The last few months have seen several major print companies go to the wall, and the same is sadly true of hundreds of companies in many other customer- facing industries. While businesses can of course fail for a multitude of reasons, over the last few years – particularly during and since the pandemic – lost custom is often a major factor.
This isn’t always due to poor customer service, but many companies that have gone bust in recent times have been criticised for not focusing enough on offering great service.
And while the service levels customers might expect can vary depending on the nature of the company and the type of work provided, in a world where many customers are now used to being offered quick turnarounds, easily accessible support, and even sustainability promises as a base expectation from businesses, offering them only the bare minimum in terms of service can sometimes prove costly.
Yet a recent Printweek poll that asked, ‘How important is offering great customer service?’ saw 7% of respondents say they didn’t feel service was a USP, hence they focused on other areas. Though 64% said it was vital, as their customers really valued it, and the remaining 29% said it was important, but then so was efficiency.
Service, then, is evidently not every printer’s number-one focus area. But putting it on the backburner can create problems.
“I think service is right at the heart of any successful business,” says Charles Jarrold, chief executive of the BPIF. “It’s obviously important for businesses to do their business and cashflow planning really carefully, but at the end of the day, it’s customers who provide the income that generates the revenues that underpin investment in everything else, paying the bills, and that cashflow in the first place.”
He adds: “I think service is a given, a bit like quality – if you don’t hit the mark then you’re not going to be around – but it may be that there are some markets which will be more tolerant as what might be defined as low levels of customer service, and some markets which require much higher levels of customer service, so it does depend enormously on the markets.
“My experience has been that, for the markets I have been in, customer service has been important and a factor in retaining work and winning new work, but you still have to operate within a very competitive market which sets a narrow band of what’s going to be acceptable commercially in terms of pricing.”
The BPIF offers a customer service apprenticeships programme, which Jarrold says typically gives those either coming into or within customer service departments a framework to look at and to support them, helping them to understand how to deliver the best customer service to their clients.
Likewise, fellow industry trade association the IPIA is also on hand to offer customer service support to its members. And general manager Brendan Perring says its members are usually happy to help each other out too.
Perring notes that technology has, in many ways, made customer service easier, but warns that the human touch should not be overlooked.
“The progress of technology in our industry when it comes to web-to-print, online ordering, emails, automation and so forth has meant that it should be easier than ever to provide efficient customer service and ordering facilities for your customers.
“There is a double-edged sword though in that for many years, and certainly among our membership, the best performing businesses really progressed through personal relationships.
“So even though we have all of this technology at our fingertips, it should actually be seen as a way to give your team more time to build those relationships with customers, and you shouldn’t cut your team or your service levels.
“A personal contact, a phone call from an account manager, or if they are in your top 10% of clients a physical meeting with them even, is really important.”
He adds: “The old adage ‘people buy from people’ remains true today. And that’s not to say that [companies] need to be naïve about the fact that in order to remain competitive, they do have to have highly efficient automated digital systems.
“Because you can clean up probably a large proportion of day-to-day customer needs through automation – having a chatbot that deals with basic stuff, like ‘what’s my account number?’ or ‘where’s my job?’. But that should not be at the expense of sacrificing your personal outreach to customers and actually having a relationship with them.”
To offer the service levels expected of them, print companies need to be able to rely on their kit, so expect a similarly high level of service from their own suppliers – particularly should anything go wrong.
In 2022, HP started to offer Professional Print Service Plans – described by the manufacturer as “a new breed of professional grade production management service” that offers service support to deliver maximum uptime, optimal digital workflow, and training.
Daniel Martinez, general manager at HP Large Format, says that this service enables customers to keep printing.
“For a PSP [print service provider], printing is mission critical and therefore we take it very seriously. Our Professional Print Service Plans are really the best way to keep the highest level of SLA with HP.
“We’ve tried to make it a very compelling offer because it also includes a lot of productivity and tech, it’s not just a break/fix.”
Fujifilm Europe digital press and print manager Mark Stephenson, meanwhile, says Fujifilm uses a range of methods to service its customers.
“Waiting for an engineer is not an option anymore, you need to be able to remotely diagnose, you need to be pre-emptive about your diagnosis, and you need to look at somebody’s output during the day and say ‘based on that, I can see there may be something we need to address very soon’, and warning customers in advance.
“We’re also using all the tools available to analyse and communicate with customers on a more timely method than telephone, or sending somebody out. There are several ways of doing that and we’re trying to bring those together. We’re going through a massive expansion of our service and capability at the moment.”
Eight Days a Week Print Solutions (EDWPS) won Customer Service Team of the Year – SME at the 2022 Printweek Awards and – following business growth since – is shortlisted this year for Customer Service Team of the Year – Large Enterprise, alongside Bluetree Group’s Route 1 Print and SMP Group.
EDWPS managing director Lance Hill says: “There’s an old saying that you’re only as good as your last order or the last job you produced for your customer, and your reputation is nothing if you don’t deliver on your promises.
“For me, whatever you do in probably any industry or any business, you should always start with your service and build everything around that. And yes, you’ve got to be efficient and good at what you do, and you’ve got to have all the accreditations, and that sustainability is core, but ultimately, it’s the customers that pay the bills and come back again and again when you do a good job.”
