What do your customers
really want from you?
I have talked before about the importance of the customer journey throughout your business. About ensuring that you
are asking the right questions to uncover their real needs and wants from you, as their supplier.
Vol 4 Issue 3 • WHAT DO YOUR CUSTOMERS REALLY WANT FROM YOU?
B
ut it isn’t always an easy question to answer. Sometimes we, as print
service providers, are really in touch with our customer base and know
exactly what each customer needs at any given moment. Sometimes we
think we know what they want, but need to check. Sometimes we assume
we know and act accordingly. Assumptions can be dangerous.
In reality, the only way to find out is to ask them. But that takes time and it takes
money, and let’s face it – we are all short of both. Times are tough and the days
are often spent firefighting.
So – how to improve the situation? Well – maybe one of the manufacturers in
the industry might help you. Sound far-fetched? Not any more. Canon will be
launching the latest in its series of Insight Reports – The Bigger Picture, at this
year’s Johannesburg FESPA Digital Show on July 2/3/4. The Insight Reports
were first launched at DRUPA in 2008 and have become a regular feature of
major shows since then, with reports issued at DRUPA 2008 & 2012, IPEX 2010,
GulfPrint 2013, and now for the very first time, South African specific research
here in 2014.
This Insight Report is the result of a series of in depth interviews carried out
during April this year, here in South Africa, by RS Consulting, an independent
market research company. 100 in-depth interviews with professional print buyers
– and quite possibly some of them will be your customers. All of the questions
are aimed at finding the answers to subjects such as how important is print to
their organisation, how do they see the future of print, where do cross channel
communications fit within their marketing strategy, and what will they need
from their print service providers to see them through?
It is research that you need to listen to. No printing company in South Africa can
afford to close their ears to customer needs. I get really excited about studies like
this. I am as quick as the next person to dismiss some of the figures that research
companies come up with. Often I find them disconnected with the real world.
They talk in billions of pages and billions of dollars and the figures are so vast I
can’t relate to them. But this is different. When the first European research was
launched at DRUPA I was lucky enough to be part of the team talking printers
and journalists through it at the show.
The more I read through the report, the more I realised that there were some real
nuggets of information contained within, that could help me change my business
for the better. Discussions of value, of pricing, of cross channel marketing and
media. Talk of what customers needed printing companies like mine to do better,
and where they think we can improve our service. It was required reading for
every person in our business – from sales through to production, because there
was real solid value contained within it.
It changed the content of my sales training sessions with account managers
and salespeople. I had always talked to them about adding value to a customer
relationship, and here was the absolute proof of that need. Encouraging them to
talk to customers in their language, not bogging them down in technical terms.
Too many salespeople argue that cost is the only factor in a customer buying
decision. The results from this survey proved that this was emphatically not the
case – with 47 percent of print buyers across Europe stating that value for money
was the most important criteria when selecting which print provider to use for
their work. Against only 10 percent of them quoting cost as the most important
criterion. It provided real food for thought when considering how we frame
our conversations with customers.
How do we assess what value means
to them?
To find out how the South African print buyers answered these questions and
more here in South Africa, many printers came to FESPA Africa and to the Canon
stand to discuss the research findings. All who attended the daily seminars took
a copy of the Report away with them. I will be compiling an overview of the
findings from the report for my next article in
The GAPP Magazine
. I think you will
find the results interesting and in some cases quite surprising. Print is definitely
not dead - certainly not in South Africa.
About Jo Lloyd.
Jo Lloyd is a UK printer working here in South Africa. An integral part of Canon’s
Essential Business Builder Program (EBBP) she spends a lot of her time travelling
throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa helping Canon’s customers get to
grips with new technology. She is, however, less interested in the process of
putting ink (or toner!) on paper - and more in the
way in which the print company should promote
this process to their customers. In these days of
cross media alternatives and shrinking budgets,
printers have to shout ever louder to be heard.
Her background as a print company owner and
Sales Director in the UK means she is ideally
placed to understand the challenges faced by
today’s printing companies – and to find ways
of overcoming said challenges.
Jo Lloyd
By Jo Lloyd
8
I
The GAPP
magazine
www.
thegapp
.co.za
