When proofs aren't proofed

[MailGuru]

With all do respect - if no one at the printer noticed the error do you think that the printer would be accused of not watching out for their customer' back? Do you think that the printer is at fault for not catching the customer's error?

Absolutely not. The printer in this case is totally without blame.

When the train does jump the track, as it will from time to time, nothing pisses me off more than, while following the work flow to ascertain what happened and why, I come across an employee that says "You know, I thought that looked a little strange when I was printing it............." (Me with with head in hands)"THEN WHY DIDN'T YOU SAY SOMETHING TO SOMEBODY!"

BTW: I like the tongue-in-cheek "do respect"

 

[dabob]

With all do respect - if no one at the printer noticed the error do you think that the printer would be accused of not watching out for their customer' back? Do you think that the printer is at fault for not catching the customer's error?

Well Gordo . . you are dew an answer (one pun deserves another) and it would not be the printers fault if they didn't notice but they would be a hero if they did . . . I'd rather be a hero anyday . . .

 

[smalloffsetpressexperts]

Russian Hackers? Who cares......It will be fixed, people love to complain anything Trump does so just reprint it and stop finger pointing please. Move along there is nothing to see here.

 

[davarino]

never heard that from a customer . . . at least for that reason

I have heard it. It's a fine fare thee well. They usually go broke within five years afterwards.

 

[MailGuru]

With all do respect - if no one at the printer noticed the error do you think that the printer would be accused of not watching out for their customer' back? Do you think that the printer is at fault for not catching the customer's error?

Gordo, just out of curiosity: If it were your shop, and, you did catch the error, would you continue to run the job incorrectly simply because you have a signed off proof from the customer?

 

[David_Modprint]

Even your post has a boo boo....

"The President's official portrait as sold by the Library of Congress (since removed fro their website):"

 

[gordo]

Even your post has a boo boo....

"The President's official portrait as sold by the Library of Congress (since removed fro their website):"

Obviously a screw up by the PrintPlanet webmasters! And they didn't catch it but published the post anyway! They must be asleep on the job! Terrible customer service! I shall consider taking my posting custom elsewhere in the future!

! ! !

!

 

[David_Modprint]

Laughing with you, not at you.

 

[dabob]

Even your post has a boo boo....

"The President's official portrait as sold by the Library of Congress (since removed fro their website):"

NO . . that was not an error . . . . it was a test to see how observant the Print Planet group is . . .

 

[David_Modprint]

I can offer my resume?

 

[keith1]

During my days as a press operator I became very adept at spotting errors. I was especially motivated if I didn't feel much like working that day. By that time of course, the job had been plated and costs were involved. Still saved whoever was to blame a lot of money and made me look like a star.
Now that I operate my own business (design, pre-press, print sourcing) I still spot errors. I could look the other way. That's just not in me. Customers are always appreciative.
That's one of the failings of online print services. Your average customer may be able to get cheaper printing. But your average customer also knows nothing about preparing a file for press. Online printers are so automated that files aren't checked by a human eye. Eventually these people will get burned. I advertise my file checking as a free service - no responsibility. I've saved clients thousands. They rely on me for my experience.

 

[CClyde]

Try this...

Dear new client, please sine the following contrakt:
We, your printer, have full athority to pull your work off press, or stop its praduction at any point it is in our posession, with full costs incurred to be payed by you the client, whenever we sea something we think is not correct.

 

[kansasquaker]

We apply this policy to certain customers - mainly large corporate entities. Their internal procedures make it impossible for us to get a quick answer about potential customer caused errors. They also make it nearly impossible for us to get reimbursed for the additional expensed incurred to fix their mistakes. Moreover, nobody on the other end cares that much about errors. The agency is responsible for content, so it's not their problem. Even if we get past all that, we have to prove the defect is not our responsibility which is a ton a paperwork we don't get paid for. All that makes it a losing proposition to try and help them.

They are, however, happy to pay to have the piece reproduced from scratch after they discover the error.

It's definitely not the way I'd prefer things, but we're not big enough to set the rules. It's their ocean, and we're just swimming in it - no sense fighting the tide.

 

[dabob]

Kansas . . . I can appreciate the fact that when dealing with a "corporate entitie" you will never get a timely response, in addition to that they (most likely) do not get their artwork in when agreed and still expect the job to be done before it was promised to be completed. But most of us out here are smaller shops with non corporate customers or at least smaller corporate customers. We too have jobs that the schedule does not allow pulling the job or stopping the press for an hour while we get a response. But with, at least with my customer base, we find that we can take that luxury and notify them of any question and get a speedy response . . . sometimes when we get the art we will just change it an inth like when they give us a border that is a 1/16 of an inch from the edge of the sheet . .. we cheat and down size it a couple of % pts to make it a border that will look good when we are not perfect and they never notice. But when there is an obvious error, as indicated in my prior example, we couldn't sleep at night knowing that we let that one go and now we have 40,000 pieces that will have to be rerun 4/1, die cut, and then shrink wrapped in 25's then shipped all over the nation . . . just saving the UPS charges make up the difference in that hour we had to wait to get the correct art and back on the press . . .
Different markets, different decisions . . . .

 

[MailGuru]

Different markets, different decisions . . . .

I can understand, and fully appreciate both sides of the argument. In our market, we have to pay very close attention to every piece that we produce. We're probably not like most of the other operations in this forum. We are a "Mailer", that, just happens to also digitally print what we mail. We are the customer's last line of defense before those pieces end up in millions of mail boxes across the nation. Once that job is presented to the postal service, it's too late to fix anything. In that context, every employee in our work flow is expected to put forth their best effort to find anything wrong with a job before it gets mailed.

