Recently a customer placed an order for 500 frosted cards with blue, white and holoprint ink. We all though that this particular design looked wonderful and without any prompt the customer very nicely emailed the following to us:

“Just recieved my order from you and everything was perfect even though I have only had dealing’s with your company through e-mail I found your service very professional and efficent and I look forward to using your service’s in the near future.”

Its great to receive feedback and to to hear that they are a satisfied customer.

As always we welcome any feedback positive or negative – we always look to improve things where we can.

I wrote a blog a few days ago regarding a plastic cards order which had been stolen while it was in the couriers delivery van.

This particular order had a deadline and the theft rendered the original design un-usable.

The customer submitted a new design, which meant that the card could still be used. This time however they incorporated a signature panel/write on strip to allow a table number to be written on the cards which would identify the user.  We produced the new design with the signature panel/write on strip (we decided not to charge the customer additional money for the strips as after all the theft was not their fault, come to think of it, it wasn’t our fault either however we do try to ensure our customers are happy).

The replacements cards are due to be delivered today – please cross your fingers for us and the customer.

Some plastic card examples

We have been using good checkout for over a year to process payment for plastic cards orders. There has been teething troubles and we still don’t consider this the easiest online payment method however due to our adwords account we have benefited from free transaction processing.

However form the beginning of May 2009 the free transaction processing is being abolished and quite an extensive tier of pricing is being implement.

We like to offer our customers as many payment options as possible however the new charges google are planning to implement may rule this option out for us.

We have always thought it unfair to charge customer a surcharge for paying by credit cards however I guess if someone insists on paying via google checkout after May we may have to look at a surcharge.

Some plastic card examples

We had a customer who was desperate to receive there order of plastic cards as they wanted to post them out to attendees of an event.

I phoned the courier company mid afternoon to see if they would be kind enough to provide any kind of update, unfortunately they were unable to do this.

At 5.30 our customer still had not received there order of plastic cards, so I rang the courier company again. This time they informed me that the courier van had been broken into & there would be a slight delay, however the order would be delivered by 6.30pm.

This time came and went and no delivery was made. The next day the courier company contacted us to tell us that our customers order has been one of the parcels stolen from the break in.

This was such a shame for the customer as they really needed their plastic cards.

Lucky the customer had another idea up there sleeve and instead of handing the cards out as pre-event tickets they would actually hand them out on the evening as an information card.

We are in the process of re-printing the cards for the customer and fingers crossed this re-print will be uneventful.

It just goes to show you than the unexpected can and does happen. If you know you need plastic cards for an event, get them ordered sooner rather than later so there is plenty of time for anything unexpected to be resolved. I guess this is true of anything in life not just plastic cards!

Some plastic card examples

We offer a sample pack free of charge to customer who have received a quote for plastic cards and wish to place an order.

We feel it is important for customers to be able to assess the quality of the plastic cards before they place an order. In additional some trade customers need samples to show there customers – in which case we are more then happy to post out unbranded sample cards.

The sample pack also ensures that the customer selects the right product for their needs. For example quotes may have been provided for the 420 micron plastic cards and on receiving the sample pack customers often decide that the 680 micron plastic cards are more suitable, as it is thicker and provides a more professional image.

We have found recently that we are receiving more and more request from people who simply want samples. These people do not seems to be interested in receiving a quote. We are thinking that people who are just looking for samples are merely looking for design ideas and are phoning a number of companies in the industry looking for ideas/free sample cards. In these cases we are apprehensive to post  samples out as they do take time and money to prepare. In addition to this how can the customer know that they wish to place an order with us if they don’t know our prices! Quite often they do not even know how many cards they wish to order or simply don’t want to place an order at all, they are just looking for anything free that they can get there hands on!

Our website does show many photos and even video clips of previous designs we have printed and we are obviously fine for customers to peruse our website at there leisure.

It may unfortunately come down to charging for sample packs, not to make any additional money, just to cover the cost of them. We really don’t want to go down this route however the expense of producing sample packs is high and the return from producing and posting them is relatively low. One option may be for us to charge a nominal amount and refund this should an order be placed.

We are looking to update our website with more photos to help potential customers.

Any ideas to help this situation would be appreciated.

Some plastic card examples

We like to think that our website is informative and geared up to assist our customers as much as possible. Our website clearly shows all the products we offer, namely:

Frosted plastic cards
Satin Black plastic cards
Metallic plastic cards
Full colour solid plastic cards (3 thicknesses available)
Full colour solid plastic key cards
& Matt laminated cardboard business cards

We offer example prices on the website for the satin black, frosted, metallic and matt laminated cards. The full colour plastic cards have so many optional extras that we feel it is not practical to include prices on the website, we do however offer a prompt online quote request service.

