Getting an inside look at The Hatchbag Company

Get to know me

Hello readers! My name is Evie and I am a new starter at The Hatchbag Company. I have recently graduated with a degree in English Literature and have always had a passion for writing. Throughout my degree, I found a love for creative writing and story-telling. I am excited to use this blog as a space to keep Hatchbag customers updated on what goes on behind the scenes at our warehouse in Birkenhead. I am thrilled to take this next step and take on the role as Digital Marketing Co-ordinator!

I am excited to be working on the Hatchbag blog and would love for to this become a space for informative and fun content. In this blog post, I will be taking you through my first week at The Hatchbag Company. I was taken across three main sections of the business, and was able to watch first hand the whole process of creating UK boot liners that are tailor-made to your car.

My time in design (creating the Hatchbag boot liner)

My time with the design team, Sarah and Gabriel, was both educational and fascinating. We covered the fitting of the boot liner and how vision becomes reality. Design starts with a more logistical process, looking at customer demand for boot liners and researching if these car models would work at Hatchbag. The Hatchbag Company uses software to give the designing process structure. This helps the team in creating the best boot protector for your car.

Starting off with looking at customer trends, your comments on social media such as Facebook and Instagram asking for car models, gives  a great starting point for research. At Hatchbag, we want to create boot liners that you want! The Hatchbag Company does extensive research on the car models, so your boot liner that you receive is perfect. This reinforces why our boot liners perfectly fit every curve and contour of your boot. These intricacies are all resolved in the designing process. To understand the dimensions of your own boot to place an order, websites such as auto trader and net car show images of the specific car boots.

Once our detailed research is complete, the desired car goes on our landing page and published on this blog! The new car additions are always under the ‘We Want Your Car!’ section. This is available to the public for enquiries to be made on whether they want to have their car scanned in order to receive a free boot liner.

A scan plan is then made when the research of the car is complete, and the customer comes in with their car. The scan is completed with a 3D scanning camera, which allows for the design construction. The prototype is then officially completed!

In terms of a customer coming in for the free boot liner in exchange for their car being the tester, the design team then will fit the liner. We have a description on our website on how to fit the Hatchbag boot liner, so customers who purchase can also fit their boot liner seamlessly. If there are any errors with the boot liner, the liner has to go back to design where amendments can be made. This is then able to be signed off and becomes a completed car, ready on the website for a customer to purchase the tailor-made boot liner. Our social media pages will always keep you up to date on this!

My time in operations (watching the Hatchbag boot liner come together)

I joined Natalie to take a tour of the warehouse and better understand the manufacturing of the Hatchbag boot liner. We see this product on Hatchbag’s website as a completed, sellable version, but looking behind the scenes, the manufacturing of the boot liner exemplifies its intricacies and well thought out design choices. Natalie initially guided me through the ordering process, going through the website and exploring how the boot liners are customisable and tailor made to each vehicle. She explained the purpose of elements crafted specifically for the Hatchbag boot liner, such as the split, and highlighted the importance of the customer thoroughly reading the product guide to ensure the correct boot liner is made. At Hatchbag, all our boot liners are made to order in the UK, showing how important it is to follow the product guide.

When analysing social media comments and responses, I have noticed that the main questions were based around the logistics of the Hatchbag boot liner. This included asking for measurements and questioning whether the vehicle would need extra additions to meet the consumer needs.  

I was then ready to observe the delicate crafting of the boot liners. I witnessed the precision and talent of the machinists and understood how their role transformed a design into sellable and desirable product. We first visited the cutters and welders of the PVC, the material used to make the boot liner. They created the intricate shapes that allow for the boot liners to be personal to each car. Large machines were operated in order to trace and cut the precise angles of the PVC, ensuring accurate measurements to perfectly fit the chosen vehicle.

