(I wrote this article for a coworker at my print shop. He liked it but said he couldn't use it, due to its frankness; I here reproduce said article for your enjoyment and edification).
You see it all the time: the Discombobulated Print Customer. They enter the print shop, confident and smiling, ready to pick up their print order...and in about ten minutes come out the door with a bag and a lost expression, trying to figure out how their booklets ended up with every other page backward and still costing $300. This customer will go home, sit at the kitchen table, and flip aimlessly through their pricey and useless booklets. Slowly their expression darkens. A real acid feeling has settled in their stomach. The print shop might have explained everything in detail, but it roughly amounts to: “Sorry not sorry, it’s your fault, give us money.” The customer doesn’t have the first clue what went wrong, they only know they feel ripped off.
That print shop just lost another customer.
If you or someone you know is a Discombobulated Print Customer, it’s time we had a talk about the Printer-Customer Interaction. First, let’s clear the air a bit: in the vast majority of cases, no one was consciously attempting to fleece the customer. Print shops are not used-car lots; while upselling does occur, at least there’s a tangible benefit to choosing a fine linen cover weight for your wedding invites, versus a bland card stock. No one will try to sell you Left-Handed Carbeurators (for that low-carb driving experience!) On the other hand, you as the customer can expect to be treated respectfully and have all of your questions carefully answered in an understandable manner.
So what should you, the customer, expect from your print service?
1. Reasonable Pricing.
Pricing is the issue that turns most customers off of quality printing. “It’s just paper!” is the rallying cry of many thousands who turn to FedEx/Kinko’s or some other sloppy-copy shop for their prints, and are invariably disappointed with the results. Quality printing, even more than restaurants, is a service where price makes a difference.
At the same time, a good print shop won’t nickel-and-dime you to death; their prices should be spelled out quite clearly in their quotes. Standard margin - i.e., profit - should be around 50%, after materials, layout, and labor are factored in.
It’s important to note what kind of print shop you are using, and what they’re good at: Digital printing is cost-effective and fast for small print runs of up to a thousand copies; anything more than that, you’ll want an offset shop, which generates the best price point at ten thousand copies and over. Expecting a great price and next-day printing on 20,000 copies from a digital printing shop is a great way to experience sticker shock firsthand.
2. Reasonable Turnaround.
This is a sticky wicket, since “reasonable turnaround” depends on the type of shop, how busy they are, and where you ended up in the queue. The days of the small-business copy shop are essentially over, priced out by Fedex/Kinko’s and Staples; “prints-while-you-wait” is not going to happen at a digital printer. Standard turnaround for a project is 24-48 hours, otherwise a pricey Rush Fee is incurred which allows you to jump the queue...along with everyone else who paid their rush fee. The terms “Quality Prints” and “Last Minute” rarely mesh.
What you want in a print shop’s turnaround comes down to consistency and transparency. If you run the same print job from one month to the next, you can reasonably expect similar turnaround times. Subsequently, if the job is not going to get done on time, you should expect the print shop to contact you at least a day before the due date and let you know what’s going on. Any print shop that obfuscates and foot-drags over your print job is not one you should be patronizing.
3. Maintained Contact.
You, as the customer, should know when your prints are ready. If there is a delay, you should be notified. If there is an issue with your file, the print shop should call you immediately. You, as the customer, have the right to expect that a print shop will pay attention to your print job. They may not be able to treat it as their only print job, but they should treat you as an important individual. The key part of "service", after all, is "serve".
But...don't call up two days before the agreed-upon due date, demanding to know where your prints are. Remember, print shops are as happy as you are to get your prints out of the shop: since you pay for them upfront, keeping your property laying around the shop is a liability; at the same time, it takes time to print with quality. Typical turnaround is 24-48 hours, unless you want to pay a rush fee.
So be nice to your print shop. Remain in contact, by all means, but don't abuse the privilege.
