Are you ready when your Dan does this? Here is Print Buyer Dan’s post today to his 30,000 peers who are on a listserv with me. Pretty scary stuff if you only offer print and mailing services. I did not add or subtract one word from this post. Take it for what it is worth.
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May 19, 2011 post:
We’re looking to save about $30,000 annually by drastically cutting back on the number of printed mailings that we do for our 11 chapters. They collectively run 50+ seminars annually, but we believe that we can maintain or increase attendance using electronic communication almost exclusively. One of our chapters voluntarily agreed to suspend print mailings this past year and saw no decrease in attendance.

I’m presenting my proposal to all the chapters in about one month. So, my questions are, has anyone gone down this road before and what were the results and does anyone have a template for this type of proposal?

Any help is greatly appreciated. Thank you.
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Darn it Dan! Why can’t you just quietly cut volumes and not educate your peers and push print volumes down faster? Seriously, posts like this are a daily occurrence today. We all better get our heads out of the sand and diversify or aggressively take from competitors.

The writing is on the wall. Print volumes will continue to drop and Dan is not helping with his promotion and suggestions to cut print! Only printers who embrace change will succeed. If you are reading this, you are probably not near retirement and still in the game and want to stay in business.

How is Dan’s printer going to digest a loss of $30,000 in revenue unless it is taking print from its competitors at a faster rate, buying out weaker printers, or diversifying to help this association client with an overall marketing plan to drive attendance as a strategic marketing partner? Pick your strategy and position yourself to ride the wave of change.

I hope this helps those out there wondering why print volumes have dropped so drastically. Volumes will not return to pre-recession revenues. Get motivated to change and act now. Selling more print is not going to get easier.

AlphaGraphics owners from Texas, Illinois, Georgia, and across the country shared how they are leveraging feedback to drive customer loyalty, retain business, and generate sales leads. Setting up and managing an ongoing customer feedback process is now easy and effective with this new, trial tested, service. Last week an email was sent to owners asking for thirty seconds to answer the question, “How are you using customer feedback to coach your team, drive performance, and engage your customers?” I hope you appreciate the unedited, in-the-trenches, e-mail responses shared by these owners.

Owners Share Process and Benefits

Sherry Perry, Dallas TX
“As I receive each reply to a survey, I respond to the client, thanking them for taking the time to complete the survey. If they’ve responded with any feedback other than checking the appropriate buttons, then I’ll address that also. In the survey we’ve listed other products and services we offer that they may or may not purchase from us. In the response email I ask for an appointment to meet and discuss these areas with them. I just met with a client today who did not know we did anything other than print, and I am now pricing marketing items for her because of the survey. I doubt that I would have had the opportunity to discuss as many other products and services with her without the survey.

I share with my staff both the positive and negative feedback from customers. This is a good way to recognize employees for a job well done when a customer compliments them. When there is anything negative, we address it immediately inside the center and with the customer in hopes of rectifying the situation and keeping them as a customer. Without the survey responses, I may not know of customer issues. I think this is a valuable service to obtain customer feedback as well as letting customers know of other products/services, and getting the opportunity to discuss these options with them. Hope this helps!”

Sherry received the highest customer satisfaction scores of any AlphaGraphics location in Q4, 2010 with a score of 89% selecting “Very Likely” to recommend to colleagues and friends when taking the survey.

Steve Adams, Mesa AZ
“I just implemented the surveys for my other 2 centers this month after trying it out in my Mesa center for the last 5 months. We are very happy with the results. It allows us to identify any customer service problems we may be encountering quickly and it gives us a chance to have a discussion with our customers about additional work we can perform for them. My salespeople and managers love this service. I really do think that all AlphaGraphics centers should use this or a similar service.”