I would say that most quotes are replied to within 5 to 10 minutes however at busy times this can be longer. A lot of our customers think we have an automated quoting system as we often provide so quickly however I can assure you that we physically put each one together ourselves.

For the products which have prices available on the website we do not have a separate quote form however if customers feel they can not define their quote online they are free to email us and we will reply very promptly. Often it is useful for the customer to submit there artwork so we can assess the best product for them.

Our quote request forms have been developed over a number of years and I guess they will be adapted more in the future when we realize things that can be worded or done in a better way. If any one has any comments in relation to the quote request forms please fell free to let us know.

Some plastic card examples

Although our website is informative and provides clear prices for our plastic card products and an online quote request form for the full colour solid plastic cards, some customer still wish to talk though there ideas.

This is no problem at all but can be difficult sometimes to get all the required information correctly.

In addition it can be useful to talk over ideas and help the customer to selected the correct product.

An example of when it can be difficult to take details over the phone is in relation to the customers email address. Occasionally human error will creep in and email address is taken down incorrectly. Its a shame when this happens as quite often 10 mins or more have been spent on the phone discussing the options, another few minutes for us to actually put the quote together and then the customer never receives the quote.

I would recommend to all customers who phone for a quote, just to pop a quick email over as well confirming there email address.

Its surprising how long and complicated some email addresses are!

Some plastic card examples

We have had lots of orders for plastic key cards this month. In comparison to the full size plastic cards we have not offered this product for a very long period of time (perhaps just a couple of years now – doesn’t time fly!) however I would say that the keycards as just as popular as the full size plastic cards.

It really is a great product as has lots of potential uses. We typically have shops, garages and clubs using this product. Most people are familiar with this product due to Tesco introducing them for use with the club card scheme. Its funny how many people email/phone asking for a quote for the tesco key cards, its as if this is now the known name for small plastic cards! We simply refer to them as key cards which measure 29mm x 54mm – we try to keep things simple!

The plastic key cards are particularly used a lot by garages, as when the garages customer have a car serviced etc they can pop one with the key when it is returned to the customer so that they will have the garages contact details for future reference. Our garage customers constantly mention that this has been a great success for them as this has resulted in more repeat customers for them.

We can offer the plastic key cards card with barcodes, numbering, personalisation, metallic gold or silver base cards & metal rings (as optional extras).

Bye for now

Some plastic card examples

Oh wow, we have had an over welming demand for very short turnaround times on plastic cards orders this week. We have managed to meet most customers requests however unfortunately we have had to decline a few orders due to the unrealistic timescale we were provided with.

I have now devised a standard template to email customers who require a rush order, it goes something like this:

Thank you for your enquiry, your deadline for plastic cards is very tight indeed. Are you able to extend this at all?

I am going to email over a quote to you shortly however I am unable at this stage to confirm whether or not we are able to meet your deadline. I am unable to confirm this for a few reasons including the following:

1) We may not be able to print your design;
2) Your artwork may take longer than expected to be finalised by yourself;
3) More order’s may be processed by us while we are waiting for your artwork, which means  your deadline has become unrealistic.

Please email your finished print ready artwork over to our specifications (see  http://www.cpcards.co.uk/templates.html for details) as soon as you can. I will then arrange for this to be reviewed in detail to ensure that we can print your design. I will at the same time confirm whether or not we are able to meet your deadline.

Please note that we will not promise you a timeframe that we can not offer however we do ask for your full co-operation in ensuring the order is processed as quickly as possible.

We will look forward to receiving your artwork and I will email your quote over shortly.

End of email.

Basically we are trying to ask customers to see things from our point of view, we never fib to customers (like some companies do) & promise things that we are unable to deliver. We are an honest company and want things to be right for our customers however we are reliant on correct information being provided to us. OK occasionally things do go wrong, but hey everybody makes mistakes sometimes. When things do go wrong we do everything we can to resolve the situation as quickly as we can.

We are just about back on top of things now so if you have a short turn around time for plastic cards please let us know and we will do our best to accommodate!

Some plastic card examples

We had an enquiry today regarding keycards from a potential new customer. They had been to numerous websites, shopping around for as usual the best price, not necessarily the best product or the best product for the price (guess the best value for money.)

They had found some very cheap keycards from one of our competitors. However, once we pointed out that this cheap keycard product was not a solid plastic card (which ours is) but instead it is a paper core with plastic on the outside – we got the order, despite being more expensive.

It just goes to show that you have to be careful with what you order, as not all products are the same, even if at first they appear the same. Our keycards are printed onto a white plastic with a clear pvc bonded to each side to protect the print. Some companies print onto paper then laminate clear plastic to the outside which results in a lower quality keycard which can become dog-eared, can de laminate and if it gets wet it can fall apart!

I have seen what a keycard with a paper core looks like after it has been on a metal keyring with keys in someones pocket for a couple of weeks – it doesn’t look good.

Some plastic card examples