[INTRODUCTION]
[0:00:03] DC: This is the true story of two printers who agreed to podcast with me and have their opinions recorded. Listen to what happens when printers stop being polite and start getting real.
[0:00:13] JM: Hi, this is Jamie McLennan.
[0:00:14] WC: And this is William Crabtree.
[0:00:17] DC: And I’m your host, Deborah Corn. Welcome to the PrinterChat podcast.
[EPISODE]
[0:00:27] DC: Product recalls have been all over the news lately. From food and beverages to cars, electronics, appliances, medical devices, toys, and other consumer products. And recalls can cost companies billions of dollars globally every year through replacement products, refunds, logistics, shipping, lost sales, legal expenses, and of course, damage to their brands. Printers don’t really have a product recall mechanism, but when something goes wrong with a print job, we have what we call the reprint. So, in this episode of the PrinterChat podcast, we’re talking about print defects, when a reprint is warranted, and what happens when something goes wrong.
Welcome to Podcasts From the Printerverse. I’m Deborah Corn, your Intergalactic Ambassador, here with my two print chatty co-hosts for the PrinterChat podcast, Jamie McLennan from Innvoke Print & Marketing. Hello, Jamie.
[0:01:34] JM: Hello, Deborah. Hello, Will.
[0:01:36] WC: Hello, Deborah. Hello Jamie.
[0:01:38] DC: Yay. And Will Crabtree from TampaPrinter.com, SignParrot.com. And what’s the other one this week?
[0:01:48] WC: Well, we have AutoPrint-Software.com and PrintingInABox.com.
[0:01:51] DC: I think we added one to your list –
[0:01:54] JM: That’s a conglomerate.
[0:01:55] DC: Yes. It used to just be tampa.media. It was much easier.
[0:01:59] WC: Yes, that was easier. Yes. Well, the tampa.media thing is dissolved.
[0:02:03] DC: Okay. Well, all the links you need to connect to Jamie and Will and see the type of work that they do are in the show notes. Let’s talk about our topic. As you guys know, and hopefully our listeners know, I was a print buyer in advertising agencies for more than 25 years, and I’ve had my share of very interesting reprint situations. Some were ours to resolve, and some were the printers’ to resolve. So, I would like to know from your point of view what constitutes a print defect? And that’s what I’m going to call it. And when does an issue warrant a reprint? Will?
[0:02:49] WC: When does an issue warrant a reprint? When the customer demands it. I don’t know. So, I hear and feel all of your reactions. The reality of it is –
[0:02:59] DC: I’m demanding it every time, just so you know.
[0:03:01] WC: I’m sure you are. Right.
[0:03:03] DC: Whether I’m right or wrong, I’m demanding it.
[0:03:05] WC: Here’s the thing, right, is that what we do is custom manufacturing, right? And whether something is right or wrong is subjective. And when you get into color matching, you get into other elements of what we do that could be wrong or could be right. And then whose fault is it? Is it the customer’s fault or is it the printer’s fault?
Now, we have technology now that we didn’t even have five years ago or much further back, obviously, but that helps with preflighting files, making sure files are right, they’re formatted correctly, et cetera, et cetera. But now you have another variable with AI where people are having files created by AI and don’t know the specs that they need to tell AI to get the files that they need to print. Then they come with a file that’s made by AI. It looks awesome on their computer screen, but it should print, right? But no.
And when I say when the customer demands it is someone comes into your shop and has you print a hundred stickers and it comes out wrong because they use an AI image. Are you going to tell that customer to pound sand and you’re not going to reprint it even though it was their fault? And then what does that cost you? A bad review is a bad review worth a hundred stickers.
You go to a larger situation where it’s a bigger client, and it’s the client’s fault. But if you say, “No, it’s your fault,” and you don’t reprint it, or you don’t help them, then you potentially lose that client. And this is the situation that we’re put in as custom fabricators, custom manufacturers, printers, is that the buck always lands with us.
