I do not need to point out that the last several years have been difficult. Businesses are struggling and people are trying their best to keep their heads above water. Economic downturns hurt us all.

The natural impulse and what we have seen are for businesses to retrench and individuals to cut back. This combination only serves to exacerbate an already difficult situation. We ultimately create our own negative self fulfilling prophecy. It is time to break this cycle and drag ourselves out of the economic quicksand.

I firmly believe that success breads success, that private industry creates jobs and jobs stimulate growth. This being the case, we are left with the question of the chicken and the egg. Businesses require demand for their products and services in order to expand. Individuals need jobs and financial security to purchase the available products and services. The question remains, which is going to make the necessary leap of faith?

I contend that the responsibility firmly falls on the business community. Our country has been built on the entrepreneur, the visionary that sees opportunity and is willing to take that leap of faith. We have all cut back, rethought our business models and now is the time to invest and move forward. The opportunity is now.

I am proud to say that during the height of the economic downturn and within one of the hardest hit industries Solo Printing took that leap of faith and embarked on a sizable capital improvement program. Solo viewed the downturn as an opportunity. A time to invest in new technology and add seasoned professionals to our staff. This gamble paid off with improved sales and added capacity. As the economy improves, as it certainly will, Solo is positioned for even greater success.

Obviously as a member of the Solo team I am bias toward our company and accomplishments. That does not alter what is required for success in today’s marketplace. A willingness to invest in the future, reaching out to vendors, suppliers, new ideas and expanding the workforce are all part of the solution. The opportunity for success and growth has never been better for those willing to take a leap of faith.

John Carr, Director of Marketing, Solo Printing, Miami FL

This has been a stellar year for Solo Printing.

We would like to thank Graphic Design USA and Printing Impressions for their recognition and to all of our customers and friends for their continued support.

Customer-facing [kuhs-tuh-mer] [fey-sing] -adj. Interacting or communicating directly with customers: good customer-facing skills.

If you astutely recognized that all of these things are customer-facing tools, then congratulations! Contrary to what many business managers and owners think, customer facing is not confined to specific personnel at designated times, and it transcends the limits of physical proximity. It doesn’t have to be a face-to-face event to be a meaningful and successful customer-facing function. You should, in fact, consider any point of contact that you or an employee has with a current or potential customer a customer-facing opportunity, an opportunity to engage your customer and enrich your relationship with them.

“Customer facing happens everywhere—distilled to its simplest form, it’s anything you do that anyone else sees,” affirms Scott Dubois, president of pidalia, an agency providing clients with solutions to advertising, software design and business process management. And Dubois also thinks it’s not just what customers see, but also what they hear. “We took a critical look at our customer experience and decided that we should hire professional voice talent to record all of the components for our phone system. This enhances the experience for our customer,” he explains

Billy Mitchell, president of MLT Creative, an innovative B2B marketing company, concurs. “Customer facing also relates to everything from phone reception to printed and electronic correspondence. Even your invoices are examples of customer-facing interaction.”

In essence, customer centricity lies at the heart of successful customer facing interactions. “Put yourself in your customer’s shoes and walk through your entire process with their best interests in mind,” suggests Mitchell. “Do this as often as you can to keep your program dynamic and constantly improving.”

So while you are walking through your operations and processes wearing your customer’s shoes, and looking for areas to improve your customer facing, here are a few CUSTOMER-based factors to consider:

Consistency

After they reviewed their customer facing interactions, pidalia’s president felt that it was important for his customers and potential customers to be greeted by a pleasant professional voice when they called. It was equally important that the message be consistent with the company’s brand, that the quality of the phone service be consistently high and that calls are consistently handled with efficiency and care.

“Consistency is one of the hardest things to achieve,” says Dubois. “But it’s one of the most important. It’s imperative that you are consistent with your brand, and that you nurture a company culture that lives and breathes your brand, and that your customer facing reflects your brand consistently.”

John Carr, president at Solo Printing Inc., emphasizes that the most effective and consistent customer facing isn’t about utilizing particular tools or strategies. “It’s the result of a company having a shared culture of customer centricity. It’s the shared voice of all customer facing representatives that best deliver any brand’s promise.

To maintain consistency, it’s important that your company culture is reflected beyond the frontline and throughout your company. “Define your company’s culture, develop your story and build your program on individual buy-in from everyone in the company – not just your frontline,” urges Mitchell. “Instilling a customer-first culture is especially important as part of a company’s on-boarding with new employees. Many people need to up their social skills related to business, and having an established program and shared commitment can encourage employees to be positive when dealing with customers.”

Unhappy Customers

Although nobody endeavors to make customers unhappy, it happens, usually as a consequence of inconsistent customer facing or poor judgment. But rather than dismissing unhappy customers, look at them as a unique opportunity to showcase your company’s commitment to exceptional customer service , particularly in this age of instant widespread outrage.

