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Fear of Launching Customer Facing Software

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.

Wednesday, August 25, 2021

Sometimes I wonder if we’ve totally lost our way with the print industry definition of “web-to-print.” It seems we’re way more focused on the printer’s experience of the tool when the tool’s entire purpose is for making print ordering easier and more convenient for the printer’s customers!

Lots of printers invest in web-to-print, and a significantly smaller percentage are actually successful at deploying web-to-print to its target market: the print buying customers. I witness this daily. There is a reluctance to introduce this new way of interacting with the print business to the customers. The best explanation I found about this phenomenon is from Reuven Gorsht in a Forbes article titled “What is Customer Phobia? My favorite quote from the article is:

Quite simply, whenever we get the opportunity to spend time with customers, we go at them with the lens of our own products and services—the classic aspirin looking for a headache.


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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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