Matt Haar, Kansas City MO
“Here’s my 30 seconds— It’s a cost effective way to:
• Stay in touch with customers.
• Follow-up without being obtrusive
• Shows we care
• Provides opportunity to cross sell products.
As far as how we use it.
• We share all responses with our staff in our daily meetings-both positive and negative.
• Gives staff a better understanding of how our customers perceive us which I think is KEY.
• We assume we always know what customers think, but we don’t really.
Hope that helps-Matt”

Lynn Chatwin, Denton, TX
“Perhaps the biggest benefit to us has been the feedback I can give to my staff, both collectively and individually. I generally review results of the survey with the staff in our daily Work in Process(WIP) meeting. When an individual survey response praises an employee, I frequently will simply share that with the employee. We did have one response praising our shop dog, Hank. I did not review it with him as he would have expected a dog treat. We have been fortunate that there has been very little negative feedback which required a change on our part. The negative responses do allow us to give proper feedback and follow up to our customers. Overall, we have achieved outstanding results in our customer satisfaction. This is a confirmation to us that our business and customer service policies are sound. Regards, Lynn Chatwin.”

Lynn received the highest customer satisfaction scores of any AlphaGraphics location in Q3, 2010 with a score of 91% selecting “Very Likely” to recommend to colleagues and friends.

How many customer e-mail addresses do you have in your database? Where do you keep your customer data such as e-mail, phone and mailing address? How do you keep your customer database clean so you can market effectively to your clients? It is amazing how many businesses I work with who lack a good grasp of their customer database. It is time to manage your database, to market effectively. You need to do better if you are going to survive and connect with your customers in an efficient and effective manner, or if you are going to keep your name in front with your customers. It is time to make this a priority.

Recently I had the opportunity to work with five business owners who are part of an executive group. Basically they get together every six months to help each other with strategic planning. The group decided to survey customers to find out how they were doing, benchmark performance with each other and probe into several marketing areas. The goal was to use the data as they plan for 2011. Online surveying is a great way to get customer e-mail databases. It is shocking how many businesses still don’t put a priority on managing e-mail addresses, but actively manage phone numbers and mailing addresses. I know our phones don’t ring like they used to, but e-mail volume has more than made up for that. We all get a continuous flow of e-mails from clients and prospects. Welcome to the Internet Age.

The basic requirement to any e-marketing or e-surveying process or project is to export your customer database out of your production, invoicing, or customer relationship management system. The one place with all customer data may vary by industry, but the key decision markers are typically in one of these three areas.

Enter the buyer’s e-mail address into the system when entering an order. It is amazing how many businesses don’t do this, instead burying customers’ e-mail addresses in Outlook, ACT! or some other disconnected system. How do you leverage the customer information if the data is fragmented and on a laptop or in an individual’s e-mail address book? You must have a central place, and it all begins with order or transaction entry. Granted, there are other decision makers you want to track, but many times, people responsible for the next order are included when entering the order or transaction.

Now, back to the peer group project. When starting this project, all the businesses felt it would be easy to get their customer list. After four weeks of hard work they finally got their lists together. It was painful and a wake up call for some of these businesses. One business got the list to us right away, and it was very clean as they already had a well greased process with discipline. Another business had over 30% of their customer database with bad e-mail addresses and this was a customer list! The great thing about e-mailing surveys is you get feedback on the undelivered e-mails and don’t need to wait for the Post Office to send you the report and undelivered pieces. It is immediate and you also learn why the e-mail was not delivered so you can correct it or investigate. The best-run businesses are getting under 10%, and 5% is stellar. How do they do this?

Here are five tips:

1. Start at order or transaction entry. All the MIS systems have a field for e-mail address. Many businesses are not entering anything into this field because, with most systems, the team doesn’t e-mail out of the system as with Outlook. There appears to be no reason to enter this information. Educate your team on why e-mails must be entered with orders. Over a 30-day period you will be thrilled at how many e-mails you will have. Then start using the information. Start now.

2. Educate your team on the value of entering e-mail addresses into the system. Give them the big picture. Many businesses are entering the Accounts Payable people, and this is important. The buyer’s e-mail address is just as critical. The best way to help sales teams be more effective and efficient is to leverage e-mail to send marketing messages and complement what they are doing face-to-face or over the phone. You must work as a team and have corporate messaging going out to help sales people. They can’t be everywhere, all the time, but a focused e-mail campaign or project feedback survey can really help them retain customers and expand opportunities. Have a team meeting.

