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Why McDonalds doesn't have table service
McDonalds knows where to reduce costs on extraneous services. If it went for a full-service model - with table service and cloth napkins - then it wouldn't be able to charge the same prices for food. According to Jennifer Matt at WhatTheyThink, this is a key fixture behind McDonald's ability to be a major leader in the food service industry. It doesn't charge for something people don't want. Similarly, printing companies that offer services shouldn't charge for what a customer can't afford or doesn't need. The savings mean overhead is less and margins are better.
"Customers get exactly what they want."
For example, many printing companies have a dedicated sales and account representative for all of its orders. This is not a good idea because often the deals these employees are closing are very small. A better solution would be to offer a web-to-print store. Through this model, customers get exactly what they want, picking from the options available on a website that offers a great degree of customization.
By letting customers select their own preferences, people can enjoy the freedom that comes from having things their own way without additional issues having to do with explaining concepts to someone. If a person wants business cards, for example, he or she can choose from a selection and find the best one. For something more complex, there are additional templates and room for many different options to choose as additions. Or, someone could for their own company reduce the price of the printing job and save themselves money. This won't affect the bottom line of the printers because everything was done web-to-print, so the overhead is essentially the price of the printing itself.
An example of a company that used web-to-print
Web-to-print means having a website that is also a full-service printing center. Companies or individuals can interface with the web client to choose different options and make selections with very few touch points with the actual business. With the touch points reduced, businesses need fewer employees dedicated to client talk.
Midstates Group made the transition to a web-to-print business as part of its many solutions for different client needs. Obviously, web-to-print won't work for every solution, but for many companies it is exactly what they need. Midstates therefore created Quality Quick Print, an additional company that handles short-run, fast-turn digital and printing. This company has only 40 employees, but it produces $5 million in revenue.
"As QQP grew, we needed to improve our overall infrastructure to ensure that we could support our growth and generate more," said Justin Feickert, Midstates' VP of Sales & Marketing. "We did a study of our job flow and found that it took 11 touches to process an average job. In today's market conditions, that is simply unacceptable."
The solution was to use a quality web-to-print solution. They applied this service to reduce their touch points from 11 to two or three. This is an improvement of 70 percent, which dramatically reduces costs for the company and boosts profits at the same time.