Following a national Facebook and Twitter outcry regarding Delta’s exorbitant baggage charges for military personnel returning from deployment in Afghanistan, Delta Air Lines (and other airlines) changed their policy for military travelers to allow for four free bags. But the real winner in this scenario was AirTran. They one-upped Delta and everyone else by changing their policy for military travelers and becoming the most military friendly airlines. AirTran declared that they would begin handling ALL baggage for military personnel travelling on orders for free.

Likewise, Dubois urges that all customer complaints be handled as if they are front-page news. “One bad tweet appropriately placed can hurt you.”

Successful Strategy

There is a major difference between a “solid” customer facing strategy and a “successful” strategy that connects to and engages the marketplace, Carr explains. “Anyone can have a web presence, participate in email blasts, drip campaigns and have Facebook and Tweeter accounts. These can constitute a “solid” strategy but if they are not interactive—if they don’t convey a message, meet a need or compel one to take action—it is worthless. It is not merely about how many people can be reached, but about the quality of the experience and the ability to create a human moment. It can be easy to have a strategy, but is very hard to make a connection that leads to or enhances a relationship.

Top of Mind Awareness

As Mitchell has noted, it is important to walk in your customer’s shoes and see things from their perspectives. For Susan Ishmael, vice president at Master Print Group, making the customer a priority has ensured successful customer facing and helped her company make the transition to marketing services provider.

“To be successful, you must make it a priority to keep top of mind awareness of your customers—know their pain and their joy, their challenges and their triumphs. This becomes a constant state of mind as you build your personal relationships with your customers. The success of your customer becomes your priority, and you want to provide them the marketing options they need to succeed. We are genuinely committed to our customers, so we are training up, exploring all avenues and helping them develop strategy on a deeper level.”

Organization

With so much customer interfacing on so many fronts, it is more important than ever to have a customer relationship management program in place.

“Every touch point with a customer, even prior to any transactions, is an opportunity to make a positive impression and an entry in a customer data base, so customer relationship management is increasingly important,” Mitchell asserts. “There are several software programs that help support and organize customer engagement—Salesforce.com is a leading example. Some companies we work with have created customized programs for this purpose.”

Multiple Mediums

These days, a touch, a customer interaction, can take many forms. “It can be as literal as a handshake or take the form of a tweet, blog, or interactive experience utilizing QR codes. The means to reach ones prospects and customers is only limited by your imagination. Regardless of the form, the function is to engage potential customer or strengthen existing relationships. The key to success is that the touch must be reciprocal. Building relationships is never a one-way street,” Carr says.

“Besides traditional networking and advertising opportunities, which are still very viable, there are countless ways to use the Internet and electronic media. The most successful approach incorporates all mediums. The goal is to communicate to your prospects in a manner, time and place of their choosing. Regardless of the medium, it must be interactive and one should never lose sight of the human element,” Carr affirms.

Ishmael reminds that there is no substitute for personal contact. “Regardless of the tool, you need to back up the encounter with personal contact. We utilize multiple tools to touch—our approach is changing frequently— and following up with a personal conversation really sets us apart.”

Engagement

So what’s essential to turn a customer interaction into a successful engagement? Ishmael says she looks at each customer interaction as an opportunity to bring value to the relationship. “Your presence needs to be relevant and exciting so that you are bringing value to the relationship and thereby engaging your customer. One way you can do that is by offering them relevant and useful information through e-blasts, blogs or custom publications. It goes back to that personal relationship—knowing what their problems are and offering them solutions.”

Real Customer Centricity

Mitchell stresses that a good honest culture that is real is easier to sustain than one that is based on platitudes and policies. “Your policies and guidelines for customer engagement need to be based on honesty and a sincere interest in meeting your customers’ needs. Just as importantly, your day-to-day culture needs to be true to your brand promise.”

He cites the example of Zappos shoes as told by Zappos’ CEO Tony Hseih in his book “Delivering Happiness.” “Although Zappos is a B2C business, their culture is built on great customer service and a shared passion for making each customer’s experience positive beyond their expectations. Their approach carries over to their vendor relationships and strategic partnerships too, so they set a great example for B2B also. Tony Hseih reinvented the lowly job of selling shoes and made it a job where a young person working all day on the phone with Zappos’ customers believes they’re making the world a better place.”

Every touch point with a customer is an opportunity for a positive impression, an opportunity to share and engage with the customer. If a company nurtures a customer- centric culture, then there is a natural wellspring of customer service, and that positive impression will be authentic, organic and inherently more powerful.

[The Canvas Magazine]

The Gold Ink Awards are produced by Printing Impressions Magazine and sponsored by Heidelberg.

