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Northern PCS/Sprint
The Business Challenge
Imagine a sales team of fourteen for a wireless telecommunications company covering all of Minnesota and the eastern region of North Dakota. This sales team is constantly on the move visiting their accounts on a continual basis. Now imagine having to interrupt that sales flow by hunting down a quick print shop; placing an order for customized, color sales support materials; and scheduling a pick up time for those materials. This situation is not foreign to many of the sales teams out there. Northern PCS was one of them until they decided to make things more efficient and less costly.
Northern PCS is a Sprint PCS Network Partner. To their customers they are known as Sprint. With a strong name like Sprint behind them, Northern PCS needed to maintain that strong, professional image to their customers. By having the right sales materials available to their customers at the right time, Northern PCS is able to accomplish just that.
The Solution
Northern PCS found their solution in NowPrint a Web-based print submission and fulfillment solution from NowDocs. Now the sales representatives call up one of the sales support representatives (SSR) at Northern PCS to place their order. These SSRs access the templates of the sales documents on their intranet. These documents are uploaded to the NowPrint Web-based system. The SSR specifies the quantities, delivery addresses and delivery times. The materials are produced and shipped within 24 hours.
The NowPrint solution offers a great deal of flexibility that coordinates easily with systems already in place. Northern PCS had a system on their intranet that allowed for easy access to post and update sales documents as well as download for print production. NowPrint has the functionality to handle these types of postings and updates right on the Web-based system. Rather than change the system that worked well for Northern PCS, they worked with NowDocs to only use the uploading functionality of NowPrint.
The SSRs are able to access NowPrint to view Order History. This history shows the real-time status of the job, tracking number, who the order was sent to, the delivery method and the scheduled delivery time. They can also view the Details of the order such as quantity ordered, price, order specifications (ex. binding, color, etc.), the sender, the receiver and address as well as delivery method and time. When a sales representative asks the SSR to order additional copies from a previous order, the Reprint functionality makes this very easy.
Once a document has been uploaded to NowPrint, it is stored in the NowPrint Filing Cabinet system. These files can be accessed and used for additional orders without having to upload the document multiple times. Another time saving tool on NowPrint is the Address Book. The recipient information can be added to the Address Book for easy access the next time that contact information is needed.
This solution has provided the sales representatives with one place to call to place orders. They no longer need to allow for the additional lead-time for producing color materials as the materials are printed and shipped within 24 hours. Additionally, they can have their orders shipped anywhere they need to be. This solution has saved time and money.
Bruce Sanders, Director of Business Sales for Northern PCS, states, “If you are spending money today at Kinko’s and your print runs are over 50 copies, NowPrint should be able to save you considerable time and money.”
Print Production
Once an order is placed, an e-mail is sent to alert the production team of the order. Progressive Impressions International (PII), a direct marketing company that specializes in customized and personalized direct mail, produces the orders for Northern PCS. When the e-mail is received by PII, the production team accesses the Web-based NowPrint system using NowPrint’s Print Production interface.
The production operator is able to view the order specifications such as quantity, paper, color, due date, delivery information and any special instructions. NowPrint converts the uploaded document to industry-standard Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF). Conversion to a universal format reduces software incompatibility problems and assures predictable output. The operator accepts the job and produces it according to the specifications. At PII this means producing the color jobs on their high-quality Xerox DocuColor IGen 3’s or 2060 digital color printers within 24 hours. Once completed, the operator marks the job as complete in the system and it is shipped on to its destination.
Implementation
As you can see, NowPrint is designed to be user friendly from the point of the person placing the order to the production operators producing the job. In the event there is a need for unique functionality, NowDocs works to develop the appropriate solution. For example, NowDocs worked with Northern PCS to create a billing solution that fit the needs of their company. Now instead of having multiple invoices coming from their sales representatives throughout the month, NowPrint provides one invoice with five different cost centers specified. Sanders says, “The back-end accounting is simplified. Only one check is needed to pay the bill each month.”
Future Vision
Northern PCS has seen the benefits of using NowPrint to save time and money with their customized, color sales materials. They are now looking to incorporate the use of NowPrint for their sales proposals.
Having used NowPrint for a year and a half Sanders states, “NowPrint has lived up to our expectations and has been a tremendous time saver.”
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