The most successful printing companies out there are the ones that use their MIS to its full potential and are always looking for new opportunities to evolve it. This is the message that came across loud and clear during some recent interviews I had with our Implementation Specialists. I conducted these interviews because I wanted to get tips and advice from them that would help our customers get the most out of their MIS. Here's what I found.
An MIS sits at the heart of your business and touches every facet of your operations, so you need to make sure you give it a little TLC now and again. You need to regularly review it to make sure all your MIS users are inputting the correct information in the correct places. Here’s some examples:
We recommend to our customers that they dedicate one day every month to housekeeping. By keeping on top of things in this way, they will have access to metrics that will help them assess performance and forward plan. They will also benefit from having accurate historical data that they can use to forecast for the year ahead, e.g. if the past two Novembers have been particularly quiet months, they can use this insight to plan promotions or target different types of customers in new markets.
According to our experts, the most successful printers they visit have someone who understands the MIS and who is given one day each month away from their usual duties to carry out these housekeeping tasks.
Another key differentiator that our experts see among printing companies, is their attitude towards integration and connectivity. It’s those printers that invest time in creating an automated and joined up workflow that are leading the way in the industry. Some really beneficial integrations we see are:
This last example was a real game-changer for one of our customers who had created such a slick workflow using online ordering that they were generating too many orders each day to process manually. Integrating their MIS with their storefront resolved this for them and now, the first human touchpoint for these orders is when the job is sitting in their MIS ready to be printed!
When we work with customers, we like to think of ourselves as a partner, not just a software provider. We want our customers to see us as an additional member of their team, so we can help them continuously improve using technology.
So to make the most of your MIS, you should be taking advantage of this opportunity with your own provider and communicating frequently with them. They’re there to answer questions, share expertise, bounce ideas off and help during projects where they can. Our Implementation Specialists said they get a huge kick out of doing this, so don’t be afraid to make contact and build that relationship!
To stand out from your competitors and win more business, you need to target your campaigns to the right people. But how do you know which customers to target with which product?
If your MIS has a built in CRM, you can use it to see the unique products your customers and prospects are interested in, and your sales team can use this data for more targeted communications.
The printers that are using their MIS to record this sort of information about their customers are the ones that are increasing sales and delivering a higher-level customer experience; after all, a 2019 study from Hotjar showed that the second biggest frustration customers have with companies is that its employees don’t understand their needs.
So the advice from our experts is - make sure you’re making the most out of the CRM capabilities in your MIS, and that you’re recording (and using!) your CRM data for targeted sales and marketing engagements and customer communications.
Hopefully my interviews with our Customer Success team have given you food for thought about different ways you can use your MIS to level up and give yourself that competitive edge you need to lead the way. Look out for more content based on these interviews soon!
