The secret to running a successful organization isn’t actually much of a secret of all. It’s not about offering the best product on the market, though that certainly helps. It’s not about out-innovating the competition. It’s not even about offering mind-blowing value for money. Ultimately, the secret to success comes down to one thing – simply providing great customer service.
It’s no secret that we love our clients. Our clients are why we’re here. They’re the reason we come to work every day, earn a good living and afford a healthy quality of life outside of work. We’re very humble in recognizing that we could create award-winning package designs time and again, have the most advanced print systems in the world, even offer the best bang for the buck, but none of that makes a difference if we don’t treat our clients with the respect they rightfully deserve.
Offering great client service ultimately comes down to the people we have on our team, the sort of character they possess and their ability to act cool-headed and professional regardless of the situation. To foster and embed that mindset within our organization, our approach is to treat each other here internally like a client, too. This creates an overall culture of goodwill and a positive workplace environment, while developing the reflexes necessary to provide exemplary customer service, always, regardless of the situation.
“We approach every interaction like it’s a customer interaction,” agrees Dave Whalen, Supervisor of Customer Service with Bellwyck. “Externally, internally, even out in the community. Our philosophy is that, from the top down and throughout our organization, if we nurture a consistent attitude of treating others the way we would want to be treated ourselves, good customer service simply becomes second nature. We’re proud of the way we relate to our customers as well as each other; a positive attitude definitely makes even everyday tasks more rewarding.”
One of our greatest satisfactions is going the extra mile for our clients by trouble-shooting a difficult problem and subsequently innovating a solution that becomes a new, higher standard we can adopt company-wide.
For example, a Canadian nutraceutical client we work with had negotiated a listing with a major retail pharmacy chain in the United States. On the original quote for the order, we had only estimated one coat of gloss but the retailer’s standards called for a second coat. This requirement put us in a tight corner but we figured out how to push our press to the limit and apply both a gloss and a soft-touch coat in a single pass, saving our client money while delivering a superior product. Our client was over the moon, with everyone from the President to their customer service reps reaching out to express their gratitude, and we’ve subsequently been rewarded with 30 SKUs.
Another time, a client was interested in incorporating a new style of raised-ink printing that involved us having to send the packaging out to a trade printing house in Toronto to apply and then send it back to us for a final pass, die-cutting and shipping. When we received the materials back from the external supplier, we noticed the raised print wasn’t holding properly and was flaking off the substrate. We ended up developing a solution internally that provided the same stunning visual effect while keeping everything in-house which saved our client money and time. This unique and innovative printing solution is now something we can offer all our clients.
But what’s the number-one thing we believe we can do to offer the highest quality of service? Simply get the job out on time. As a design and printing house, we’re smack-dab right in the middle of our clients’ supply chain. If we don’t get a job printed on time, the dominoes start to fall pretty quickly. Production lines are affected. Inventories get pinched. The most dreaded nine-letter word in retail – backorder – starts looming like a black cloud over everyone’s head.
We’ve always taken timely delivery extremely seriously, which is why we’ve traditionally managed to provide on-time shipments over 99% of the time. From the moment we get a PO, we talk to production and make sure we have the materials and capacity required to get the job done within the necessary timeframe. If there’s even a whisper that we may be late, we freely communicate this to the client to manage expectations and possibly collaborate on a plan-B solution.
Like every production and manufacturing firm on the planet, COVID-19 has presented some uncomfortable challenges in our own supply chain. Board has become the new gold, so we have taken this opportunity to partner even closer with our clients on forecasting and improved planning to keep our printing machines humming and our clients’ shipments rolling out the door. Thanks to the rise of Amazon, corrugated cardboard supplies have also been pinched; again, we’re taking this same longer forecasting approach to keep up with demand.
We’re all in this together, and we’re definitely all in this for our clients.
