Few print shop operations can afford inefficiency. Ordant, makers of the most popular price-estimating software in the print industry, offers these suggestions on how your shop can eliminate time-wasting practices and become more profitable:
- Keep your products, services and pricing consistent. Frequent changes slow your overall process by confusing clients and requiring time to educate employees. When both clients and employees have a clear idea of what your shop offers, transactions are completed much more quickly.
- Train your employees. Everyone should understand as many facets of your shop’s operation – so long as quality is maintained. Knowledgeable order-takers, for example, are critically important to your process. Their ability to advise clients helps reduce mistakes in production and ultimately provides clients with the products and services they want.
- Consider full-service solutions. Sub-contracting certain services can save time and money while providing the client with quality. But are you employing subs too extensively? Make a critical examination of the way your shop operates. There may be some processes you can do more cheaply and better than subs.
- Limit the amount of time employees spend online or on their phones. Emails, social media, shopping, scanning the news or chatting on the phone can consume huge amounts of time during the workday. Establish straightforward rules for employees’ access to the internet, document them, have your employees sign that they understand the rules, then enforce them.
- Discourage multi-tasking. Develop a system in which employees can focus on a single job at a time. Rather than accomplishing more, employees who do more than one task at a time often make mistakes that must be remedied later.
By eliminating the need for re-entering information into separate applications and simplifying order-taking, Ordant’s print shop management software solution is a time-saver. Request a free software demo or check out our informative software videos to learn more.