Within the Web2Print world, there are a variety of ways one can add value for a customer – particularly if they are still considering the benefits of purchasing. You want them to accelerate their decision process, of course, but without pestering them or being overbearing, which can lose the entire sale.
A Foot in the Door
We managed to arrange a meeting with one of the world’s largest travel companies aimed at students and young people; getting this initial foot in the door was no mean feat and they were most gracious to grant us some of their time.
While this client already collaborates with us for the provisioning of some of their marketing material, questions arose regarding the existing contracts already in place, with other suppliers. At the meeting, we discovered that they have several divisions that all order their print independently from each other. They do source some of their marketing collateral from other printers – and are still under contract for certain items – but they were interested in whether we could undertake to fulfil some of their merchandise requirements, as well.
Naturally, as the best in the business, we always welcome a bit of healthy competition, so we investigated the limits of our Web2Print platform to see how we could exceed expectations.
The Extra Mile
In a word, yes. Yes, we could provision their merchandise – furthermore, yes, we can also provide a central ordering platform whereby marketing collateral from all of their suppliers could be hosted. This wasn’t something they expected, but why not make a special effort for a customer, especially one as high-profile as this?
The client was giving us the opportunity to quote for provisioning their merchandise, but to really add value, we mentioned that even if we didn’t win the work, we could still route their orders through our platform, to their preferred supplier. This would give them a platform that all of their divisions may use, making their respective ordering processes much, much easier, while also ensuring we will always remain visible to our clients.
While this central ordering platform required some development work and meant a spot of additional cost to ourselves, I’m sure you can see the long-term benefits, both to ourselves and for our client.
By going the extra mile, by provisioning our clients with something truly useful to them, we put ourselves in the position of being able to win extra work. By adding value to an ordinary proposition, we may even be able to win additional work, once their existing contracts terminate.
A Helping Hand
Our normal pre-sales process involves setting up a demo site and then letting the client go nuts. Find things they hate; eliminate them. Find things they love; make sure they’re reproduced where relevant. The usual pre-sales negotiations tend to run this way.
In this instance, however, this client requested a video of the website itself, walking a viewer through the various features and procedures for using the Web2Print platform.
What a fantastic idea! In this instance, it benefited us further by giving the client a small, portable medium with which to extoll our virtues to their other, separate business-divisions, all of whom do their own, individual print-ordering. We have adopted this method, now, for all of our major clients – adding value with a helpful video means giving the customer exactly what they want!
For more advice on pitching, or for an initial Web2Print consultation, contact us on 0800 043 3000 or request a free demo here
