The cards incorporate a built-in landscape screen about the size of an iPad screen which plays video footage as soon as the card is opened. The cards will incorporate play, pause, fast-forward and rewind buttons, and other buttons, pressed through the card, for various videos. This will enable the company to offer a range of tutorials on installing the machines and offering trouble shooting advice.
The cards will be offered as a substitute to an engineer installing the vendor’s CreaseStream mini desktop creasing and micro-perforators. Graham Harris, managing director of Tech-ni-fold, said that the company would always lend service support in person where requested, but that this new initiative was designed to save customers the approx £300 cost of having an engineer install the systems.
"A lot of people haven’t got time to see demonstrations. This supports that kind of method of business where people look on the web and order something through the post. This adds to this and gives the user that bit more confidence to order it, take it out of the box and gets started as soon as possible," said Harris.
He added: "There’s no reason why we shouldn’t put it on some of the more high-end machines and even eventually the Tri-Creasers, because if we’ve got someone who hasn’t paid attention to the product training there’s always a couple of question marks, but if we put one of these into the box we’re absolutely sure it’s going to answer the questions once those sales people walk off."
According to the developers of the video card technology, the identity of which Harris declined to reveal, this is the first time a company has used the system for instructional purposes.
Tech-ni-fold will be demonstrating the instant-play video card technology at the British Inventions Show, Barbican Exhibition Centre, 24-26 October. The vendor will also be delivering technical demos of the CreaseStream mini and hosting a Christmas card challenge where visitors compete to crease as many cards in 60 seconds as possible.
Tech-ni-fold is offering free tickets to the show. Contact the company on 01455 554 491 to secure one.