We then saw the boot liners come to life in the sewing room. The liner initially starts as a jigsaw puzzle, with the highly skilled machinists using sewing machines to carefully attach the right pieces of Velcro to the right piece of PVC. This is then transferred to more machinsits in the Hatchbag team, where the pieces of PVC are then constructed into the shape of the Hatchbag boot liner. This is where design really becomes a visual reality. Even without being fitted in a car, you can see how all the specific design choices will complement the vehicle and protect from dirt, wear and tear and spillages.

The Hatchbag boot liner is then ready to be shipped! The order is packaged in a water resistant bag and is delivered to the customer in roughly 3-5 business days. Inside of the shipping bag, the customer will find the boot liner in addition to an information pack. The pack includes a manual that takes the customer step by step on the process of fitting the boot liner and any additional extras.

In terms of the behind the scenes of checking an order off, Hatchbag uses a specific software, where the necessary details are filled in and then the order can be marked as complete.

I was also able to shadow Gabriel and Sarah, who are our design team, and watch and assist the fitting of a boot liner. Hatchbag offers a system where if your car is classed as an unavailable model, you can bring it in to be scanned and then the liner can be fitted and you can take it home for free. All Hatchbag asks for is to borrow your car for the scanning and fitting. This example happened in my first week, where a car was brought in and the fitting took place to ensure all measurements and logistics were correct. The process of fitting the boot liner started with using a product called Autoglym, which acts as a cleanser to remove silicone build up. This helps with the Velcro tabs adhering to the sections of the boot where the liner is placed. It was fascinating watching how the meticulous cutting, welding and sewing all translated to the boot liner fitting perfectly in the car. The intricacies of designing the boot liner also made a vision come to life.

My time in customer service (helping the customers with the Hatchbag boot liner)

In my initial week at Hatchbag, I learnt all about customer service with Janine. One of the main things I took from learning about customer service was the accuracy and detail in which you phrase your responses. Many of the customer service queries were based on the functionality of the boot liner. This meant that responding to customers in a way that is easy to understand, but still hit the marks of successfully answering all of the questions, is vital.

What I really noticed this week, was that there is lots of interactivity between customer service, design and marketing at The Hatchbag Company. When customer service receives a high number of requests for a boot liner to be made for a specific model of car, design is then able to scan and create the boot liner. Marketing then has the ability to promote this addition to Hatchbag’s boot liner collection.

Customer service also involves being personable to customers and understanding about their queries. This is done through many websites that Hatchbag use, focussing on customer interaction to resolve any issues but also maintain customer relationships for repeat purchases and recommendations. At Hatchbag, we manage our customer reviews and love to reply to positive comments and resolve any issues that a customer has. Hatchbag always replies to reviews that are 3 stars or below, asking the customer about anything that could make the product better for them.

I have noticed that the care for customer opinion is at the heart of The Hatchbag Company, therefore using websites that join all reviews together allows Janine in customer service to quickly and easily reply. There are other websites that Hatchbag uses to look at customer feedback however, instead of reviews and rating, we use a website that compiles all of the comments, tagged photos and direct messages from all of the Hatchbag social media and places it in one inbox. This is fantastic tool to use as it keeps up the interactivity with customers by liking posts and comments, yet also allows for questions to be answered in the direct messages.

The phone is the easiest and quickest way to communicate with customers. However, the digital age and the rise in social media presence makes for more traction and attention on the Hatchbag social media pages, making it necessary to communicate and post to keep up customer engagement.

Blog posts, just like this, are another way that Hatchbag likes to be interactive with customers. Things such as recurring questions and upcoming sales can be answered in this form, giving the upmost clarity to the customer.

My Future at The Hatchbag Company

My first week at Hatchbag has been fast-paced, exciting and educational. Every day, I am  familiarising myself with our products and the support from the Hatchbag team has made me feel so welcome. I am thrilled to be working on this blog and will also be able to interact on our Facebook and Instagram pages. I can’t wait to share more about our boot liners and what we get up to at The Hatchbag company.