[0:04:46] DC: Correct.
[0:04:47] WC: It winds up on our plate regardless of whether it was their fault, your fault, the machine’s fault. You’ve got to own it, and you’ve got to do what is going to make sure that your reputation is maintained and that you don’t lose your clients.
[0:05:02] DC: I don’t disagree with you, but I wouldn’t say that a printer should own it. I think a printer should not own it if they didn’t actually do it, but they should own the resolution of the problem. But I want to ask you a question about something that you said, Will. You said people come in and they give us a file and it’s AI-generated art, right? But then you also said with all the modern technology and the prepress that it catches this stuff now.
And since we know that you skew to an online print shop, although you do have customers walking in and out of your door all day long, where in that does that artwork get caught so it does not get printed and someone deserves a reprint? Just based on what you’re saying about the prepress tools.
[0:05:51] WC: Okay. So there’s so many pathways to how the artwork could be introduced. A customer walks in with, and then they literally come in with a file that’s AI-generated. No, they’re going to get stopped by a customer service representative (CSR) before it even gets into prepress or before it gets anywhere. They’re going to say, “Okay. Well, no, we need to redesign this. This is what’s wrong.” They’re going to try to walk the customer through the settings that they need to give AI to give them the file that they need.
These are all of the steps to try to mitigate that. But a customer goes online, orders themselves. We have a pre-flight tool on the site that will tell them it gives all kinds of prompts. This is not the right resolution. This is not the right file type. It is not going to look like it looks on your screen. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. And they still click, “Okay, go print.” And it makes it.
From there, the customer preflighted their own file. It went directly into prepress, which is where production pulls the file from. And then it comes out wrong. Whose fault is that? Well, is it my technology’s fault? Is it my printer from not catching it? How many other layers of fail-safes do you have in place to make sure that everything is correct to streamline everything versus you have a faucet open and you hope that bad stuff doesn’t make it through? It’s still going to. I don’t care how good the technology is. You’re still going to get bad shit. It’s going to happen.
[0:07:11] DC: Yes, but that makes total sense. Like they’re approving their own proof, and then that’s it. Jamie?
[0:07:18] JM: What constitutes a print defect? Sometimes it’s material, sometimes it’s the paper, sometimes it’s a number of other things, as Will was saying. So it really comes down to the customer. Some customers are much more lenient with things. Some are like, “No, it doesn’t match this Reflex Blue.” You’ve got to take a look at it. Something went wrong in the process somewhere.
And like Will said, the software is so good now, it pulls things out. Something like that is usually either a pressman error or something crazy went wrong, something happened somewhere. So that warrants a reprint. If the color doesn’t match what we showed in the proof, then we’re going to take care of that. We’re going to do that. But if it’s something that the customer did, as Will said, it comes back on us. We’re also going to make sure that they feel good. Like, “Hey, yes, this is wrong. We went back. We looked at it. This is what happened.
This is how the file came in. You guys approved it. The file wasn’t correct or something.” We’ll work with you on it. We’re not going to whack you over the head with it and beat you up, but we’re going to take care of you. We’re going to be like, “Hey, we’ll print at a discount. We’ll do this.”
But yes, there’s a lot of different things that warrant a reprint, and it varies to every customer what is acceptable, what’s not. It’s my job to know what that is. And my team knows that. That is wrong. That can’t go out the door. We try and do quality control (QC) along the way. But, there are times when somebody just really Fs up and we have to take care of it. But, yes, it really depends on the customer.
You were in an agency. I know how high-level that is. we do a lot of prototypes just to make sure these things don’t happen. Does it happen every now and then? Sure does. But there’s processes in place to hope it doesn’t happen. But when it does, hey, let’s follow our steps. What do we do? Where did it happen? What went wrong? Don’t beat anybody up, but let’s take care of it. Make sure everybody’s happy and get it done.
[0:08:54] DC: Yes. Will, any comments on Jamie’s thoughts there?
