Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/370309
66 • September 2014 • S I G N & D I G I T A L G R A P H I C S WRAPS DIGITAL GRAPHICS Pricing Okay, so back to the pricing I briefly mentioned. Of course pricing is important to your customer and is often a big consideration. But I discuss it last for a reason. Keeping a fleet customer long term—which means you're maintaining their fleet long term—comes down to customer service more than price. I can be the cheapest guy in town, but if I'm not taking care of my customers they are going to move on. Business own- ers and managers are busy; but no mat- ter how cheap you are, if your customers can't do business with you quickly and eas- ily they will find someone else who will. You will have to be competitive on your initial fleet estimate, but be sure to show the customer from the start that your pricing comes with excellent cus- tomer service and deep expertise. You can do this through your professional sales approach, clearly spelling out where the pricing comes from and explaining how you keep track of their information for future ordering. Be sure that when you work with the customer you not only find out how many vehicles they have in their fleet, but how many they actually plan to wrap or letter at a time. We've all heard about the guy who comes in promising you 10 trucks to wrap, and wants that awesome deal on the one he's bringing you now—and then of course you never hear from him again after the first truck. If a customer wants a really good deal on multiple vehicles then we ask that they place the order, and give a deposit, on all the vehicles. Of course use your judgment here; you can usually tell how serious a company really is about actu- ally lettering just one vehicle versus their whole fleet. As part of maintaining fleet graphics accounts we also will set pricing with the company for specific fleet vehicles. This truck is X amount for graphics and X amount for installation. Each time the fleet customer orders a graphics set for that particular vehicle they know exactly how much they will pay. We have to remember to watch this over time though. We have custom- ers that go back 19 years with us, and we're still producing the same graphics for them with maybe minor updates. Of course our costs have gone up over the years so we have adjusted our pricing accordingly. Be sure that when it's time to make a price change, that you do it every couple years, or as needed, and always explain to the customer that your cost of goods has gone up X amount, and you have to raise the price on their graphics. If you do it every couple years or so then the pricing doesn't jump big amounts at one time (which can spook some cli- ents). If your costs h a v e r e m a i n e d level, then let the c u s t o m e r k n o w s that you're able to keep their pricing the same. SDG Prior to wrapping this passenger van we printed out a sample print, noting Pantone colors used, and had the customer sign off on the colors. The sample will be kept on file for future vehicles.