Michael Casey

For most printers they put a radius around their shop and look for any business within that territory. Do the same thing online so they find you in that online radius. It is now the cost of doing business. If you can’t do it yourself, find someone. Many companies out there will manage this for you, but make sure to do a background check on them! Make sure they are covering all THEIR bases.

Surveying helps preserve your brand on social media review sites. Surveying is a customer early warning system. If you are getting timely feedback, you are able to react before customers leave negative comments on social media sites. Customers now have the upper hand.

If employees are happy, they will enjoy working there, and the end result is that customers see the benefits as well. Don’t be afraid to hear what your employees have to say. Most companies fear the worst, but these fears are unfounded. If done right it can be a very positive experience.

You must acknowledge every customer filling out your survey. If you don’t, expect your future response rates to drop like a rock. If you’re strapped for follow-up resources consider leveraging a standard e-mail template and personalizing to reference something unique in the response. The goal is to acknowledge you to read their response and that you care.

Eric Pearson of Technaprint in Portland received a poor survey alert last week. He called the customer immediately and after listening to the person vent, Eric patiently explained that he had never done a label order for the buyer.

Reviewing a sampling of the 12,000 print buyer surveys revealed that speed and accuracy are mentioned consistently when praising or complaining about their buying experiences. Their jobs are on the line and you must make them look like heroes—to their bosses, peers, staff and customers.

Do you know how loyal each print buyer is to your business? Don’t wake up and find you’ve lost a customer. Here are five things you may want to consider in setting up an effective process for getting client feedback.

Conducting a customer service process audit will enable you to do a deep dive into your operation to understand the customer experience firsthand. Try to live in the customer’s shoes. Here are six items you can quickly check:

At first, all indications pointed toward a failing business, but the more I learned, the more my admiration grew. The lesson learned is that you are better off executing well on a mediocre plan vs. over planning or executing poorly against a great plan.

Each month, I read hundreds of my printer clients’ buyer surveys and the same CSR names come up in the comments. Print buyers go out of their way to rave about the service they received on their last orders.

Do you have the guts that Netflix has? Are you up to firing some of your low-margin customers? By changing its pricing, Netflix didn’t shed the expected 600,000 customers, but 800,000 instead. Funny thing is, its profitability rose 65 percent during the recent quarter.

As you approach 2012, it may be a good time to think about your culture, policies, hiring practices, purple cows, and how you magnify these during customer interactions to wow them on every transaction.

Maturing owners may need to give themselves a pep talk to prepare mentally for one last business push that will take them through the next 10 or 20 years. I know it stinks that many maturing owners are having to push their retirements out a few years this late in their careers.

Print buyers and prospects are watching you. How do you know if your house is in order? Are you prepared to court new business? Let’s start with the basics. Today, I called a customer and heard “Hello.” That was it!

Raising Prices? Think your customers will notice? Printers can learn a ton from the recent Netflix price increase. Netflix is taking a gamble with a bunch of loyal, but less profitable, customers. No one knows how many will walk.