[0:08:57] WC: No, he continued in the same path. And the only thing that I would disagree with that he said is that it depends on the client, right? And that I would only say it depends on the client if the client sucks, if they’re a bad client, right? Like if you look at a client, they’re a time suck and their files are always wrong and they’re inconsistent and you’ve been carrying their weight for a long time. I’ve always been a big proponent of it’s okay to fire a client, right? Then it matters the client.
But outside of that, we try to treat everybody with the same respect, whether they’re spending $5 or $5,000, and we give them the same quality control and the same treatment, right?
And there’s a negotiation that always happens when it is the client’s fault, without pointing a finger and saying like, “Well, hey, this is how it should have been done. And sorry, we didn’t catch it. We’ll meet you in the middle. But even that conversation, we used to be able to get away with that a lot more than we can now. Expectations of consumers are a lot higher than what it used to be. Right?
Ownership of fault, I think in general, in humans, I think has become an issue, right? Like, I didn’t do anything wrong. So getting someone to admit that they did something wrong would be like meeting in the middle. So now my team keeps a pretty good filter against me of even having to interact with those people. And I’d rather just not know about it and reprint it. It’s not worth the bad review, you know? Unless it’s a $10,000 job or something crazy, I’m not obviously going to eat that.
But if it’s a set of business cards, or postcards, or a brochure, it’s easy that we’ll just reprint it. That’s why I don’t do vehicle wraps anymore. Because when something was messed up there, and you’re removing and then reapplying an entire vehicle wrap, you not only didn’t make money, you’ve lost money. That’s a lot harder of an industry to maintain that. Like, “Yes, we’ll just take care of it.”
Same with signs. A big sign, you install a big sign, and then there’s something wrong that isn’t really wrong, but the client thought something was different than what they were going to get, no matter how many mock-ups and proofs you showed them. It’s a lot harder of a pill to swallow when it’s thousands of dollars.
[BREAK]
[0:11:04] DC: Get ready to turn up the volume on print. PrintFM is a global internet radio station dedicated exclusively to print and graphic communications accessible around the clock in every time zone. No more searching across channels and apps. PrintFM brings relevant, topical programming from Print Media Centr, Girls Who Print, and an array of industry contributors who bring their own perspectives, guests, and conversations to the mix.
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[EPISODE CONTINUED]
[0:12:03] JM: Will, I wasn’t saying customers get different treatment. They all get the same thing. We’ll reprint it. We’ll take care of it. But some customers are more lenient with color, or pleasing color, like this is great. This is perfect. Don’t worry about it. We’ll take it. But other customers are – yes.
[0:12:17] WC: Expectations vary from client to client. Yes. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to throw you under the bus in that respect. I apologize.
[0:12:23] JM: I was trying to –
[0:12:24] DC: Yes. No, it’s also – I’ll speak for my people. We’re under a lot of pressure. You mess up for a big brand for something that they’re launching, and it’s not a little minor; my business cards weren’t trimmed correctly. It changes the level of, I think, response time and panic that even the printer goes through. We’re going to tell stories soon about this. And I have a good one for you.
So, okay, you’ve spoken about there has to be a solution, and the solution still needs to be a positive customer experience. When something does go wrong, and it is actually something you’ve discovered, it’s on your end. What is your process for making it right so it’s not repeated and causing issues down the road?
[0:13:21] JM: Well, if we find out something’s gone wrong and gone through the project, we basically just huddle up and like, “Hey, what happened?” Were the files correct? It starts from the beginning. How did the files come in? Were the files correct? Was the proof correct? Was the size correct? Was the color correct, and try and pinpoint where it was.
We had a project, a big project, a little while ago for a major brand that, for some reason, when it got cut on the computer numerical control (CNC) machine, it cut the inside line and not the outside line. So, everything was an eighth-inch smaller than it should have been. The first ones we did, all the prototypes, everything was fine. It was a rush. This needs to get done tomorrow. They’re running it. They’re cutting it all night long. Somebody did something along the way, and half of them got cut too small.
