Back in the early 1990’s WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) was the buzz acronym. The mantra of this probably rings truer today than ever before. Not with desktop publishing, where the acronym came from, but in sales and product delivery. Today it seems ever more so that that this definition has slipped. But yet it is true. Is it the fact we now have a generation who expect anything?

Or is it that the realisation of service, attention to detail, not feeling like a ticket number in a virtual queue, drives more value than the face value of a product? In an industry where yes you can buy product stupidly priced online, is the satisfaction there? We have refused from the beginning to allow ourselves to be pushed into this arena. It simply doesn’t work for us. We actively encourage a positive relationship, where understanding our customers is paramount to us growing what we do.

Asking questions about what you want with your print provides us with the opportunity to ensure you get the right product or right service. Last week the print gods aligned some great examples of why starting with the words of “the price is…” really don’t pay.

True story, we accept that clients will look around, and will place print elsewhere. Needless to say, a call at 12 noon of a Friday with… “we’ve been let down, can you…” really drives home what we do. Less than 18 hours later their job was ready for collection. Yes, it was a rush premium job, yes, we had to get a same-day drop from one of paper merchants to print the job, yes, we stopped well into the evening to get the job done. Points of learning, given more notice, we could control the costs, thus bringing it in more on a sensible budget. So why did they place it elsewhere, who knows (they do) I suspect a rock bottom cheap price.

Another true story… After 2-3 years of courting a prospective client, they have recently come on board, I’m hopeful they will stay on board with us. However, we found that our attention to detail asking questions about their brand, understanding their pitch to their clients, resulted in a job, which has shifted perceptions of what they can do with print. It’s also made them question a lot of the content they use on social media.

Regardless of what you do, the end result is the key. Return on investment yes is important. The right planning, ensuring you get what you want when you need to deliver a project is key. Longevity and method are more significant than a cheap hit which doesn’t understand your needs from being a number in a virtual queue. So perhaps the wise print buyer knows that a low-ticket price doesn’t fully deliver everything and “What You DON’T See Is What You Get”