Customer Requests

I Need Training Manuals - In the Morning!

A regular customer contacted us recently late on a Friday afternoon with an emergency.

"An executive is flying in tomorrow. We need 14 training manuals for a special meeting tomorrow (Saturday) morning. It's a mixture of color and black & white printing, with some colored papers, hole punched, collated and inserted into ring binders with tab dividers. Can you do it?"

We can - and we did. While the job sounds simple, it contained a number of elements that would challenge many small print shops - especially those who believe business hours are, without exception, 8:00 to 5:00. Flexibility and innovation are the key elements to our success.

The customer's originals arrived at 7:15 p.m. One of the owners and a dedicated part-time staff member immediately began separating a rather large stack of color originals from black & white originals and started the scanning and printing process using both a Xerox DocuColor 12 and Xerox DocumentCentre 440. As the printed sheets for each section were completed, they were sent to the next phase - trimming and hole punching. As more sections printed, finished pages from previous sections were put into the correct order and inserted into ring binders with tabbed dividers. Once every page had been inserted, a customer color cover sheet was created, printed and inserted into the binder covers.  The finished manuals were placed in boxes around 2:30 a.m., ready for delivery.

I Need Some Business Cards

A retired government official wandered into our shop around 11:30 a.m. one day with what seemed like a typical order. It wasn't. Here's the conversation:

Official: "I need some business cards printed for a meeting I'm going to. Just black ink on white paper [card stock], nothing fancy, just my name and address."

Customer Service Representative: "We can do that. How many do you need?"

Official: "Only 50. How long would it take?"

CSR: "We usually ask for five days, but most orders are usually completed in one or two days."

Official: "Um, well..."

CSR: "Since this a small order, and quite simple, I'm sure it can be complete overnight, ready to pick up at 8:00 a.m."

Official: "Um..."

CSR: "... Um? ... What time is your meeting?"

Official: "You see, [long pause] it's at 2:00 p.m. .... Today. Can you have something ready by 1:30?"

We could - and we did. Most business cards can be designed and prepared for printing the same day (or, in this case, the same hour), and even orders much larger than 50 cards take relatively little time to proof, print, cut and package. This customer's order was ready just an hour later. While we don't encourage waiting until the last minute, if you do find yourself in an unexpected bind, we'll do everything we can to help.

Running for Public Office

A recent candidate for state office never quite knew when a campaign opportunity would arise. For several months, it was not unusual to get an early-morning phone call (or voice mail message) like this: "I'm leaving my house now. I need 2,000 more campaign business cards. I'll stop at your front door in 45 minutes to pick them up." Since we keep digital masters of virtually every production job we do, as well as a good supply of the most commonly used paper materials, we were able to meet the candidate's needs - every time.

This same candidate once stopped by to pick up an order - only to find our building almost completely dark. We weren't closed - a sudden, severe thunderstorm knocked out power to the entire town. In order to complete the order, we had started the backup generator, and ran drop cords to each piece of equipment, in turn, to complete production. The candidate was on his way, with finished cards in hand, with only a 15 minute delay.