You didn’t find out to the end. Like, all of a sudden, you’re like, “Whoa, what happened? Why does this not fit in the thing?” It was like panic. Let the customer know, “Hey, the first half of the job is perfect. It’s on its way over to you. We’re in the middle process of printing it right now, cutting it. That’s the only thing that’s getting done in the shop right now. We’ll take care of it.” But yes, somebody had to jump in and cut something real quick.
And then when they went back to it, either they didn’t use the right blade or did something. And it was one of those pressman errors. But hey, double-check it, make sure it matches the one you just did. But in the heat of the moment, and trying to get it done real quick. It was one of those it’s got to be done yesterday kind of deals. And sometimes those things happen. But yes, and it was caught, and that’s the worst thing.
And then we put it down and say, “Why is this not going to happen again?” So we put steps in place to, “Hey, here you go. Here’s a jig. Make sure when you’re cutting it, every couple sheets, just make sure it fits in that jig.” This is expensive material. It takes hours to cut. So, let’s make sure it’s correct. Yes, you put a process in place, and hopefully everybody follows it and double-checks on it every so often. Like, “Hey, does that work? Is it right?”
[0:14:55] DC: Yes. Excellent. William?
[0:14:57] WC: It depends on when you discover it, right? If you find the issue before it goes out, do you take care of it? You don’t try to pass off bad stuff to the client. Although I will say that there have been situations where it wasn’t really noticeable, and we’ve communicated with the client and said, “Hey, we did this whole thing. This is what’s wrong with it. If you want it and it’s done now, we’ll give you a discount. Or if you can wait, let us fix it, and we’ll push it.” Right?
Or in your instance, Jamie, you had half and half, right? So you had half the job was right. So you bought yourself some time. But when the whole job is wrong, you’re trying to buy yourself some time and some grace regardless, right? But if you find it after the fact, the customer brings it back to you, and it’s your fault, you have to take care of it, right?
Or again, you go into that conversation of, “Well, is it still satisfactory enough that I can offer you a discount and you want to keep it because you save the money versus having me reproduce it?” And as a business owner, you’re probably going to make out better if you do that than if you have to reproduce it, right? Keep that little tool in your toolbox.
But when a customer comes back, we always figure out whose fault it is regardless. We don’t just take it on the chin and say, “Oh, yes, we’ll just redo it.” We figure out what was wrong and why it was wrong. And usually it does come down to a file issue, or a workflow issue, or whatever it is. And depending on the magnitude of it, we don’t have a lot of these big major problems now as we did many years ago. And that’s how a lot of the workflow was created: “Oh, well, this happened,” or, “Oh, well, this happened.”
And then this started happening over and over again. So how do we fix that and make sure that that doesn’t happen anymore? And that’s how a lot of processes have been built. Again, it just depends on making it right is making sure the customer is happy and that they’re going to continue to use you and they’re going to continue to say nice things about you to other people.
[BREAK]
[0:16:53] DC: Gentlemen, leadership isn’t just about making decisions. It’s about setting the tone. Joining Girls Who Print as a male ally sends a clear message. You’re committed to advocacy, mentorship, professional growth, and creating a space where everyone can thrive. Membership gives you access to a powerful global network, exclusive events, conversations, and resources that support meaningful progress. Whether you’re an owner, manager, colleague, or peer, your presence makes a difference and helps shape the future you’d want for your colleagues, your clients, and your daughters. Learn more about ally membership at girlswhoprint.org. Link in the show notes. Empower long and prosper.
[EPISODE CONTINUED]
[0:17:44] DC: Yes, especially that part. Okay, so I have three reprint situations that always stay in my mind. And so the first one is the one that was totally my fault. And it was the first time I ordered 5 x 7-inch invitations to go in a 5 x 7-inch envelope. And guess what? They don’t fit in a 5 x 7-inch envelope. Now, I was too junior at that time to not turn around to the printer and say, “Are you freaking kidding me? You had the files. You sold us the envelopes.
