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The Problem Files

gordo

Well-known member
426 The Problem Files.jpg
 
Yes we did, but we got a new intern every time, and they didn't follow instructions.
 
Or "I do this job since 30 years and I never had any problems (with the other printers)" :mad:

It reminds me my old days in prepress :(... and how happy I am now doing another job :D
 
:confused: Salesman on the account: "Come on bro! This is a million dollar account! We gotta do it for them!" :rolleyes:
 
If we play our cards right and help them out, they have a ton of work we can lose money on! Make up for it on volume!
 
Seriously, if it is going to take time and trouble to TELL someone HOW TO fix their files, I’d just as soon do it myself.

That’s my philosophy and I’m sticking to it.​
 
Seriously, if it is going to take time and trouble to TELL someone HOW TO fix their files, I’d just as soon do it myself.

That’s my philosophy and I’m sticking to it.​

In theory, the problem with that is you end up fixing the same problems over and over and over. If you teach them how to fix it it should come in correctly after the first time. In theory at least, ymmv...
 
If you teach them how to fix it it should come in correctly after the first time. In theory at least, ymmv...
As far as I experienced, this kind of behaviour can have 2 responses:

- the guys who strongly believe that they know their job... those will stone-wall you with an answer like: "I do this job since 30 years and I know how to do it" or "I work with 50 other printers and I have no problem with them" or, the worst, "If you are not able to print my files, I will give them to another printer more competent"...
And generally you loose the customer. Meaning that to save the 2 or 3 hours needed to fix each job (I don't know the price of the labour in the US, but it's certainly no more than 200 bucks), you take the risk of loosing a 10 grand job.

- the guys who know that they don't know, and want to learn... those are time-consuming and you will spend hours and hours to teach them how to do the job, not being completely sure that they really understand what you taught them (which sometimes results in mistakes being worst than before the teaching), for a one color 4-pages A4 leaflet that comes 4 times a year and takes you half an hour to fix...
And after 3 leaflets the guy is fed up with this job he did pro-bono and a new guy takes over... meaning that you have to re-train the new guy each time.

If you do the maths, you'll see that "loosing" time to fix the customers' files to make them just printable is the less expensive way to work in a printshop and the best way to keep the customers.
 
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I do have some customers that aren't complete idiots and some appreciate any time I can help them with something. I do a lot of weekly jobs and making the same corrections every week to the same ads is definitely worth having them fix the problem once and be done with it. I have never had a customer leave for another print shop because I have offered to help them or asked them to fix a recurring problem.
 
I have never had a customer leave for another print shop because I have offered to help them or asked them to fix a recurring problem.
Try that with french "designers"!
In France, the instructions given to any pre-press service is always to tell the customer that his file is perfect, even if everything is crap and has to be fixed/redone.
 
Try that with french "designers"!
In France, the instructions given to any pre-press service is always to tell the customer that his file is perfect, even if everything is crap and has to be fixed/redone.

I will the next time I run across one.
 

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