By Shaun Meany, The PEiR Group
Earlier this year, I mentioned the need for our industry to begin thinking of itself as a global print and information exchange network. Many of your customers work on time-sensitive projects and time, as we all know, has become a precious commodity in today’s world. Save someone time and they’ll remember you – and come back so you can do it for them again.
I believe we all also know what’s happening to shipping costs these days. FedEx and other express shipping companies are boosting charges to offset the higher cost of fuel. These increased costs are forcing more businesses to search for alternative delivery options. And this presents us with another opportunity: offer your customers same-day printing at remote locations.
Get it? Time and money: the two most important benefits one business can offer another. A powerful and persuasive combination.
As long as we’re talking “powerful and persuasive,” The PEiR Group and the PlanWell™ network is another dynamic package your customers need to know about. As a member of The PEiR Group and with access to PlanWell™, you increase your value proposition and your revenues by offering this service.
Remote Printing gives every PEiR member the power to offer a convenient printing option to customers collaborating or working on projects in areas far from their home base. Ordering documents from a local reprographer to have them printed by another reprographer closer to the delivery location is a huge and largely overlooked competitive advantage. Proper handling of these remote printing orders, by both the sending and receiving reprographer, is critical to the success of this service.
Outlined below are some Suggested Operating Procedures for Remote Printing:
All communication with the customer must be handled by the sending reprographer. It is vital that prior to sending a remote order you have a clear understanding of the customer’s printing needs, special instructions and due date.
Remote Print orders must be considered as high of a priority as any other customer orders being received.
Sending reprographers must place a preflight phone call to the receiving reprographer.
No delivery guarantees must be given to the customer until this contact has been made. This will avoid issues in which a receiving reprographer is sent an order with a delivery timeframe that cannot be met.
Also, pricing needs to be established with the receiving companies and should therefore be discussed in the preflight phone call. In the near future we would like to establish a pricing model that can be used as a guide.
The sending reprographer also needs to assess the types of services, delivery capabilities, time zone and hours of operation of the receiving reprographer.
When sending orders through the PlanWell Enterprise Admin Console, the list of potential receiving locations will include all The PEiR Group PlanWell Enterprise users as well as all ARC companies.
Receiving reprographers who have PlanWell are responsible for updating the order status in the job tracker to show when the order has been received and when the order has been shipped.
Sending reprographers desiring more order status information may discuss that during the preflight call; however, any additional order status updates are at the discretion of the receiving reprographer.
Receiving reprographers must send an invoice to the sending reprographer within a reasonable period of time (i.e. 24 to 48 hours)
I know moving towards remote printing will be challenging for many of you. To help you understand why reprographers are offering this service I felt it would be helpful if we shared comments from several PEiR members who are currently passing along the benefits of this powerful offering to their customers.
Their words may better show how Remote Print is quickly becoming the printing method of the future.
Thanks,
Shaun
No comments:
Post a Comment