Hill says it’s also important to collect and respond to customer feedback to help drive continual improvement, particularly as the company is ISO driven, holding 9001, 14001, 27001, and 45001 certifications.
As well as the feedback it gets via Google Reviews and Trustpilot, the company asks its customers directly for their thoughts via an annual survey.
“On the rare occasion that we get something negative, it’s about how you deal with it, and quite often you can build stronger relationships off the back of a cock-up, because it’s about how you approach it, and how you rectify a problem, and being very transparent with the customer,” says Hill.
The IPIA’s Perring adds: “No business made up of human beings can ever be perfect. You can try your best but there is always going to be a mistake or an issue, and so having a complaints process is important.
“But on the other side, you’ll get times when a customer has issues in their own business or indeed their personal life that could mean they are making an erroneous complaint or a criticism online of your company that might be unjustified.
“But I think taking that personally or dealing with it in a negative or confrontational way is never going to help you, especially if it’s an online or public review site. If something is the customer’s fault, is it ever a good idea for you to point that out? It’s a much better approach to gently explain where the process went wrong without actually finding blame.”
Following the pandemic, communication with customers has changed in many ways – the world has moved to be more remote, and many customers have become more willing to accept a certain level of automation – chatbots routing or even answering queries for example – when it comes to service.
This does, however, often depend on the type of job, the industry a business operates in, and how much personal support a customer might need.
Advances in AI are likely to change the face of customer service further still in the coming years, although to what extent exactly remains unclear.
The BPIF’s Jarrold says: “I think it’s really important that organisations explore AI. I think it can automate a lot of tasks, but it doesn’t mean that we need to disengage from that human element.
“There are some things that we can uniquely do in terms of building relationships and understanding customers’ needs and levels of happiness or satisfaction, which AI and technology can again help us gauge more easily, but somebody is going to need to interpret that and then take action, and that’s going to be a person.”
Ultimately, then, the human touch is still proving as important as ever when it comes to customer service, and great service can clearly still be a differentiator.
EDWPS’ Hill concludes: “Some people will say that customer service is a given, but I don’t always agree with that, it is about going above and beyond. If you deliver a job to the quality, standard, and timeliness that a customer is paying for, and they then pay the bill on time and you don’t hear anything back, you might think ‘yeah, we’ve done a good job there’.
“But for me it’s about what more can we do, how else can we improve, and how else can we differentiate ourselves from our competitors and just go that little bit further.”
OPINION
Great service still remains a crucial differentiator
Jo Causon, CEO, The Institute of Customer Service
With our 2024 UK Customer Satisfaction Index (UKCSI) at its lowest point since 2015, it has never been more important to invest in service as a business asset – whether you’re serving consumers or other businesses.
In the current economic climate, UK customers are increasingly discerning. They are searching for both better value, and to be better valued by organisations. It’s a similar situation for B2B customers; tighter budgets means fostering strong relationships is vital.
Our latest UKCSI results show that this desired value is not being provided. Not only has customer satisfaction dropped in every sector, but the gap is widening between those topping the table and those at the bottom. Our research also shows how this could be strongly impacting business performance. 41% of customers who are dissatisfied with a business say they avoid using it again.
So, customer service remains a key differentiator, and with tangible benefits too. Our research shows that 31.3% of customers say they are prioritising excellent service, even if it costs more, when purchasing goods or services.
And we can see this trend in the financials, with our research showing businesses with higher satisfaction scores also have 10% higher earnings than their competitors.
My advice for business leaders is this: treat service as a business asset rather than a cost, strategise about it at board level, and invest in training your customer service professionals. Don’t over rely on technology – while new digital tools are an important addition to your service arsenal, they should be just one channel or touchpoint available for your customer, with a human always available if needed.
Organisations doing it right are embedding a service culture rather than viewing customer service as a standalone initiative or a department, and they are seeing clear returns from doing so.
READER REACTION
How important is great service to your business?
Mike Roberts, managing director, PMG Print Management
“Service, and how we are with our clients, has got to be everything. It’s probably harder for some manufacturing entities not to focus in on productivity because of the investment required, but I think that’s where the key strength of a good, mature print management model differs: you are dealing with clients to share your knowledge and give them the insight to make things happen for them and that directly links into the service aspect. You’ve got to basically give the client what they want when they want it, within the realms of what’s reasonable, possible and financially viable.”
Natalie Puttock, CEO and founder, NPC Print
“The biggest part of our business is customer service; it’s crucial to retain clients. We won an award last year through the SME News for the most client-focused commercial printer in Surrey for 2023. I can say hand on heart: we have never lost a client – touch wood – because they’ve been upset with what we’ve done, and most of my clients I’ve worked with for 10 years or longer, that have moved across to us from my previous business. We’re extremely flexible and just work to what the clients need, providing it’s possible.”
Tom Maskill, sales and sustainability director, Webmart
“Service remains central to our business. We see a lot of firms using technology to automate the customer experience as far as possible, to keep cost down. Our approach is to use technology to augment and improve the customer experience. Automating paperwork and low value-add tasks to free up our customer services team to focus on delivering value to our clients. This approach has delivered a 96% customer satisfaction rate, something we measure formally every six months, and remains a key reason our customers choose Webmart.”
