products. This is why we create products every person can make beautiful with their own photography.
Katie Thurmes and Jenna Walker, co-founders of Artifact Uprising. • Photo courtesy of Artifact... [+]
Micah: Tell me about the early days
Katie: We got our start as a side project, essentially, in Jenna & Matty’s basement. In the prototyping days, the term “handcrafted” took on a far greater meaning – having created our first album by baking it in our kitchen oven (yes, it’s a real thing). Needless to say, we’ve since changed our processes. With launch of Artifact Uprising our lives quickly spiraled into an episode of Silicon Valley. That single act of pressing play on our website would lead to unlikely organic growth, Pinterest fame and the early pains of production at scale. Add in that Jenna’s daughter was about 6 months old and you have yourself a recipe for the stuff entrepreneurial beginnings are made of.
Micah: I have done some work recently for the photo industry – most recently as the keynote speaker for this year’s Photo Marketing Association conference as well as Panasonic Lumix's retail dealer’s event – and I know that it’s both a great industry and not always the most easy industry to be in. How is it going for you, and how do you keep differentiated and successful?
Katie: People may say print is dead – but we’re experiencing the opposite and with a younger demographic than we ever could have imagined. In an age where everything is digital, there is something undeniably meaningful about the tangible, about the photographs that can be kept for generations to come.
We feel really lucky to have built a company so tightly connected to people’s most important photographs. I have a hard time thinking the next time you move you’re going to throw away our product or put it in the Goodwill pile. We try to remember this – and show up every single day to create quality products that will ultimately get passed down the family line.
Micah: One thing I have heard about Artifact Uprising is that you couple your unusual product line with a devotion to extraordinary customer service, with an emphasis on creating “wow stories” for and with your customers. Can you tell me some of these great stories as well as your overall philosophy?
Katie: Early on, we all did our part to respond to customer inquiries. The idea was that if the customer took the time to write in, no matter the subject matter, they deserved our undivided attention. Every response was individually crafted. Every order that came through was celebrated. Every disappointed customer hit home. We took it personally – all of it.
I’ll never forget our first holiday – or “peak season” as we call it in the printing world. It was a must to ensure every package arrived on time and we went to all ends to get those orders off the presses and shipped to their respective doorsteps. But on that particular December 24th, we learned a hard truth at the eleventh hour. Due to an overly successful online holiday shopping season at large, shipping partners around the country were over capacity. The trucks couldn’t keep up with the demand. And some customers were going to be without the gifts they had planned on winning the holidays with. Even though our company was not at fault for the shipping issue, we took responsibility. We picked up the phones. We sent flowers. We issued gift cards for other stores, refunded payments and offered additional financial support so that our customers could wrap up something else to put under the tree while waiting for their photo gift. It wasn’t easy for our customers to hear news like that. Just as well, it wasn’t easy to be the bearer of said news. But human to human, you leave the call on a brighter note – laughing together at the irony as best you can.
One of our biggest concerns we had as the company grew was that we would lose that sense of accountability to our customers, that the empathy would fall off and quantity would be mistaken for quality. That’s why, today, you’ll find the Community Team – as we call them – sit at the heart of all we do.We empower our Community Team to do what they think is right to take care of our customers. This is particularly important in our line of work – printing people’s most important photographs and delivering those moments in a product that surpasses all expectations. A custom photo book isn’t a 30-second purchase; photographs aren’t a commodity. And so, this deeply personal nature of our products only compounds our need to deliver an equally empathic response.
The Community Team lends a hand – and an ear, eye or Kleenex if needed – to create a positive experience. We’ve rushed photo books to arrive to a hospital bed for a last shared moment. We’ve overnighted albums for a couple’s adoption process and rushed large format prints for memorial services. We sent a Barkbox Subscription to a family celebrating a new puppy. And it’s not uncommon for the team to send handwritten notes to our customers – ”just because.” From birthdays, anniversaries, homecomings – our product sits at the center of so many of life’s milestones.
Micah: What should I have asked you?
Katie: “Why do you care?” – We really believe that business can be a tool to do good. From the materials you source, to how you develop your employees and the way you treat each customer, every micro-movement is an opportunity to find a better way. Businesses have an opportunity to change the way we think about the world we live in.
Micah Solomon, recently named the "new guru of customer service excellence" by the Financial Post, is a customer experience consultant, customer service consultant, thought leader, customer service speaker, keynote speaker, customer service trainer, and bestselling author. Click here for two free chapters from Micah's latest book .