4. A Variety of Options.
Print shops can't carry every single kind of paper imaginable. If you need a super-rare and expensive specialty paper, they can order it for you, but you might as well take it with you when you leave - otherwise it sits around gathering dust. They can't use it unless you donate it to them, and then you're out $500 or whatever. Similarly, a print shop that offers everything and the kitchen sink is in for a load of trouble - overdiversification means keeping a huge range of seldom-used and rather odd items on hand, just in case somebody orders them again. It's just not good business.
That being said, any print shop worth its salt should have a variety of stock and print options available; black and white on 20# inkjet paper shouldn't be your only option for your great-aunt Deborah's funeral programs. Cheap sloppy-copy shoppies charge exorbitant prices for anything better than copy bond. Good print shops will keep good stock on hand, and let you feel samples of stock to decide what you'd like to print on.
5. Simple Explanations.
Printing is a craft, but we’re not trying to keep our secrets like some kind of Illuminati...when you get down to the basics, printing is still as ordinary as Gutenburg’s modified wine press, smooshing pigment onto paper over and over again, with all the technical problems this entails. Only the technologies have changed. If a print service won’t take the time to go through the details with you in a professional, patient manner, they don’t deserve your business.
But there's an element that's often missed here: a print shop - a good print shop - should expect their customers to at least know what they want, how to set up their files, and have proofed their jobs before they send them. Consider how many thousands of orders a print shop goes through every day, and how each little technical issue compounds into many wasted man-hours of delay, calling back and forth to try to explain what went wrong. Print shops aren't proofreading services, and to be even more blunt, aren't mind-reading services either: don't blame the print shop for printing your 300-page company handbook that has a paragraph missing on page 234. Good print shops will quickly scan your file and make sure there are no glaring errors (an open-house sign saying, "Congraduations Tina!" in 500-point font should raise a red flag somewhere along the line), but don't expect them to pore over your work line by line and try to catch your mistakes.
In Conclusion:
There's enough Discombobulated Print Customers out there in the world already; don't let yourself be one. Know who you're printing with, the details of your print job, the cost, how to set up your files, and how long it will take before committing to getting your prints. In turn, vet your print shop thoroughly, to make sure they keep their end of the bargain. We're all in this together.
Hope this helps!
Rick Out.
P.S. If you seek a pleasant print shop...www.capital-imaging.com
You see it all the time: the Discombobulated Print Customer. They enter the print shop, confident and smiling, ready to pick up their print order...and in about ten minutes come out the door with a bag and a lost expression, trying to figure out how their booklets ended up with every other page backward and still costing $300. This customer will go home, sit at the kitchen table, and flip aimlessly through their pricey and useless booklets. Slowly their expression darkens. A real acid feeling has settled in their stomach. The print shop might have explained everything in detail, but it roughly amounts to: “Sorry not sorry, it’s your fault, give us money.” The customer doesn’t have the first clue what went wrong, they only know they feel ripped off.
That print shop just lost another customer.
If you or someone you know is a Discombobulated Print Customer, it’s time we had a talk about the Printer-Customer Interaction. First, let’s clear the air a bit: in the vast majority of cases, no one was consciously attempting to fleece the customer. Print shops are not used-car lots; while upselling does occur, at least there’s a tangible benefit to choosing a fine linen cover weight for your wedding invites, versus a bland card stock. No one will try to sell you Left-Handed Carbeurators (for that low-carb driving experience!) On the other hand, you as the customer can expect to be treated respectfully and have all of your questions carefully answered in an understandable manner.
So what should you, the customer, expect from your print service?
1. Reasonable Pricing.
Pricing is the issue that turns most customers off of quality printing. “It’s just paper!” is the rallying cry of many thousands who turn to FedEx/Kinko’s or some other sloppy-copy shop for their prints, and are invariably disappointed with the results. Quality printing, even more than restaurants, is a service where price makes a difference.
At the same time, a good print shop won’t nickel-and-dime you to death; their prices should be spelled out quite clearly in their quotes. Standard margin - i.e., profit - should be around 50%, after materials, layout, and labor are factored in.
It’s important to note what kind of print shop you are using, and what they’re good at: Digital printing is cost-effective and fast for small print runs of up to a thousand copies; anything more than that, you’ll want an offset shop, which generates the best price point at ten thousand copies and over. Expecting a great price and next-day printing on 20,000 copies from a digital printing shop is a great way to experience sticker shock firsthand.