3. Assign someone to keep the database clean. E-mail management is different than phone or mailing address management. Most people have multiple e-mail addresses, move around a lot and change e-mails. E-surveying and e-marketing services inform you if someone is not getting e-mail. You need to know this and call the customer to find out what is happening, or delete them from the system. Someone needs to police this and manage a process to keep on top of it. Set 10% as your goal for bad e-mail addresses and you will be in good shape. 5% would be even better.

4. Have an e-mail management and e-communication strategy with discipline. Engage everyone in your business about the strategic importance of managing e-mails in one central place. I prefer the MIS system or tech support system, as that is where the orders and transactions are flowing, and I know it is easier to earn more business from existing customers than to chase prospects. There are two different messages going out depending on whether they are prospects or customers. Customer relationship management (CRM) systems sometimes integrate with the MIS, but if they don’t, set up a system to de-dupe or filter out customers so you don’t over communicate.

5. Make it a priority. Too often I hear that this is something we are going to get to, but then it never happens or it takes over a year to get done. Starting with order entry can quickly get data flowing into a system so you can leverage it in 30 days. It should not be a major project, but set up baby steps to get there over time. Start small. Maybe for the first month you have 30 e-mails in the system. Then you can promote something to those contacts, know they are good e-mails and know they are customers. Don’t procrastinate.

Good luck with your customer base hygiene efforts as you push ahead in 2011.

Loyalty is measured by asking one question: “How likely are you to recommend us to colleagues and friends?” If a customer is not “very likely” to recommend you, then they are not loyal. The best-run printers achieve over an 84 percent rating

Do you really know how loyal your customers are? Or, do you just feel you’re doing great?

Last year, the owner of a printer in Colorado shared how he dodged a bullet saving one of his established large accounts. What surprised him most was that the two of them sat together each month at the local Rotary meeting, but the customer never said anything to him face to face. The customer could not tell him face to face that he was blowing it, and only when the printer owner received a filled out survey did he uncover the issues.

We all have stories in which our loyalty to a supplier slips to the point where we turn elsewhere, and we did not share our dissatisfaction. Many of us would rather just slip into the sunset than invest time in situations where we no longer have skin in the game. We all do it, but it doesn’t have to end that way.

How do you measure loyalty?
Loyalty is measured by asking one question: “How likely are you to recommend us to colleagues and friends?” Let’s first look at a couple competitive industries—life insurance and airlines.

For life insurance companies, customer loyalty is in the low 20 percent range, and for airlines it is worse. But still, State Farm (35 percent) and Southwest Airlines (52 percent) achieve high customer loyalty and, not coincidentally, are more profitable than their peers. Read Fred Riecheld’s best seller—“The Ultimate Question”—to learn how businesses achieve success by measuring customer loyalty and taking action.

Study after study show that customers participating in a survey have the potential to be loyal if complaints are corrected. The entire feedback system reinforces itself, both with the customer and supplier.

The ultimate question should be asked to customers in a safe environment to drive candid feedback. If a customer is not “very likely” to recommend you, then they are not loyal. It’s that simple.

The best-run printers achieve over an 84 percent rating, or 84 percent of their customers are very likely to recommend them. These printers benefit in several ways:

• Customers become an extension of their sales force through positive word of mouth testimonials and referrals.
• Customers will turn to the printer they are most loyal to when searching for new services or projects.
• Loyal customers are quicker to adopt new services the printer rolls out.

The benefits go on and on. It takes long-term thinking to understand the life time value of a customer and how it impacts growth.

How do you know where you fall in the pack?
All this loyalty stuff sounds so basic, but you will be surprised to learn how individual printer performance varies. Let’s try categorizing printers into three buckets. Putting printers in boxes is dangerous, but humor me.

Best of Breed (>84 percent): These printers consistently achieve high scores, feel they still have room to improve, live by the rule “good enough never is,” are paranoid about losing any customer, and strive to preserve their hard-earned reputation. They feel reputation is critical to their success and doing the right thing is in their DNA.