How does nobody know that’s going to fit in there?” But I didn’t know to say that. I sent the file the wrong size. And therefore, we had to pay for it. And it couldn’t get trimmed a sixteenth of an inch on every side. It’s like it just doesn’t work. So, we had to eat that and pay for it. And that was it.
Another time I was doing work for a magazine, and it was one of those rush situations, and the magazine had to go to a museum in southern Florida somewhere. And when the museum got them on opening day for the exhibit, they were all stuck together because they didn’t dry. So, that one was resolved by the museum going through the boxes, picking out the ones that weren’t chipped away, like when you pull tape off of paper.
[0:19:16] WC: I’m going to keep my joke to myself right now. Sticky pages.
[0:19:20] DC: Okay. Keep your joke to yourself. So they pulled out what they needed. And then I had all those boxes shipped to the printer so they could go through that. Because I’m like, “The customer’s not doing it, and I’m not doing it. You’re doing it.” So, they went through a couple thousand things. Pulled out the ones that were still usable, and they had to reprint the other ones. That didn’t have anything to do with me. We were not paying for it. End of story.
The third one was potentially the weirdest thing that has ever happened to me. And we were working on a luxury hotel brand. And this goes to Jamie’s, “Some clients really care about their color,” right? This was a hotel brand. They cared about their color. It was a specific Pantone Matching System (PMS) color. So, it was printing offset. It was a specific PMS color. We printed it. Everything was fine. We had the samples. Everything was lovely. The client calls us and tells us that the samples arrived blue, and now they were all green.
And we were like, “What the hell are you talking about?”
Needless to say, we looked at our samples, and they were green, too. And that was a week-long investigation to find out that the ink and the coating or whatever they were using had some weird chemical reaction, and it changed the color of the ink. But until then, everything was like in limbo. They had to reprint it, but nobody knew what the problem was. We specced the right color. They had the can of ink. I don’t know where that can of ink came from, but it was the ink. So, that was a weird one. And they ended up reprinting for us, too.
But these weren’t all smooth situations. There was a lot of what do you want us to do about it? Okay, we’ll reprint it, but you have to cover the paper. A lot of times I’ve had printers actually go back to the paper mills and said, “We printed this, and part of this lot of paper was different, and you need to replace that paper.” So, how far do you have to go down the stream?
In my ink example, they went to every distributor of ink they could find because nobody could understand why our luxury brochures were essentially a mood ring changing colors. So, tell a story about a print job that went wrong and how you resolved it. But it has to be your fault. And by fault doesn’t mean like you don’t pay attention to things, just that, yes, somebody put wet magazines and shipped them. That’s your fault. Jamie?
[0:22:10] JM: Okay, I’ll share my fault one, but if only if I can share one that was the customer’s fault.
[0:22:15] DC: Yes, you can. That’s fair.
[0:22:18] JM: Well, one of the ones I am the most embarrassed about, it was this brand new customer. They made pet pads for older dogs for when they have an issue, and you have to stick them around your house. So, it was, I want to say, 15,000 envelopes with a brochure and a sample of the pet pad that went in every envelope.
Did samples, we did mockups, we did everything. Put it in the envelope. Got weights, got the postage, everything. We took it to the post office. They rejected it. We’re like, “What do you mean? It fits all the parameters. It does this and that.” This was in my earlier days, and I didn’t know every rule about postage. And I did mostly presort and first-class and all that. This is the first thing I ever had in bulk.
And the guy at the post office is like, “There’s this little piece of paper, this little cardboard thing. If it doesn’t slide through that slot, it doesn’t fit.” And I was like, “What are you talking about? Most of them slide through that slot.” He’s like, “Yes, but all of them don’t slide through that slot.” He’s like, “Some of them get stuck. Some of them get this.” He’s like, “You can get the air out of all of them; we’ll take it and accept it.” And I was just like, “What do we do?” We bring them back to the shop.
