Automating Santa's Workshop with Photo Studio Kitt Creative

Services Provided 

• Custom Software Development
• No-Code & Low-Code Automation Solutions
• Data Analytics

Background

Photo studio Kitt Creative is known for creating memorable family photo events. Specifically, their Santa’s Workshop event brings holiday cheer to their customers every year. 

But behind the scenes, it wasn’t so cheerful. Coordinating the event was very complex. In fact, this event had Kitt’s staff and seasonal hires scrambling for years. That’s because for each event, over 1,000 families would sign up online — one at a time — in just 24 hours.

Even though Kitt Creative is incredible at what they do, their manual event management processes resulted in errors, excessive hours, and the occasional frustrated customer.

Maybe worst of all, the chaotic scramble to pull off this seasonal event put Kitt in a constantly reactive state. There was no time to figure out what was and wasn't selling; they simply had to keep moving, even if it meant wasting resources on items that weren’t selling. The team was using Airtable, a powerful relational database — but they weren't yet maximizing the workflows, data organization, and automations that could take their operations to the next level.

So, after all that effort, they didn’t have data to learn more about their customer experience and further tailor the event for next year. Instead, they just waited for the scramble to roll around again.

In all, this process just wasn’t sustainable — much less scalable.

Project Goal

The studio needed a sophisticated, automated event management solution. That way, they could: 

• Control the ebb and flow of seasonal hires
• Access detailed data to finally see which offers were and weren’t selling
• Create a memorable experience (in a GOOD way!) for their holiday photo customers

The Crispy team knows that operational problems can’t be solved in a vacuum. You have to understand the client, the issue, and their processes inside and out to really solve their problem. So, we started by listening! 

We dove deep into the manual process cycle Kitt Creative was trapped in, asking highly specific questions about every process this event required. This holistic approach allowed us to get to the root of their immediate challenges, but also design a solution with foresight — to scale effortlessly with them as they grow. 

Armed with our process roadmap, we saw simple automation opportunities to help. But we knew that a highly customizable portal was the ultimate answer to streamline Kitt Creative’s event from the inside out. This powerful tool would be built on flexible no-code and low-code platforms to yield major ROI immediately — and continue to benefit them as the company grew.

For a comprehensive solution, robust functionality with advanced integrations and automation for scheduling, client management, and communication were must-haves. This way, they could automate manual tasks, improve the experience of their customers during sign-ups, and capture detailed analytics to refine and expand offers — for happy customers and strong bottom lines.

Key Challenges

To bring the portal to life, we focused on challenges like these:

• Integrating Complex Technologies: Creating a seamless ecosystem with Astro, Make.com, Airtable, Acuity Scheduling, Jotform, and SendGrid demanded meticulous planning and execution.
• Managing High-Volume Use: We needed to design a system capable of efficiently and reliably handling over 1,000 sign-ups in rapid succession.
• Storing and Analyzing Accessible Data: Since Kitt Creative came to us with a limited understanding of customer data, we had to build a user-friendly yet comprehensive analytics dashboard to understand customer behavior and sales trends.

Product Development

Our approach? First, we work with stakeholders to uncover everything about today's needs and tomorrow's goals. That knowledge lets us choose the right tools from our vast no-code and low-code automation, analytics, AI, and app development toolkits. 

We do all this alongside our commitment to agile project management, quality product development, and timely delivery. 

For Kitt Creative, the process involved a few phases and several layers of consideration.

Business Analysis & Strategic Planning

We always start with a detailed process mapping and software analysis phase. That’s because we usually uncover new information and opportunities for process improvement that don’t always come up during intake. This lets us understand the current issue and the landscape of their business at scale, helping us build a final product that aligns perfectly with the client’s goals.

Plus, we don’t stop at solving today’s challenges. Our expertise in software engineering and longstanding industry knowledge lets us unlock avenues for scalable innovation. 

In other words — our solutions are built to grow with your business.

Technical Architecture & Software Development

We developed a custom, scalable architecture to support immense operational demands and facilitate future growth. We used:

• Acuity Scheduling for session booking
• Make.com for designing workflows
• Airtable for data capture and organization
• SendGrid for automated email delivery to customers upon sign-up
• Astro for the client portal experience
• Square for payment processing

Comprehensive Automation

From a bespoke client portal to automated scheduling and data analytics, we tailored every component to make things faster and simpler for the Kitt Creative team, give customers a much better experience, and reduce manual work and errors.

Using Make.com, we built a customized, logical workflow for automating signups. The process automatically integrated scheduling, customer tracking, automated emails, and payment processing tools for seamless data tracking.

We also created simplified automations for appointment rescheduling and cancellation. These directly connected client actions within the portal back to Acuity Scheduling, ensuring none of the coveted event spots would go to waste.

Client-Side and Internal UX/UI

We designed the event management platform to be intuitive, efficient, engaging, and visually appealing — both for Kitt Creative and its customers. With a newly designed, automated portal, customers could finally book their Santa’s Workshop timeslot efficiently, see the progress of their order, and know what to expect next — and the Kitt Creative team didn’t have to give manual updates.

Data Analytics Dashboard Buildout

A custom-built dashboard gave the team real-time insights into customer behavior and sales trends, empowering them to make data-driven decisions.

Results

Our collaboration with Kitt Creative blew their expectations away. Here’s how: 

• Skyrocketed Operational Efficiency: Since automated SOPs like these can reduce human errors up to 1000x, the newly automated system handled the high volume of sign-ups flawlessly — instantly proving its reliability and impact.
• Enabled Truly Informed Business Decisions: With access to detailed analytics, Kitt Creative could better meet customer needs and uncover new growth opportunities. 
• Supported Their Confidence To Expand: Thanks to the new reliable, scalable system, Kitt Creative is considering opening a second location — creating the potential to increase their capacity 2x or more! 

Empowering Kitt Creative for Scalable Success

Our project with Kitt Creative wasn’t just about technology — it was a strategic partnership. 

We stayed on board through implementation and beyond. We helped them navigate the new system and clearly understand how to use its robust capabilities to refine and grow their business.

Client Feedback

"I had a hard time finding the right person for my job. I chose [Crispy] as [they] seemed to understand what I was looking for [...] [They were] able to execute what I was looking for and in a short amount of time, giving us the opportunity to explore even more than expecting. [Crispy] really went above and beyond with [their] skills and insight." - Drew Kittredge, Owner, Kitt Creative

Conclusion: Faster Processes, Fewer Errors, and Happier Customers

Shifting Kitt Creative's event management from exhausting manual processes to sophisticated, data-driven automation has completely transformed their operations, employee satisfaction, and customer experience. 

Their results show the true power of the strategic technological solutions we design at Crispy. 

Inefficient operations, complex or non-standardized processes, excess manual work, and error-ridden data don’t stand a chance against our low-code and no-code solutions! 

Armed with years of software engineering expertise, our analytical approach allows us to see your immediate and long-term needs so we can kick those issues to the curb — for good.

When you succeed, we succeed. That’s how we know that any professional services firm, from photo studios to law firms to accounting services, can benefit from our custom automations. 

If you want faster processes, fewer errors, and happier customers, a process audit with workflow automations could be the answer.

Book your free process review and learn how automation can take your firm to the next level.