Let us say something very common in print shops: The majority of “easy” sales do not come from first-time clients. New customers typically do not buy instantly, unless they are business cards or color copies that they need. To turn a prospect into a client it is necessary a marketing effort, a quote negotiation, and of course, creating a new customer profile in your estimating platform. With PlanProphet’s CRM tools this process is a whole lot easier and will help you grow your print shop.

Maintaining an active pipeline of prospects is critical to our business, but requires significantly more effort. It goes without saying that existing clients with recent orders are the lowest hanging fruit. Still, how much of your staff’s time is really being devoted to pro-actively soliciting more business from engaged buyers, rather than waiting for them to contact you again?

You can create another great plan with ideas and sales CRM tools to maximize revenue from your existing buyers. The good intentions are there, but as Mike Tyson said, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” That punch, metaphorically speaking and putting it in terms of our industry, is the day-to-day hustle of running the business and putting out active fires.

That’s why PlanProphet works. It creates a systematic, ongoing and automated approach to executing your plan.

The Top 4 things you can try today to get more business from your existing customers

• The Genuine Inquire: Create a workflow that automatically checks in on buyers 3-5 days after the order was completed. You can time out the settings not to email the same person for this purpose more than once every 3 months, or set these communications to be sent on behalf of the CSR or sales representative related to that job. The email message should be natural, brief, and have the purpose of really asking if everything went well with the order. You shouldn’t ask for another order, nor feedback or recommendation. This behavior will let clients know that your team truly cares while asking nothing in return. In a world of mass marketing and vendor-billing emails, you’ll be surprised by the amazing replies you’ll be getting from clients using this tactic… priming your path for the next order.

• The Feedback and Review Request: Enable PlanProphet’s “Feedback Request” workflow, which automatically checks-in on buyers a week after their order. Consider changing existing email language to add your own local flair, but make sure the message is clear: Get a 5-star Google review. Centers are seeing extraordinary results using this process. John Griffies from Sir Speedy Atlanta shared his experience, “In the last 9 weeks we have received 45 new 5-star reviews, which more than doubled the total numbers of reviews we had prior to using PlanProphet. As a result, I have also noticed that we are being displayed higher on Google’s search listings and that quote requests are coming into our center more frequently.”

• The Referral Approach: Use a simple and systematic process to request referrals by combining PlanProphet Tags with communication workflows. First, add a new PlanProphet Job Tag “Request Referral”. Empower everyone on your team, from CSRs to production staff, to apply this tag to any job they feel has hit a homerun. It could be a critical order deadline that was met ahead of schedule, an impressive sign installation, or a complex direct mail campaign. Now, simply create a new PlanProphet workflow to ask buyers with orders marked “Request Referral” for a referral. Set the emails to be sent 3 days after the job was finished, and not to ask the same client for a referral more than once every 6 months.

• The Re-Order Request: Use Printer’s Plan or PrintSmith’s Re-Order date field to automatically notify clients when the re-order date is approaching. Instruct your staff to add a practical re-order date to all orders that are expected to be needed again in the future. Now set up a PlanProphet workflow that runs weekly to remind buyers that an item may need to be replenished. Be sure to include the last order date and the name of the order in the email. PlanProphet offers you the exclusive possibility to use other sales CRM tools to improve your print shop. If you wish to register for a one-on-one demo, request it here. If you are ready to add PlanProphet to your center today, sign up here.

Become one of our users and you will experience the benefits of our CRM firsthand.