Today we have been very busy with rush orders and we anticipate we will also receive a lot of rush plastic card orders this week. However, because of the Easter bank holiday weekend we are losing 2 working days (Friday and Monday) so this does not help us or the customers with a fast turnaround for those orders that are needed ‘yesterday’

However, as usual, if you have a rush order, email your artwork and details to us and we will see how we can help you.

To assist with the hassle that the Easter bank holiday causes, we are advising customers whose orders are being dispatched on Thursday to be delivered on Saturday AM, unfortunately, this does cost extra but will help to ensure that the customers plastic card order is delivered on Saturday AM rather than on Tuesday the following week.

Some plastic card examples

We often have customers requesting email proof after email proof with very slight changes to their artwork. The email proofs we provide are basically just the customers own artwork sent back to them.

We provide email proofs to ensure that the artwork has not become corrupt and that we have the correct files for them (e.g. we have not by accident selected the wrong one from our printing files). Customer seem to use them to proof read there own artwork! This really is not the point of them and basically causes unnecessary work for both the customer and for us.

We obviously want customer to be as happy as possible hence providing email proofs to ensure the artwork is correct. However we do really need to receive only the finished final, print ready, signed off artwork. Its such a shame that some customer consume so much of our time meaning that we can not help more customers in a quicker space of time.

We had a customer today who requested a 3rd email proof to show round a meeting they are having on Friday and they can not even confirm there embossing requirements which may mean a 4th submission of artwork.  We are wondering why they can not show their own artwork around the meeting? Surely this wold be easier for all concerned!?

Any comments would be welcome. We do not want to upset customers but we simply do not have enough time in the day.

Some plastic card examples

Well its the end of the financial year again and we are busy ensuring all invoices etc have been entered into the accounts. We would prefer to be assisting customer with there plastic cards orders however unfortunately government regulations and forms beckon.

Hopefully the year end will not disrupt our working practices too much and we will be up running at full steam shortly.

Lets hope that in the new financial year the economy picks up for all our customers, we wish you all the best of luck (good management goes a long way!)

Some plastic card examples

When customers send us their artwork for plastic cards, unlike other plastic card printing companies, we check the artwork to ensure it is to the correct specification and that it will print ok.

If the customers artwork isn’t to the correct specification we either tell the customer this and ask them to send it to the correct specification or if we are able to fix the artwork, we do so free of charge, but we also advise the customer of this – just so they know.

Obviously, it takes time and resources for us to fix customers artwork, full artwork specifications can be found here.

Some plastic card examples

We have recently found that the majority of people who ask us to send a sample pack of cards, want the samples to look at the cards for ideas for designs.

Unfortunately, our sample packs don’t include many cards as the idea of them is to show the quality and finish of the cards.

So to assist both our customers and potential customers we have created this website which shows many different design examples for all the different card types that we produce.

We hope our customers and potential customers find this this website useful.

We intend to add more images to the website when we get a chance, but we don;t want to add too many as it may easily overwhelm anyone looking through it, we need to find a good balance.

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

Just a quick couple of tips for those of you with signature panels / write on strips, who seem to be having trouble actually writing on the strip. The following are reasons we know of:

Reason the pen may not work on the strip: Grease off fingers may cause a layer between the write on panel/signature panel and the pen – basically meaning than the ink can not stick to the strip.
How to resolve the issue: Try to handle the plastic cards with non greasy hands, you may need to wash your hands and try another card.

Reason the pen may not work on the strip: The pen you are using on the strips may have fibers on the end of it from use on laser/photocopied paper. Fiber build up can prevent the ink being released from the pen and/or the pen nib skidding across the signature panel.
How to resolve the issue: Wipe the nib of the pen with a clean cloth and try again

Reason the pen may not work on the strip: Perhaps its not a signature strip / write on panel at all! Maybe the customer never opted for one to be applied to their plastic cards – shame on you!
How to resolve the issue:  Order plastic cards with strips in place next time!

Sorry I know that last one may not be very useful but just wanted to make sure you actually consider that this is a possibility!

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