2. Reasonable Turnaround.
This is a sticky wicket, since “reasonable turnaround” depends on the type of shop, how busy they are, and where you ended up in the queue. The days of the small-business copy shop are essentially over, priced out by Fedex/Kinko’s and Staples; “prints-while-you-wait” is not going to happen at a digital printer. Standard turnaround for a project is 24-48 hours, otherwise a pricey Rush Fee is incurred which allows you to jump the queue...along with everyone else who paid their rush fee. The terms “Quality Prints” and “Last Minute” rarely mesh.
What you want in a print shop’s turnaround comes down to consistency and transparency. If you run the same print job from one month to the next, you can reasonably expect similar turnaround times. Subsequently, if the job is not going to get done on time, you should expect the print shop to contact you at least a day before the due date and let you know what’s going on. Any print shop that obfuscates and foot-drags over your print job is not one you should be patronizing.
3. Maintained Contact.
You, as the customer, should know when your prints are ready. If there is a delay, you should be notified. If there is an issue with your file, the print shop should call you immediately. You, as the customer, have the right to expect that a print shop will pay attention to your print job. They may not be able to treat it as their only print job, but they should treat you as an important individual. The key part of "service", after all, is "serve".
But...don't call up two days before the agreed-upon due date, demanding to know where your prints are. Remember, print shops are as happy as you are to get your prints out of the shop: since you pay for them upfront, keeping your property laying around the shop is a liability; at the same time, it takes time to print with quality. Typical turnaround is 24-48 hours, unless you want to pay a rush fee.
So be nice to your print shop. Remain in contact, by all means, but don't abuse the privilege.
4. A Variety of Options.
Print shops can't carry every single kind of paper imaginable. If you need a super-rare and expensive specialty paper, they can order it for you, but you might as well take it with you when you leave - otherwise it sits around gathering dust. They can't use it unless you donate it to them, and then you're out $500 or whatever. Similarly, a print shop that offers everything and the kitchen sink is in for a load of trouble - overdiversification means keeping a huge range of seldom-used and rather odd items on hand, just in case somebody orders them again. It's just not good business.
That being said, any print shop worth its salt should have a variety of stock and print options available; black and white on 20# inkjet paper shouldn't be your only option for your great-aunt Deborah's funeral programs. Cheap sloppy-copy shoppies charge exorbitant prices for anything better than copy bond. Good print shops will keep good stock on hand, and let you feel samples of stock to decide what you'd like to print on.
5. Simple Explanations.
Printing is a craft, but we’re not trying to keep our secrets like some kind of Illuminati...when you get down to the basics, printing is still as ordinary as Gutenburg’s modified wine press, smooshing pigment onto paper over and over again, with all the technical problems this entails. Only the technologies have changed. If a print service won’t take the time to go through the details with you in a professional, patient manner, they don’t deserve your business.
But there's an element that's often missed here: a print shop - a good print shop - should expect their customers to at least know what they want, how to set up their files, and have proofed their jobs before they send them. Consider how many thousands of orders a print shop goes through every day, and how each little technical issue compounds into many wasted man-hours of delay, calling back and forth to try to explain what went wrong. Print shops aren't proofreading services, and to be even more blunt, aren't mind-reading services either: don't blame the print shop for printing your 300-page company handbook that has a paragraph missing on page 234. Good print shops will quickly scan your file and make sure there are no glaring errors (an open-house sign saying, "Congraduations Tina!" in 500-point font should raise a red flag somewhere along the line), but don't expect them to pore over your work line by line and try to catch your mistakes.
In Conclusion:
There's enough Discombobulated Print Customers out there in the world already; don't let yourself be one. Know who you're printing with, the details of your print job, the cost, how to set up your files, and how long it will take before committing to getting your prints. In turn, vet your print shop thoroughly, to make sure they keep their end of the bargain. We're all in this together.
Hope this helps!
Rick Out.
P.S. If you seek a pleasant print shop...www.capital-imaging.com
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