| Your Commitments. Delivered. |
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| Monthly Newsletter |
July 2007 |
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Get a Fully Loaded
Starbucks Card |
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Upcoming Webinar |
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Stay tuned for our
first online technical webinar this August. Watch at your
desk! More info will be sent out soon. | |
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Greetings!
Following the publication of our Printers' Bill of Rights in our last newsletter, you may be thinking, "Yeah, right! No one in our business can keep those kinds of commitments." But just like good defense in basketball, good customer service is about attitude. Think about the concept of a "rebound." Many a basketball team has moved ahead by a rebound shot that turned the score around.
We
created your Bill of Rights because we were intrigued by both the
JetBlue disaster and their response. A classic research
study done by Technical Assistance Research Programs
(a customer experience research company) says customers who have
experienced a mistake and had it resolved to their satisfaction are
MORE loyal than customers who had a "perfect"
experience. A recent survey of travelers conducted by
Compete, Inc. showed that 14% are actually more inclined to
fly Jet Blue since the Valentine's Day melt-down and re-commitment to
service that the company and its CEO have pledged. This is in
addition to the 56% of travelers whose belief in Jet Blue never wavered
in the wake of the service problems. Click here for the full scoop.
So
we're aligning our attitude with our service goals through this Bill of
Rights. By focusing on winning, having the attitude to keep
trying, and making the rebound shot when necessary, a win is
delivered! Now let's hope that new Celtic, Ray Allen, can learn to play some defense! |
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Raising the Bar 
We all know that your
customers' schedules are tighter than ever and that speed
sometimes causes important details to sometimes slip under
the radar. To raise the bar on our service levels and expand available time, we at Seaboard have made two important upgrades in our capabilities:
1. Industry veteran, Phil Rutzick, has joined our
support team
2. We have added a second shift
With
30 years in our industry, Phil's role is to assist us in
raising the bar to a whole new level in customer experience. If there is a question that comes up requiring a printer's background, Phil can answer it. After six months here, Phil can definitely say he's done it all.
Our second shift is up and running with
several experienced operators and support staff with skills in
just about every bindery function.Whether it is perfect binding,
mechanical binding, folding or assembly work we offer greater extended
hours to assist in meeting your customers' schedule demands.
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Taking the Guesswork out of Estimating
As
estimators ourselves (all of us here in the office participate in
estimating), we know all too well the difficulties you face in pricing
jobs for your customers. Things like a lack
of complete information, changing information, haranguing sales
people, and unfamiliarity with the binding/finishing process can
contribute to the challenges of producing an accurate estimate.
Part
of your job is also getting an estimate on binding & finishing
from your bindery partner. To improve the turnaround and
accuracy of bindery/finishing estimates, we need complete information
on the following:
- Quantities
- Finished size of the piece
- Binding method (or folding, die cutting, etc)
- Total pages in the book
- Imposition: number of forms, pages per form for both text and cover, how laid out
- Stocks for text and cover
- How it will be furnished to us (folded, flat, collated, uncollated, multiple up)
- Packaging (very important)
A quick estimate results when all 8 pieces of information are included in your initial request.
Click here to get the Estimating Form
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Summer means Spiral & Wire-o
Summer
is the time of year for production of school day planners. We
often see confusion about the pros & cons of spiral
binding versus wire-o binding. It can be confusing if you don't work with these binding styles a lot, so let us try to bring some clarity to the issue.
Spiral binding
is a continuous loop of wire or plastic (we at Seaboard do only the
plastic) twisted through either oval or round punch holes in the spine
of the book. The book will open 360 degrees and be very effective and nearly crush proof. Plastic spiral comes in many different colors and diameters to match the thickness of the book.
Wire-O (James Burn's brand name for double loop wire) is a series of two wire strands clamped through rectangular or square holes. Because it is attractive and inexpensive wire-o is the most popular style of mechanical binding. Wire-O also comes in several colors, although the selection is not as great as with plastic spiral.
The chief differences between the two lie in the cost and how the books open. Wire-O
will open so that crossovers match exactly, while spiral binding causes
an offset between the left and the right side so that crossovers do not
match. Because wire-o is a much more automated process, the cost is lower and turnaround is faster.
Click here for more tips on mechanical binding styles | |
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