Quick Printers - Walk-ins, turnaround times, rush charges, etc..

[jdr999]

Hi all,

We had a busy Staples copy & print shop in town that closed two years ago when corporate did away with their smaller store. We decided to take their place as an independent printer with myself and one employee.

The busier we get, the more difficult we're finding it to handle job queues and walk in customers. Everyone wants it now and when someone walks up to the counter we have to stop whatever we're working on to help them. There are too many interruptions and too many unreasonable turnaround expectations from our customers. Most jobs are currently completed same day, and many while they wait. Bigger jobs may be a day to two, or up to a week for large booklet runs..

How do other shops deal with these problems?

What will you do while they wait, and what do you make them come back for? And if they need to come back what kind of turnaround times do you offer?

Rush charges... Do you have them? If so, what qualifies as a rush? And is it a flat free or percentage based?

Thanks!
Joe

 

[dabob]

We give them a choice of two of the following three things, Good, Fast, Cheap . . . pick 2

But seriously, it looks like you have grown enough to need to hire a person whose primary job would be the counter and when they are not working the counter they could help out in back . . . and any job is going to take a specific amount of time (you can't make 10,000 copies while they wait) . . . so depending on your schedule you just let them know that it will be ready in an hour, tomorrow morning, or in three days

 

[arossetti]

Two price books. While you wait pricing and production pricing. If you are slow one day and can handle a larger job while a customer waits and want to do that for customer service reasons explain that this is not typical but since you are slow you will take care of it and charge the normal production rate.

 

[Keith]

I don't think the question is what products do you do while they wait and what products do you make them come back for. The question is, what is your production capabilities and what do your customers want? You just need to decide how much paper you want to stock and how fast are your machines and balance that with what your customer wants. If they want business cards while they wait but they take too long on your guillotine, then you either need to buy a slitter or make them come back for business cards. One thousand flyers may be easy to do while they wait but five hundred post cards may not be practical to wait for because most machines slow down for card stock (unless you got one of those that can run all weights at rated speed). My point is, just like what arossetti said, two price books with well defined specifications on what they can get and when based on your capabilities.

 

[jdr999]

I don't think the question is what products do you do while they wait and what products do you make them come back for. The question is, what is your production capabilities and what do your customers want? You just need to decide how much paper you want to stock and how fast are your machines and balance that with what your customer wants. If they want business cards while they wait but they take too long on your guillotine, then you either need to buy a slitter or make them come back for business cards. One thousand flyers may be easy to do while they wait but five hundred post cards may not be practical to wait for because most machines slow down for card stock (unless you got one of those that can run all weights at rated speed). My point is, just like what arossetti said, two price books with well defined specifications on what they can get and when based on your capabilities.

Thanks for the replies.

My question is more geared towards handling walk-in customers when we have a back log of jobs, and are actively working on projects. Naturally we have to stop what we're doing to talk to them, but do we let them jump the queue and spend 10-15 minutes with them while our prior jobs are held up? Do we take their information and ask them to come back later? Do we take the extra time to proof / preflight while they are here? etc..

How are other companies drawing that line in the sand in situations like these? How do you make walk-ins happy while staying productive and getting jobs out the door?

So in a nutshell I'm trying to get a feel for what other companies consider reasonable and un-reasonable turn around times and how they manage their jobs, customers and the "I need it now" walk-ins. I feel that our customers are taking advantage of us (and we're letting them) because we drop everything when they walk in. But the busier we get the harder that is becoming. We do need to eventually hire, but I'd love to hammer out and fix our job queue issues beforehand. I believe our efficiency and productiveness could be much better if we got a handle on this.

Hopefully that made sense!

Thanks,
Joe

 

[Guest]

What a wonderful problem to have to deal with. Too much work is a great thing! Lucky you.... most printers would kill to be in your spot.

My suggestion would be to hire a counter person for your busiest hours and tick your prices up just a bit. Maybe look into faster and more efficient equipment. Rush fees are tough, especially for good customers. They are usually percentage based in my experience. Sometimes the best way to handle this is to actually raise your prices and then offer a "discount" for those customers who are willing to wait. This will make them feel like they are getting something for waiting rather than being penalized for being in a hurry. In other words, I can offer you 10% off if can pick it up tomorrow. Just a thought!

 

[jrsc]

It sounds like you have enough customers to have an inside sales person that waits on customers. We have one person who's job it is to wait on walk in customers and handle general phone, email, and website inquires.

As fare as production we don't do any while people wait unless its off the glass copies that can be done on our office machine. We do provide quite a bit of rush same day or next day stuff. It's hard to do stuff while people wait unless us a specifically set up to do that. If you get a ton of while you wait type business you can set yourself up for that but you probably need to dedicate a staff member and a printer to it and maybe some basic finishing equipment. Interrupting regular production with tons of little jobs just doesn't work. Next time you upgrade your printer you might want to hang on to the old one for this type of work.

 

[jdr999]

It sounds like you have enough customers to have an inside sales person that waits on customers. We have one person who's job it is to wait on walk in customers and handle general phone, email, and website inquires.

