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Self-service is an unsettling concept in the traditional business-to-business print world where growth is achieved by pivoting on every custom request from your customers. Online, self-service businesses embrace constraints and reap the benefits in their bottom line.
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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 Larry Mock on Sep 22, 2021
Really good insight and so true. We encounter this almost every day and it is a challenge to change the "Audible / We can do anything mindset" when it's been that way with someone for a long time. It's hard to relinquish control. But as you correctly point out, self-service doesn't mean you don't answer the phone and provide creativity.
Great article!
By Jennifer Matt on Sep 24, 2021
Larry - thanks for reading. Often when we humans are faced with change, our first reaction is to look at it as an "all or nothing" situation. There are not very many examples in life that are all or nothing, we are in a soup of "in between".
100% self-service is like 100% automation. They aren't realistic goals and when you want to resist any change its easy to simply point out why 100% won't work.
100% doesn't work. We're already conceding on that one. Incremental change towards more self-service, more automation does work, is working, is creating differentiation and higher profits in the print businesses that are pursuing it.
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