Premium Commentary & Analysis
Launching a new way of interacting with our customers can be scary. It is also the best way to learn how to iterate the solution going forward. The sooner you realize you don’t know how your customers are going to utilize new tools, the better for your business. It makes you a better listener and helps your customers feel heard.
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About Jennifer Matt
Jennifer Matt is the managing editor of WhatTheyThink’s Print Software section as well as President of Web2Print Experts, Inc. a technology-independent print software consulting firm helping printers with web-to-print and print MIS solutions.
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Discussion
By Jim Rosenthal on Aug 25, 2021
The most important notion of this whole article I believe is "Start listening". In other words, stop selling. Start figuring out what your customers problems are and then figure out how to solve them.
By Robert Godwin on Aug 30, 2021
The problem with this article is that it had to be written. Jen has consistently recognized the challenge printers have with asking anything of their clients (even getting invoices paid). This is the reactive stance that pervades the industry: "Just Tell Me What You Want!" is the service battle cry. It is an order taking mentality. Without confidence, no printer can successfully (re: proactively) introduce new services. W2P falls into this bucket. Why? Because it is many different things to all the types of customers in the market. Upload and Print - Design online and print - retrieve brand assets and print - Manage print timelines and budgets - manage inventory.... all these are components of W2P. But the customer rarely tells the printer what they need to have before awarding a job. It may take a full replacement of the current owners and managers before change that is needed actually reaches critical mass. Gen Z, are you ready?