These organizations are ripe for growth, continuous improvement and innovation. You would think they would become complacent, but they keep pushing ahead to preserve their reputation in the market, reinventing themselves when necessary, and investing in their team and infrastructure.

Middle of the Pack (74-84 percent): Most printers are average. That is why my stats teacher said there is a bell curve. Everyone can’t be on top. This group either strives to get to the next level, feels that being in the middle of the loyalty pack is fine because product quality is more important, or they service their top accounts with white glove service while others get second rate service.

Be careful thinking that quality drives loyalty. Quality is just a prerequisite to being in the printing industry. It is expected. The white glove player may need to figure out how to say “no” to those customers or jobs that are not a fit or they will continue to have mixed loyalty. Reputation is at stake with mixed loyalty Be careful. Those looking at how to get to the next level are well on their way.

Bottom Feeders (<74 percent): Bottom feeders are either ignorant to how to serve customers, have processes poorly defined for consistent performance, are in denial and feel negative feedback is what to expect, or management is plain burnt-out or checked-out. This group must look in the mirror and seek help. Typically, a bad reputation is already out of the barn and tough to turn around.

A few years back, I worked with a person who bought a printer. What would make them do such a silly thing? They were changing careers and wanted a challenge. They got a challenge alright. They were unaware the past owner had checked-out long ago and customers were ticked off. They conducted a survey and discovered they were a bottom feeder. It took six months of customer presentations and PR to prove to the community and customer base things were different. “Under New Management” blasted from the mountain tops! They did a great job turning around the business, but it was painful.

While 84 percent percent of print buyers being very likely to recommend a printer may seem low to you, be careful about throwing stones. Go out and ask the question to learn how your customers truly feel and, more important, how you can earn and retain their loyalty.

This article was published on Printing Impressions BLOG, Pressing Ahead, written by Michael Casey, President of Survey Advantage. It was posted on December 9th, 2010.

By now you should have at least started your 2011 planning cycle and engaged your customers, asking them what they need from you in 2011. What better way to show you are not like any other supplier, but a partner. As you push into new services or products it is great to connect with customers as a litmus test that you are going in the right direction If you think you need to improve in a specific area, they will tell you in the survey to make more grounded decisions and investments.

Any strategic planning book stresses that the first step is analyzing customer and marketing data to make more grounded decisions. Well, why not go out to your customers and ask them strategic questions? Position the survey as a planning tool to help you serve them better. Look at each survey as a gift and a road map for when you meet with each customer to plan together. The survey results and trends will help you have more meaningful, focused planning meetings with your customers and staff.

A well designed annual strategic survey typically yields 30% response rates for B2B clients or high end B2C customers. This information is invaluable to connect at an individual level as well as uncover trends when planning for 2011. Here are a few areas to consider:

* Improvement areas for next year.
* Services to consider rolling out.
* Consideration for other services you offer.
* Sourcing for different services.
* Percentage of business awarded to you.
* Awareness of different services you offer.
* Quality of products and services.
* Budget or spending trends for 2011.
* Supplier decision making process.
* Marketing communications effectiveness.

Customers will share with you if you ask in a thoughtful way. Take the time to do it right. Customers will appreciate this. Connect with your customers early, change the game and position yourself above the competition as you approach 2011. It starts with putting your house in order, so consider running an annual survey to get that foundation. Good luck in 2011.

This is a story of how a manufacturer in a competitive industry leveraged surveying to methodically connect with key decision makers at Ford, Mercedes, GM, and Volvo. The customer feedback surprised even the manufacturer’s engineering team.

Please review the full case study at Quality Digest:  http://www.qualitydigest.com/inside/quality-insider-article/surveying-new-opportunities.html

NAPL releases Field Case Book, a new initiative to share best practices and innovations with printers.  In NAPL’s first  field book case study, a printer is highlighted for a creative customer retention strategy saving $130,000 in business within the first month of the strategy. 

Click here for complete case:  http://www.fieldcasebook.org/

Struggling to capitalize on the momentum after a conference or annual meeting?  Michael Casey recently penned an article for Franchise World’s November 2008 edition, detailing ways to collect feedback, and use it to plan for next year.  Click here to read the article