We were particularly happy to see is that these medals were awarded on projects produced on both our sheet fed AND web presses.

It just goes to show that regardless of the size and quantity of the press run our quality is superb throughout.

• The South Florida Business Journal listed Solo Printing as one of South Florida’s 50 Fastest Growing Companies.

• Their Solo “Connect”; Magazine has been receiving a great response, positive reviews and was even featured in the GD usa e-newsletter (GDUSA Newsletter)

• Most importantly, Solo Printing is now a G7 Master Certified Printer. (Learn more about this professional certification, offered by IDEAlliance, on their web site.)

Carr writes that what’s key about Solo’s certification is that it relates to both their prepress department and their presses. In addition to the normal prepress upgrades and calibrations required, Solo took the added step to certify their presses. He noted that few printers have this level of certification.

Congrats, Solo Printing! Come visit them in Chicago at our Conference. They’ll be at Table #2.

[Written by Margie Dana of Print Buyers International]

For More Information about G7 Master Certification Click Here.

SOLO PRINTING: ITS ABOUT THE YOU
The March/April issue of Connect Magazine, a publication of Solo Printing in Miami FL, provides insight on the theme of building brands and engagement with the market, as opposed to just selling products. Articles touch on how world class marketers are building trust with their audiences, and how Print 2.0 is making smart print more customized, personalized and integrated with the digital world. John Paul Carr captures the theme in in his Publisher’s Letter: “Once you own a community, you can sell them anything. The valuation is so high because they have people’s attention. It isn’t about the technology — there are thousands of people who can program like they do. Their success is the result of owning a place in our lives. It isn’t about the who; it is about the you… [C]ompanies that define themselves by the markets they serve will enjoy long-term prosperity. When we are defined by the community we serve, a level of understanding and intimacy is born. In turn, a high level of empathy creates amazing relationships and a real competitive advantage.” The free magazine is definitely worth a read.

If you would like to receive a free hard copy of Connect magazine just contact us and we gladly send you one. Of course you can always check out Solo’s web site for the latest edition and to catch up on the ones you might have missed.

[GDUSA Newsletter]

Here is what South Florida Business Journal had to say about us.

To grow fast and well, focus on customer service, attention to details and staying ahead of the technological curve. Exceeding customer satisfaction is key to building a thriving business and ensures repeat sales. The greatest form of advertisement is positive comments from satisfied customers. Pitfalls to avoid include failing to invest in the resources needed to meet your customers’ demands. Technology and resources allow you to work smarter, not harder. Missed opportunities occur when strained resources impede growth.

Now, before you jump to the conclusion that this is some self-serving article on the beauty of inline UV there are a number of things you, as a print buyer should be aware.
In my efforts to inform you on all things new in the marketplace and being a good steward of said information I am going to tell you things that printers may prefer keeping to there selves.

First, the inline UV process is relatively new. Remember, this is not your run of the mill overall gloss or dull UV finish. We are talking UV with texture, glitter, spot or raised, all giving a three dimensional effect. Believe me the process is nothing like adding ink to paper. This means there is a major learning curve. In our case, weeks and countless press runs were needed experimenting with different solutions, rollers, paper stocks, etc. We analyzed what worked and why others failed. We played with various images to see what looked best with the various applications. It was a long and costly process but one that gave us confidence knowing we could produce a product that would knock the socks off of any designer with a cool idea.

Now this is what you need to know about the inline UV process

• Not all equipment is created the equal. Talk to your printer about his process. He should be excited to tell you all about it. If he can not answer your questions then move on.
• Check the printer’s level of experience. If he is new to the process you should be vigilant.
• Ask for live samples from the printer not something the manufacturer provides showing various effects. Remember, you are expecting to see something that the printer has experience producing.
• Consult with your printer during the design stage. An experienced printer can let you know what works best for your desired effect and then be able to deliver it.
• Do not cut corners on paper stock. The UV process is fairly expensive and works best on a good stock. I suggest a #1 or #2 sheet. An 80lb cover weight is the absolute minimum. For best results I strongly suggest 10pt or better.

The various UV applications bring a whole new dimension to printing. When combined with a knowledgeable print buyer, they provide an element that both creative directors and customers love. The results are products and images that jump off the printed page.

If you are a long time associate or a first time visitor we appreciate you taking the time to see what’s new at Solo. We’re proud of our assortment of new presses, G7 compliant color system for the truest color, perfect binding and unique in-line UV capability. An assortment of UV coatings featuring spot gloss or dull UV, textured, glitter metallic UV, soft touch and others will set you apart from the crowd. Let us show you how.

We would enjoy hearing from you. Good, bad or indifferent your comments are always welcomed of course, If you really liked what you saw and think we can be of service you can always give us a call. Thanks for the visit.