Howie Fenton
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Print TrendsRecent PostsSelling based on Workflow?October 13, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0) There are many ways that a company could try to differentiate their products and services from the competition. Many people talk about quality, reliability, relationships, and of course lets not forget about the all important cost. But believe it or not some try to carve out a niche based on productivity, convenience or workflow. These conversations used to be restricted to the larger huge multi-site players but with web to print we are seeing many single site manufactures (VistaPrint, Amazon) also use workflow as a differentiating factor. I am in the middle of a training program on workflow. Not for production people, but trying to demonstrate the value of a companies workflow to sales people. But workflow is a strange subject to discuss because unlike “hard-core” subjects such as machine speeds (my press runs at xxx/hr) and feeds (our mailing ...Read More Recent PostsJedi Master on Surveying Inactive ClientsOctober 9, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0) Despite the huge interest generated from the blog on Surveying Active vs. Inactive Clients (not), I wanted to offer you an update. I had a conversation with the creator of one of our survey tools about this subject. Without mentioning names this guy is the Jedi Master of surveying and I am, at best, a simple the "Jedi Apprentice" or "Padawan”. I asked the master if it was important the survey inactive customers to learn more about why they are no longer doing business. He responded: “Yes, learn more about those who left is good. But be mindful you must. Because difficult it is to get those who have left to talk to you. And as time passes, the dark side of the force takes control and more difficult it gets ”. Of course we must turn to the universal Jedi translator ...Read More Recent PostsLaptop Extended WarrantiesOctober 8, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0) As discussed in earlier blogs I admitted to owning too many laptops. Today there are probably 5 active laptops around the house and 3 inactive ones (anyone need some old Wallstreets?). Over the years I have found that laptop repairs tend to be more prevalent then desktop or the "leave at home" computers. Therefore, I am a big fan over extended 3 year warranties. In that earlier blog I mentioned that I bought a Macbook Pro from ebay and one of the criterion I use in my ebay laptop purchases is computers with extended warranties. To use a car analogy this laptop was owned by a little old lady from Pasadena who only used it to go back and forth to church. After 2 trips to my current assignment which is a Big 10 school a strange red vertical line appeared on ...Read More Recent PostsSurveying Active vs Inactive Clients and Response RatesOctober 6, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0) Surveys are interesting to say the least. I like to use surveys in two ways: first as a marketing tool to determine how customers needs are evolving (offset, digital, web to print, mailing, fulfillment, large format, etc) and the second as a customer satisfaction tool that focuses on the level of the perceived value when compared to the competition. We have 2 different tools we use for these different surveys: Survey Advantage and the NAPL Competitiveness eKG survey. I am in the middle of a Survey Advantage assessment right now and embroiled in a bit of a controversy. I combined the 3 databases of customers who bought different products over the last three years. Some are active and others are not. We are sending the surveys to the full list which includes the active and inactive customers and not getting a great response rate. The client fe...Read More Recent PostsProper Net etiquette for Social Networks ?October 3, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (2) Is it just me or are these social / business networks – strange curiosities? Every week I get requests from Linked-In and Plaxo to get “networked”. Some people I know … others I don’t … but usually they know somebody who knows somebody who knows me. My first question is why would anyone say “no” to getting “networked” – is there some hidden danger lurking around the “connection corner” that I am missing. So I say yes to the request – just because you never know if those requests will be important in your future. And then you get these announcements from the service that these people who I may or may not know are having birthdays. This is even more strange. Am I supposed to email wish them happy birthday or send them one of these birthday e-cards? What are...Read More
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