We’re like standing on them. We’re flattening them out. We’re doing all kinds of crazy stuff. I’m talking to the customer. I’m like, “The postage is like double what it’s supposed to be because now they want to send it as bulk rate, something.” And he’s like flipping out.
And the short end of it is we ended up paying the extra postage to get it out. Like, all right, we’re going to keep everything that we said we were going to do. We’re going to take care of it. We’ll pay the extra postage. But we were just talking to the guy at the post office. He’s like, “Look, if this was mailing in New Jersey, I’d be fine with it. But I’m worried some guy in Chicago is going to get this and he’s going to call me up and he’s like, ‘You accepted this?’ And he’s going to make this big stink, and some postmaster there is going to throw us under the bus, like, ‘Don’t send things through Trenton mail whatever.’” And I was like, “Oh my god.” It was one of the most embarrassing mess-ups that I have ever had in a mail project. And I was just like, “Oh.”
I did one small other job for the guy. And we never did anything else. Even though we took care of – it didn’t cost him anything extra. We got it out. It probably took an extra day or two with all the finagling around, but it was crazy. And that was probably one of the most embarrassing things ever. Even dealing with all the postal people, like this is fine. It’s going to mail. Not a problem. It’s under this. Yes.
[BREAK]
[0:24:31] DC: News From The Printerverse delivers topical sales and marketing insight, along with plenty of printspiration, one time a month to inboxes everywhere. Our contributors cover the industry and the future of print media and marketing with strategy for strengthening your customer relationships, better targeting of your prospects, and practical advice for helping your business grow. Printspiration is just a click away. Subscribe to News from the Printerverse at printmediacentr.com. Print long and prosper.
[EPISODE CONTINUED]
[0:25:08] DC: Actually, the same thing happened to us. We were mailing something with a bunch of different materials and printed information in the envelope, and someone’s like, “Oh, we’re missing one.” So, we added it, and that adding it put it over an ounce, and it came back and they’re like, “Hi, we need double the postage.” And we were like, “What the hell are you talking about?” So, that’s actually a really good one. We had to pay the postage because we didn’t weigh it with the new material.
But that is when I learned that the post office, the main post office in every city, allegedly, or at least it did at some point in time, I don’t know if it still does, has a marketing mail manager. And you can actually get your things approved and get a little piece of paper that you walk around with.
So that if you bring it to the post office or you send it in and they’re like, “No, I’m not accepting this,” you’re like, “Aha, I’ve got my acceptance that yes, it’s thick mailing, but it will fit through the machine.” So, you want to tell a story about the customer being wrong.
[0:26:14] JM: Those marketing mail people all had slightly different parameters because some of them accepted things and didn’t. You’re like, “Got to make sure you’re on their good side. You got to make sure everything is good.”
[0:26:22] DC: Totally. You have to make an appointment. Don’t walk in.
[0:26:26] JM: No, forget it. So, one thing that we did help a customer with, this is a big show in Philadelphia. It was a MedEd meeting and probably hundreds of books and brochures. They had speakers all lined up. Everything got done in time. It was the day before. I’m on the little league field. I’m assistant coaching my kid, and I get a panicked phone call from the customer at about 6.30pm. The one speaker is wrong. The guy’s name is spelled wrong. He’s going to be in a different spot now. Everything’s changed. And we’re like, “What do you mean? Everything’s been approved. You printed?” They’re like, “We know we did it wrong. We need it for tomorrow morning at 6am.” It’s like 6:30 the night before. I was like, “Oh, all right. Well, we ran two shifts then. People are still there. Let me call, make sure everybody’s still there.”
Went and picked up the customer. She brought the files down, made sure everybody was still at the plant. She approved it as it was getting done, and we printed it. And I think I got back to their hotel in Philadelphia 6.10am the next morning. But yes, she was like, “If you ever need a referral, just call me.” She’s like, “You bailed us out.” It works both ways.