For instance, years and years ago, we did a 400k piece mailer for a well known family and sea-life oriented theme park. The recipients were instructed to call a 1-800 number on the mail piece to take advantage of the special offer. Turns out that the 800 number printed on their piece was actually a pornographic phone sex line. It was their supplied art, and we did nothing wrong, but the Public Relations mess that it created was enormous. People lost their jobs, the park lost revenue, it was on the news, etc. They even had to pay the owner of that 800 number a large sum of money to purchase it and shut it down. We got to mail the same 400k again with a "sincere apology" letter and a corrected phone number, but, the damage had already been done. To this day, anytime we proof a mail piece that contains a phone number, we will actually dial that phone number to verify its accuracy.

 

[dabob]

Mr. Mail . . . gotta go with you on that 100% . . . phone #s and with a date, ie Thursday, November 15, 2017 . . . we always take a look at a calendar and make sure that the date and the weekday match . . . very easy to check, only takes a minute, and in your case the postage sometimes exceeds the cost of printing the job itself . . . Oh and btw I think I recall hearing about that snafu on the news . . . now I can put a name to the mistake . . .

 

[MailGuru]

Mr. Mail . . . gotta go with you on that 100% . . . phone #s and with a date, ie Thursday, November 15, 2017 . . . we always take a look at a calendar and make sure that the date and the weekday match . . . very easy to check, only takes a minute, and in your case the postage sometimes exceeds the cost of printing the job itself . . . Oh and btw I think I recall hearing about that snafu on the news . . . now I can put a name to the mistake . . .

Yep, that was us.

We also extensively look at the customer's mailing list. Not just the usual CASS, NCOA, & cleanup. You'd be surprised how many businesses use the 2nd and 3rd address lines for various comments that need to be stripped out before mailing. I've seen instances where ticket clerks have put things like "Belligerent Guest", or "A-- Hole", in those alternate address lines. Can you imagine getting a mail piece in your mail box that is addressed to:

John Smith
A-- Hole
123 Main St
Anywhere, USA 12345-6789

Every time something like that happens, it creates a PR nightmare for the client.

 

[gordo]

Yep, that was us.

We also extensively look at the customer's mailing list. Not just the usual CASS, NCOA, & cleanup. You'd be surprised how many businesses use the 2nd and 3rd address lines for various comments that need to be stripped out before mailing. I've seen instances where ticket clerks have put things like "Belligerent Guest", or "A-- Hole", in those alternate address lines. Can you imagine getting a mail piece in your mail box that is addressed to:

John Smith
A-- Hole
123 Main St
Anywhere, USA 12345-6789

Every time something like that happens, it creates a PR nightmare for the client.

I guess there's personalized mail and then there's too personalized mail.

 

[dabob]

And now . . . for the rest of the story (kinda)

Several years ago we had a customer (Ad Agency) that was doing work for a major high end ice cream company (10,000 folders). . . They supplied us with the files and the job was, as I recall 6/6 on a very expensive stock, varnish two sides then make into pocket folders . . . . so we run the 6 color inside and varnish it, turn the job over and start running the outside . . . ran the 4/color and then we were running the pantone solids on the outside . . . well about 7500 sheets into the next to last pass when the pressman noticed a hickey . . . it was through most of the 7,500 sheets - so here we are a pallet of expensive paper a bunch of ink on the sheet and we screwed it up. We are all looking at each other trying to figure out what to do - how to tell the customer that the job would be delayed and that we get to pay for the stock again . .. . . as we sat there beating our heads on the desk, the pressman comes through the door and announces . . . "you guys are not going to belive what I just found! Theres a typo on the job, they had mispelled "ice ceram) on the outside text block . . . We all looked at each other, having just dodged a bullet and give the customer a call and tell them that during the production of the job, while it was on the press our pressman discovered a typo . . . .The customer was estatic since we caught it before getting all the ink on the sheet and the die cutting charges and said to reorder the paper and get the job going again ASAP . . . it was a couple of thousand bucks worth of paper alone . . .

We have never given a 2nd thought about looking for errors in any job since then . . . and never once has a customer complained about us calling them with what they might think are stupid questions .. . because stupid mistakes are much much more expensive!

 

[gordo]

And now . . . for the rest of the story (kinda)

Several years ago we had a customer (Ad Agency) that was doing work for a major high end ice cream company (10,000 folders). . . They supplied us with the files and the job was, as I recall 6/6 on a very expensive stock, varnish two sides then make into pocket folders . . . . so we run the 6 color inside and varnish it, turn the job over and start running the outside . . . ran the 4/color and then we were running the pantone solids on the outside . . . well about 7500 sheets into the next to last pass when the pressman noticed a hickey . . . it was through most of the 7,500 sheets - so here we are a pallet of expensive paper a bunch of ink on the sheet and we screwed it up. We are all looking at each other trying to figure out what to do - how to tell the customer that the job would be delayed and that we get to pay for the stock again . .. . . as we sat there beating our heads on the desk, the pressman comes through the door and announces . . . "you guys are not going to belive what I just found! Theres a typo on the job, they had mispelled "ice ceram) on the outside text block . . . We all looked at each other, having just dodged a bullet and give the customer a call and tell them that during the production of the job, while it was on the press our pressman discovered a typo . . . .The customer was estatic since we caught it before getting all the ink on the sheet and the die cutting charges and said to reorder the paper and get the job going again ASAP . . . it was a couple of thousand bucks worth of paper alone . . .

We have never given a 2nd thought about looking for errors in any job since then . . . and never once has a customer complained about us calling them with what they might think are stupid questions .. . because stupid mistakes are much much more expensive!

I smell a future RErint on this.