That is correct, but I think the requirements will be a bit higher than just a counter person. When contractors walk in with blueprints they will need an understanding of Acrobat to combine PDF's and convert tricky ones to images, print to the large format printers, use Command Workstation and swap out paper types on the ImagePress, be able to talk to customers about fine art and canvas printing, deal with the customers who need business cards designed, know how to load up files to see if that image can really be made into a poster, etc..

As fare as production we don't do any while people wait unless its off the glass copies that can be done on our office machine. We do provide quite a bit of rush same day or next day stuff.

That's interesting. What is your normal turnaround time and do you ask your customers to come back? If so, how long? Is same day a rush?

Interrupting regular production with tons of little jobs just doesn't work.

This is exactly what we are struggling with -- growing pains I guess.. I'm not complaining about the work, but we need to figure out a better system if we want to stay productive.

Next time you upgrade your printer you might want to hang on to the old one for this type of work.

We do have a self service WorkCentre as well as another one behind the counter in addition to our main ImagePress..

 

[arossetti]

My question is more geared towards handling walk-in customers when we have a back log of jobs, and are actively working on projects. Naturally we have to stop what we're doing to talk to them, but do we let them jump the queue and spend 10-15 minutes with them while our prior jobs are held up? Do we take their information and ask them to come back later? Do we take the extra time to proof / preflight while they are here? etc..

Create a line in the sand. If the job is one that will take more then X amount of minutes it automatically goes to a drop off order. So if the job will take more then ~10 minutes not including consulting then you do not offer it as while you wait.

 

[jrsc]

That is correct, but I think the requirements will be a bit higher than just a counter person. When contractors walk in with blueprints they will need an understanding of Acrobat to combine PDF's and convert tricky ones to images, print to the large format printers, use Command Workstation and swap out paper types on the ImagePress, be able to talk to customers about fine art and canvas printing, deal with the customers who need business cards designed, know how to load up files to see if that image can really be made into a poster, etc..



That's interesting. What is your normal turnaround time and do you ask your customers to come back? If so, how long? Is same day a rush?



This is exactly what we are struggling with -- growing pains I guess.. I'm not complaining about the work, but we need to figure out a better system if we want to stay productive.



We do have a self service WorkCentre as well as another one behind the counter in addition to our main ImagePress..

I think you missed a little bit of what I was saying. A counter person / inside sales doesn't do production. They take orders and it goes into regular production where depending on the job takes a day or more. If you want to do while you wait type stuff then you are right, you need a production guy. Depending on how busy you are you either need a production guy that is good at customer service to run the whole while you wait side of the business. They would be pretty much dedicated to that job. If you are real busy you need a two person team. Ones counter person/prepress and one production guy both dedicated to while you wait business. In addition you will need to dedicate some equipment (both printing and finishing). Preferably small quick setup, semi automated equipment like a table top auto setting folder. As far as pricing your while you wait stuff needs a completely different pricing structure from your other work, not rush charges added to regular prices. I hope that makes a little more sense. By the sounds of it you aren't set up for while you wait type business so if you really want that type of work you have some investment to make in setting up that type of business. It not really something you can just do a little bit on the side because that will end up hurting your normal business more than you would make.

 

[dabob]

I've been watching this thread for a while . . . and here my 2 cents . .

That is correct, but I think the requirements will be a bit higher than just a counter person. When contractors walk in with blueprints they will need an understanding of Acrobat to combine PDF's and convert tricky ones to images, print to the large format printers, use Command Workstation and swap out paper types on the ImagePress, be able to talk to customers about fine art and canvas printing, deal with the customers who need business cards designed, know how to load up files to see if that image can really be made into a poster, etc..

It seems you have generated a pretty good job description right there . . . if thats what you need . . . thats what you hire or find the best fit for most of the description and train the rest. Also this person must be able to look at the back of the shop and see what is actually in production, on which machine, how soon will that job be done (you could slide a lot of "quick turn" jobs either in front of the next long job or in right behind one that is currently almost done. - Its a judgement call as to what will fit and what you determine is a reasonable wait time.

The guy at the counter will be the one scheduling and responsible for juggling the schedule around to fill the cracks in the existing schedule and know which jobs can be pushed back a bit to accomodate the "wyw" customer.

I would also recommend having a morning "production" meeting so that all hands knows whats coming down the pike and can constantely adjust their areas workflow to meld in with the rest of the shop . . .

So I guess what I am saying is that you need to find a "conductor" for your shop - someone that is familiar with the processes that are going on in back and can judge which catagory the new job falls into . . . wyw or come back at xxx hour and then make the decision as to where this job fits into your workflow.

That's interesting. What is your normal turnaround time and do you ask your customers to come back? If so, how long? Is same day a rush?

Whats a "normal" job?? - 500 biz cards or 1000 letter size 4/4 flyers, or, . . .

This is exactly what we are struggling with -- growing pains I guess.. I'm not complaining about the work, but we need to figure out a better system if we want to stay productive.



We do have a self service WorkCentre as well as another one behind the counter in addition to our main ImagePress..