[0:27:30] DC: Amazing.
[0:27:31] JM: They were just like, “It needs to be fixed, and it needs to be fixed tonight.” It was hundreds of books. This is before digital. It’s not like a digital job. It was running offset. Everybody’s got to stay. So, whatever we need to do to get it done. So, those are the times where you feel good like, “Yes, I can get it done. I can fix it for you.” Except for those ones –
[0:27:47] DC: Will, do you have stories? Or do they keep everything from you?
[0:27:51] WC: I think I suck at this point because I haven’t really interacted with customers in almost two years now. And the only customers that I do, I haven’t had any issues, my fault, customer’s fault, or otherwise. I’m riding on easy street these days when it comes to that. So, I think I’ve blocked out all the other memories of the bad jobs from before, my fault or otherwise. I’m sure there’s still plenty of stuff that happens in my shop that is our fault, and my team just knows how to deal with it, and it doesn’t fall on my plate.
[0:28:23] DC: Yes, I was going to say you’re not seeing it on a spreadsheet either, right?
[0:28:27] WC: Yes. No, I’m not seeing it in a negative way there. I would say sales are a little down from what we would like to see. I think everybody’s experiencing a little bit of that. What about you, Jamie? How are sales right now?
[0:28:38] JM: We are like crazy busy.
[0:28:40] WC: Crazy busy? Up, down, same?
[0:28:43] JM: Up.
[0:28:44] WC: Up. Good for you.
[0:28:45] DC: What type of work?
[0:28:47] JM: Offset work is pretty busy over there. They’re pretty much where they need to be. But our large-format work is – we just bought another Colorado because we can’t keep up. And we just need another press. So, we’ve been just crazy swamped. And it’s like, “Hey, we can’t turn work down. So, we need another press. Let’s go. Let’s keep it moving.”
And it comes in waves. We were like that in April. It slowed down a hair in the beginning of June, and then it just took off again. I was like, “All right, we’re going to be able to breathe a little.” No. Just got crazy again right away. So, we can’t complain here. Yes.
[0:29:18] DC: I want to jump back on something that you said before about that customer that you really went above and beyond from the little league field to staying up all night and delivering, getting them their material within 10 minutes of when they needed it. So, I totally am a believer that if a printer is going to put testimonials on their website, they should be stories like that. Everybody says, “Oh, they’re so friendly, and they’re so great to work with.” And I’m sure everybody is. But when print buyers recommend printers to each other, that is already in the consideration.
You know how we talk about sellable print, even though I don’t like that term; I understand what it means. It means it’s gotten to a point where it’s good enough. So, we feel the same way. If a printer’s working for an advertising agency, they’re already good enough. What differentiates them starts to fall into how they handle a crisis. Do you tell those stories at all on your website to potential customers? And it’s all about giving them the confidence that you’ll deliver what you promise, especially with all the scams going on in the world at the moment.
[0:30:33] JM: I don’t think we have it on our website spelling it out, but it’s definitely something I think that helps when you’re especially with a big customer, or a marketing advertising agency, or a museum-type company and stuff like that. They’re like, “Hey, what happened?” Sometimes they’ll ask you, “What happened? What went wrong? And how’d you take care of it?” You don’t want to lead with, “Hey, we’re really good at fixing screw-ups. We take care of it right away.” But sometimes things happen, and we’re there. We’ll make sure.
Our owner we sit down. Like, “Look, make sure the customer is taken care of. Take care of the job. We’ll get it done.” Then we’ll sit down and regroup and go over what happened. Let’s make sure it happened. It’s taken care of. It’s done right. Whatever happened happened. Yes. We try and let people know that.
And like you said, I get referrals like that all the time, like, “Hey, use these guys because they’re going to take care of you.” And it comes with a large, like, “Hey, you got referred to by so and so.” We’re going to make sure we stand by our job and make sure it works. Yes, I don’t think it’s out there on our website.
