Contact with clients during a print job

[nickpol]

Hi All,

I was trying to come up with a method to improve the contact between the printer and the clients during the print job. To improve the service, and hopefully the customer loyalty.

I was wondering what you do during a print job? I'm used to, after a proof is approved, and the final job goes into production, that the clients are contacted again once the product is finished. Does anyone do anything during the printing, maybe update clients once it is printed and about to be send of for binding or for coating. How do you keep in contact during the entire job? Do you notice it is appreciated when a printer puts effort in keeping the client up to date on progress?

[shepfu]

Sadly, Customer Service is not a priority to a lot of print buyers/customers. The main concern for most buyers is price, price, price!! Loyalty and building working relationships is becoming a thing of the past. We have been printing postcards for one of our clients for over 5 years. They sent in a quote for one of their typical orders recently but sent it somewhere else because they were $15 cheaper on a 5,000 run. The years of proven quality and always delivering on time meant nothing. But they saved $15!!! Sad state of affairs in this business.

[J]

We have been printing postcards for one of our clients for over 5 years. They sent in a quote for one of their typical orders recently but sent it somewhere else because they were $15 cheaper on a 5,000 run. The years of proven quality and always delivering on time meant nothing. But they saved $15!!! Sad state of affairs in this business.

This reminds me of Gordo's RE:Print cartoon here: Lost Bid

j

[JasonSpr]

Hi All,

I was trying to come up with a method to improve the contact between the printer and the clients during the print job. To improve the service, and hopefully the customer loyalty.

I was wondering what you do during a print job? I'm used to, after a proof is approved, and the final job goes into production, that the clients are contacted again once the product is finished. Does anyone do anything during the printing, maybe update clients once it is printed and about to be send of for binding or for coating. How do you keep in contact during the entire job? Do you notice it is appreciated when a printer puts effort in keeping the client up to date on progress?

We are starting to offer a service where a customer can log in to our website and see in real time what stage of printing their project is in - Design, Prepress, Press, Bindery, Shipping, as well as a time stamp for when it changed section. We're doing this to cut back on the time our CSRs and Production staff have to spend updating clients or CSRs on the progress.

Whether or not the client cares about this kind of information depends on the personality of the client, but almost no one will care about how much effort you put into it.

[gordo]

We are starting to offer a service where a customer can log in to our website and see in real time what stage of printing their project is in - Design, Prepress, Press, Bindery, Shipping, as well as a time stamp for when it changed section. We're doing this to cut back on the time our CSRs and Production staff have to spend updating clients or CSRs on the progress.

Do you have any qualms about giving your customer such real time info? I know many printers who would prefer to have a CSRs moderate what scheduling information the customer sees in order to better manage expectations - even though their workflow allows customers to see what stage a job is at.

best, gordon p

[JasonSpr]

Do you have any qualms about giving your customer such real time info? I know many printers who would prefer to have a CSRs moderate what scheduling information the customer sees in order to better manage expectations - even though their workflow allows customers to see what stage a job is at.

best, gordon p

Yes gordon, I believe those options will be, well, optional. That is to say that the CSRs and sales agents can decide which of that information is visible for which customer. For example, one customer who puts through three or four web2print orders dailiy might not want all that information showing up for them - they may prefer to see only when the product has shipped, or is in the stage directly before shipping. (Of course one could argue that if that were the case, the best solution would be to allow the customer to set their own options of what is visible, but to simply answer your point, that information will be regulatable.)

[gordo]

Yes gordon, I believe those options will be, well, optional. That is to say that the CSRs and sales agents can decide which of that information is visible for which customer.

My concern was with you getting phone calls like: "You said it would be on press at 3 pm and it's 3:15 and it's still not there" or "Why's it still in prepress - what's holding it up?" "Hey, it's still in prepress so I can make a simple change right?"

Customers can be such...well, you know, customers.

best gordon p

[JasonSpr]

My concern was with you getting phone calls like: "You said it would be on press at 3 pm and it's 3:15 and it's still not there" or "Why's it still in prepress - what's holding it up?" "Hey, it's still in prepress so I can make a simple change right?"

Customers can be such...well, you know, customers.

best gordon p

Actually you're right, I could see a number of out customers wanting to make changes to anything that was not "already printed" so that's a good point.. I'll have to bring that one up.

[nickpol]

Interesting approach Jason.

I guess it will be valuable for the more special print jobs. Like Jason said, someone ordering a run-in-the-mill web2print job probably doesn't need to know. But a designer which worked on a book for a few months, in need of special cutting, coating, binding, and what not... they might be very interested on the progress. Just because they have a more emotional bond with the project.

Anyway, maybe I'm looking at it too psychologically. It could become a similar system to that of UPS... if you've ordered a new laptop, you want to know where the package is (did it ship yet? how late will they deliver it?).

So, do you do it for everyone then? Of course if it's an automated system; why not... but if somebody needs to manually adjust the status of the product... is it worth it? But then, if you don't do it for everyone, how do you decide who gets the service and who doesn't.

"Hey, it's still in prepress so I can make a simple change right?"

It would be a good idea to go through what you will and won't share with your clients. To prevent stuff like Gordo mentiones from happening.

Cheers, Nick

[Keith]

My concern was with you getting phone calls like: "You said it would be on press at 3 pm and it's 3:15 and it's still not there" or "Why's it still in prepress - what's holding it up?" "Hey, it's still in prepress so I can make a simple change right?"

Customers can be such...well, you know, customers.

best gordon p

An easy fix or the last minute art change, you would have to clearly and strongly enforce a policy to charge them for any changes. Now all the other dumb questions that a customer would interrupt the manufacturing process with... I think that is a little more difficult to fix. Perhaps with a little education on how the printing processes work, they'll understand the constant interruptions can make it difficult for a timely delivery.