Background

Grand Rapids, Mich., with a population of 200,000, has been hit hard economically. Rhode Island and Michigan go neck and neck as the worst economies in the country as of May, 2010.

When searching for "Grand Rapids Michigan Printers" on Google, the regional map looked like a Christmas tree. There are red dots everywhere – at least 75 dots – each representing a print location. That's a competitive market. Recently, many area printers are going out of business, being acquired or struggling to survive.

Ask one local printer owner in Grand Rapids, Mich., "How is the business going?", and you would expect the typical gloomy Michigan answer – that business is tough in the worst economy, but instead you hear excitement. In 2009, they had a good year with slight growth as they invested in the future, and this owner felt confident going into 2010. He shared that this was the first time in a while he felt good at this point in the year. Many would be skeptical of this answer feeling they just heard a canned speech, but seeing what they did in 2009 and what they are doing in 2010 will change that perception.

The Project Goals

They wanted to quantify customer loyalty, client share, product quality and service quality – areas they benchmarked the last three years–working with Survey Advantage utilizing their MarketPulse Program. The program enables an operation to benchmark their performance with hundreds of printers and compare scores against over 20,000 print buyer opinions collected annually. The analysis helps identify an operation's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The final reports highlight areas to focus on the coming year. They also wanted to learn more about where they could expand. A critical goal was to determine how newly acquired customers felt after two recent printer acquisitions made in 2009. They wanted to know how these newly acquired customers were feeling about the new relationship. Another goal was testing the customers' appetite for non-print marketing services – areas critical to diversify the business. They wanted to generate sales leads by qualifying opportunities to grow each account, and learn what they needed to do to keep customers coming back every time. He also wanted to gauge the following:

• Were they winning a high percentage of the print buys within existing accounts?
• Did they need to improve their product quality?
• Did they need to improve their customer service quality?
• Were their customers loyal to them indifferent?
• Would customers buy non-print marketing services?
• Were customers aware of all the products and services they offered?
• What criteria do buyers use when deciding who gets a job?
• Where do customers buy other products and services if not from them?
• Were customers happy with the recent acquisitions?

The Results, what was learned

340 customers participated in the survey, sharing five minutes of their time to help the Allegra location. A strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats analysis (SWOT) of the results revealed that the center's top strengths were: 1) That they continue to gain client share in each account moving from 45 percent in 2008 to 54 percent in 2009, and to 56 percent thus far in 2010. Basically, customers were awarding them a higher percentage of the print purchases. According to Survey Advantage's annual benchmark data, the average in the industry is 55 percent so there is still room for improvement, but they are on the right track. 2) They are very good at managing acquisitions. Customers from both acquisitions gave them very high marks, an indication that new customers will stick around. 95 percent of the new customers were likely or very likely to recommend them to others, a major indicator of loyalty. The industry average is 90 percent loyalty. 3) They have experienced personnel that are well-liked by their customer base. The customer base stressed this was a major reason for buying, not price.

Two weaknesses floated to the top:

1. Awareness of non-print services. Only 17 percent were aware they offered PURLS and only 21 percent were aware they offered marketing planning services – two services they feel customers should know they offer.
2. Customers viewed them as a printer, not a marketing services provider. Customers explained they took print orders well, but did not ask broader questions beyond just the job. To get more into the marketing consulting game, they need to change that perception through training and asking more questions.

There are top opportunities in two areas:

1. 36 percent of the customer base would seriously consider them for anything in the marketing area. There is an opportunity to leverage the 36 percent who are serious about partnering.
2. Another opportunity is that 63 customers were buying signage elsewhere, 89 promotional products and 32 graphics design – three areas they were focused on expanding into. They now have qualified sales leads to pursue.

The top threats to the business were:

1. Trying to be everything to everyone when it came to production. They found inconsistencies among the customer segments and they need to be careful to select jobs they know they do well and a fit for the customer. Smaller customers wanting business cards may not be right for them and they need to be able to say no or team up with another printer who would cherish that work.
2. Comments revealed a weakness in their online buying processes which is leaving them open to online printers or web based purchase options.

Turning lessons learned into actions

Customer feedback is not something that the team collects and put on the shelf. They have created a system to stay connected both at the individual customer level and understand trends within the customer base as a whole. For four years, they have had the discipline to run an annual survey and take action by engaging the entire team in the process. Customers look forward to sharing with them because they see they care, get back to them with answers, and implement change. Customers become partners rather than buyers. There is nothing super creative about this except that they are deliberate about their process. The planning phase is first, where they collect customer feedback. After analyzing the feedback, they take action. They monitor and measure their actions to gain a complete evaluation, and then act on those results by standardizing new processes and rolling out new services that work. Their formula for success in 2009 (and continues to be in 2010) was:

1. Hiring a few great people who are excellent at customer service and customer acquisition.
2. Successfully acquiring two competitors and growing the top line by leveraging their current capacity.
3. Staying connected with customers in multiple ways by leveraging technology.
4. Investing during the recession instead of stopping everything.
5. Expanding in the right areas to expand services to existing customers.

Everything started with knowing the customer. Staying close to your customers on a continuous basis is difficult, yet essential. Leveraging technology makes it easy for you and your customer to keep lines of communication open. The owner summarizes by saying "I have not felt this positive at this point of a year for quite some time. The acquisition was a success and the entire team is contributing to the overall mission and priorities set for 2010".