[0:31:29] DC: When I would move around different advertising agencies, I would take my printers with me, and the ones I would take were the ones that would be like, “We’re just going to fix this, and then we’ll figure it out after.” And that peace of mind, you can’t put a value on that. So, I think that’s a really important point, Jamie. William?
[0:31:53] WC: Well, I think it comes down to relationships, right? And the topic of treating one client another way versus another has come up. And talking about expectations of a client versus another has come up. And they all are the same thing to a degree. But if you’ve got a long-standing relationship with a client that you’ve been doing business with for years that’s spent tons of money with you, they know you’ve got them, right? And because you’ve got them, they’ve got you. That’s the difference between somebody coming off the street and ordering 100 stickers or whatever it is, right?
Not to say again that we treat anybody differently, but there’s a consideration that does go into that. And we have relationships like that with clients and clients that have been with us for years. And one thing that I’ve been trying to look at from a perspective of growth is how do I establish those relationships with new clients or even existing clients that we don’t do everything for, right? And how do I identify who those clients may be?
There’s a lot of moving parts when it comes to how you handle that, but I don’t think it’s something that you can make as a “guarantee on your website” or put in writing for everybody to be able to view online that this is what we do and this is how we do it. And we’re going to reprint everything regardless of whose fault it is. And we’ve got you.
But when you’re writing a proposal to a new potential client for a new potential contract, then yes, those are definitely things that you should touch on and include in and have references from the people that you’ve done that for.
[0:33:28] DC: Exactly. I love that so much and I agree with you about that. And here’s a secret, everybody. Every professional print customer knows things go wrong. That is why we want to know how you handle the crisis. And as I said before, of course, everybody cares about their own job. I’m not saying that they don’t. But when an $80 million account is on the line or something like that, there’s a little more pressure sometimes for that.
So having the peace of mind that your printer understands how to deal with crises of that type of magnitude is first and foremost something I would look for. I love that you include that in the “Look, everything doesn’t always go smoothly.” We’re having supply chain issues again. So maybe you don’t have the paper you need, or maybe you didn’t get an ink shipment, or who knows what’s going on out there. But the whole point is that if you’re not upfront with that, then I don’t have as much trust, if that makes sense. So, interesting topic. Last words, Jamie?
[0:34:44] JM: Don’t redo anything. Make sure it’s always perfect.
[0:34:47] DC: I love it. William?
[0:34:49] WC: It’s printing. It’s never going to be perfect.
[0:34:53] DC: I love it. That was a perfect ending. Thanks everybody for listening to Podcasts From the Printerverse, more specifically the PrinterChat podcast. As I mentioned in the beginning, everything you need to know about Will and Jamie and me too is in the show notes. All of our podcasts replay on printfm.com, the internet radio station for print. So, please check that out. And until next time, print long and prosper.
Thanks for listening to Podcasts From the Printerverse. Please subscribe, click some stars, and leave us a review. Connect with us through printmediacentr.com. We’d love to hear your feedback on our shows and topics that are of interest for future broadcasts. Until next time, thanks for joining us. Print long and prosper.
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Mentioned in This Episode:
Jamie McLennan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamieprints
DMR Graphics: https://www.dmr-graphics.com/
Innvoke: https://innvoke.com/
Will Crabtree: https://www.linkedin.com/in/willtheprinter/
Tampa Printer: https://tampaprinter.com
Sign Parrot: https://signparrot.com/
AutoPrint: https://autoprint-software.com/
Printing In A Box: https://printinginabox.com/
Deborah Corn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/deborahcorn/
Print Media Centr: https://printmediacentr.com
Subscribe to News From The Printerverse: https://printmediacentr.com/subscribe-2
PrintFM Radio: https://printfm.com
Girls Who Print: https://girlswhoprint.org
Project Peacock: https://ProjectPeacock.TV
