INTRODUCTION
by PETER GUNNING
CEO of Grafenia plc
“Hello Nettl, Tom speaking”.
This book was inspired by a conversation I overheard at one of our Nettl studios in the south of England.
As I was leaving, the phone rang.
“Yep, I’ve found you on our system.”
I’m a bit nosey. Earwigging is a splendid opportunity to learn what clients are asking.
“Sure, let me see. Yes the appointment cards. Got them.”
“Ok, you last ordered in April. The orange ones, yeh? No changes?”
Peering over his shoulder, I could see this was a local salon who’d placed quite a few orders with us.
“You went through that thousand quickly. You know, they’re on offer at the moment. Sure. Let me give you a price for two and five thousand.”
Tom hit the re-order button and read out some prices.
“Actually, since you last ordered, we’ve switched to a biodegradable lamination. Yeh, David Attenborough!”
Nice touch, I thought.
“Ok, great. Shall I use the Visa you’ve saved on your account? Splendid. That’s gone through. I’ve just emailed you a confirmation. They’ll be with you Friday. Thanks!”
Tom had been speaking for about 90 seconds. I congratulated him on the quality of the call and dashed out the door.
On the way to the station, it occurred to me how many different things had to be in place, for that call to have gone the way it did.
To recognise the caller, find the order they were talking about. Look at the artwork, get a price, set up an order and take payment. Finally, to send into production and give an estimated delivery date.
All those things have their own challenges. But to do them all, live and in front of the client, was astonishing.
Astonishing.
When we opened our very first printing.com studio in Edinburgh, more than twenty years ago, we’d be waiting for a MS-DOS system to keep up with keystrokes, faxing order forms, hunting for artwork on CD-ROM archives. Unzipping. Re-installing fonts. Wrestling with dodgy ISDN lines and transmitting files.
Over those years, we’ve developed a secret system.
It’s used in all Nettl and printing.com studios. In hundreds of design studios around the world. From Norfolk to New Zealand. Florida to Folkestone. Belgium to Bristol.
It runs every part of our operation. From preflighting to proofing. Billing to brand management. Payments to production. Templates to telephone routing. Subscriptions to shipping. It powers our websites. It routes cartons and moves conveyor belts in our factories.
It’s our brain.
We call it w3p.
Delivering a better service for clients is hard. In tech startups, you read about minimum viable products (or MVPs).
As customers, we’ve become truly spoilt.
Our expectations of a minimum viable service has intensified as each year has passed.
Think back less than a decade. To a time before you could see your taxi really was round the next corner. When you dreamed of having a cyclist bring you a Tuna Poke Bowl in twenty minutes. To a time when you’d have to travel to a computer shop for a new keyboard, after spilling water on your last one (true story), rather than getting it delivered in an hour.
You hear about businesses trying to differentiate themselves with better client experience.
But it’s much easier to say than do.
It needs attention to detail. A desire to do the right thing. And, most importantly, a system which increases the likelihood of delivering a better service.
We wrote this book to help our teams, franchisees and partners to understand where we’re aiming and, more importantly, why.
It explains the different parts of w3p, which work together to create a better client experience. With each one, we explain what it’s for, why it’s there and then how to get started.
You’ll find step-by-step guides, videos and downloads at nettl.com. For our Nettl and printing.com studios, there’s also a private
global community sharing ideas and peer-to-peer support.
For the first time, we’ve decided to pull back the curtain and show what goes on in our Nettl company studios. To reveal the systems still working, even when the chandeliers are turned off for the night.
Could those systems help you grow your business? We partner with graphics businesses like yours.
Peter ceo@grafenia.com @petergunning