THE BASICS

Quick Turnaround

It wasn’t until the last minute on a Friday afternoon that Palm Beach resident Gina M. found out she’d be taking part in a giant conference for clothing manufacturers the next day in Chicago. It would be her job to stand post at a booth all day, give presentations, answer any questions and hand out brochures relating to her new clothing line. Where was she going to get 5,000 brochures made in less than one day? That’s when a colleague told Gina all about Print Basics.

In no time, Gina was on the phone with Mike, her Print Basics representative. Within minutes, she had placed her order online. The next day, 5,000 brochures were delivered to Gina’s home, hours before she had to leave for the airport. The conference in Chicago was a hit, partially because Print Basics took care of business, despite the time restrictions.

Online Brand Management

Two years ago, Print Basics had the opportunity to bid on the business cards for the Broward Sheriff’s Office (BSO). We decided to include our online ordering solution at no additional cost as part of the bid. With this offering, we were able to change the way BSO did business. Instead of multiple emails to various people before the order, we were able to offer our online solution, which allows client to log into a branded website and place orders on the web. Once we won the bid, we built the site allowing 17 different offices to log in, typeset and proof their cards online. This software has reduced the delivery time for business cards by over 75% to the BSO offices. Instead of business cards taking over two weeks from the request date, we are now delivering most orders within three days with no rush charges. Our software is the only reason we won this bid. With a commitment to print over 15,000 boxes of business cards during a 3 year contract, we needed to be completely automated to make ourselves competitive.

BSO’s massive request was accomplished by putting business cards on the web with Print Basics’ Online Branding Solution. This allowed every employee of BSO to log-in by their specific location. Much of the data is automatically filled out, like the addresses and phone numbers for that specific location. After logging with a personalized user name and password, the employees can enter their name, cell phone numbers and e-mail addresses. Then they just have to proof it, approve it, choose a quantity and press send. That’s it. They’re done.

The order will show up on Print Basics’ customer service email as a press-ready order with artwork attached. Production will begin that same day. The business cards will then be printed and out the door in 24 to 72 hours with no additional “rush charge.” Most printing companies that offer online services charge a monthly service fee. However, Print Basics will give you this exceptional service at no additional charge, simply because we appreciate your business commitment.

That’s how Print Basics’ Online Printing Solution works. Our company is able to save clients up to 75%, if not more, on the time it takes to receive their business cards and other printed materials. The efficiency of our software usually leads to a cost savings as well. We invite all potential clients to reach out to a salesperson for a personal demonstration of our online brand management.

Time and Quantity

There was an enormous grocery store who was dealing with a national supermarket chain whose service was suffering. They had 25 different locations around the state of Florida. Every day we get in new custom orders, and we get reorders that we are supposed to have on the shelf, ready to ship. That’s the most important thing. The product that they call in for needs to be ready to ship. We have to have everything ready to go out the door. We are printing inventory to have on hand, so when the supermarket calls, everything is ready to ship out.

The printing company who originally had the supermarket’s business wasn’t returning phone calls or responding to emails for several days. To make matters worse, the products that the supermarket needed were on backorder. Delivery of 60,000 Weekly Special sheets to be used in the next 60 days should be guaranteed the next day in Florida. But it was taking the other company two weeks. Print Basics understands that we can’t be out of those sheets, or the supermarket can’t produce their specials. So when we get an order for twenty packs of 500 Weekly Special sheets, like we did this morning, they go out the next day.

Print Basics is all about customer service, and the fact that our customer service staff knows to respond to an email immediately. When a customer calls, they pick up the phone. If a person leaves a message, the sales rep will respond right away. If we are not being responsive to a client, that means there is something that he or she cannot do on their end. If they can’t do their jobs, then we are holding them up from getting their work done. And if they aren’t getting their work done, they can’t process their order to us. The faster we deliver our product, the faster our customer uses our product and orders more. To me, customer service is all about responsiveness to the client. They want to know that if they ask for an estimate, it’s not going to take a week to get it. If they ask a question on email, Print Basics is responsive, and if they call us, we will pick up the phone. We never run away from customers’ questions. We are prepared to answer them, and we are prepared to get the job done. The giant supermarket chose us because off our responsiveness. Of course one of our goals was to be price competitive, but this was all about customer service. I met 29 of the supermarkets’ managers at a meeting two weeks ago. I asked them how Print Basics service has been for them. The responses I heard were ‘You guys are amazing. When we need something, you’re there. If we need something tomorrow, we can count on you. The quality is great. The service is great. Keep up the wonderful work.’

Hospital – Reliability

Roughly 10 years ago, a Broward County Hospital had an implant shop. That means they had their own print facility to do everything that they needed in-house. They had a copy center and offset printing press. However, the print industry changed, as did the economy. As a result, the hospital began to scale back. Before long, there was only one guy there to process the orders. That’s when they began outsourcing the work to a company in Hollywood, Florida. That company in Hollywood did their best, but they were too small to service all of the hospitals’ needs. All of a sudden, the guy had a 2-foot high stack of orders in his inbox. It took three weeks to get all of the orders finished.

Then Print Basics got involved. We got approved as a vendor, and we took that stack from 2-feet to a 3-day backlog within two weeks. He handed us 40 orders on the first day, and they were delivered within 3 days. We got the hospital caught up in no time. We were doing about 20% of their volume for 2 years. All of a sudden, their purchasing department came in and awarded everything to some giant national company. That’s when I called my contacts at the hospital and explained why trusting a national company would be a disaster. Besides two sales reps, all of the production and customer service is done outside of the state. That means everything you buy will get produced elsewhere and have to be shipped to Florida. That takes time and money. Besides, you just signed a contract with a broker. You don’t need a broker. You need an in-house manufacturer, like Print Basics.

One of the hospital’s top executives came back to me 9 months later, saying that the whole program had imploded. They were promised a 22% savings, but 90% of their annual budget was burned up in only 7 months. They fired the national company and signed an agreement with us. Our pricing was so aggressive that a representative from the hospital called me to ask if the price that I quoted them was correct. It was so much less than the other company was charging. I know that we can get away with charging more, but I don’t want somebody underquoting us in a year. I want to make sure that we offer a price that you will be happy with for several years. In the meantime, Print Basics has 100% of the hospitals’ business. Every day, we deliver orders to hospitals all over Broward County. When necessary, we have no problem delivering the orders in less than one day.

The biggest advantage for a hospital having a local relationship versus a national one is our ability to jump through hoops, versus a large corporate protocol that can get in the way of completing the job. We’ve had instances where we’ve received phone calls from the hospital explaining that there surgical center ran out of a specific form, and they cannot perform surgery without it filled out. We’ve also gotten a phone call on a Thursday at 4 o’clock for 5,000 carbonless forms to be delivered the following morning. Otherwise, the hospital can’t perform surgery. We stopped what we were doing and brought somebody back into the office to run the job that night. The order was at the hospital at 8 o’clock the next morning. That’s just one example of the things that we can do as a smaller-sized local operation that produces things in-house. That’s why businesses are going to stick around with Print Basics for years.