Welcome to your very own Behind the Scenes with Route 1 Print. We understand how important it is to know who’s involved in your print journey, so, we’re starting at the very top of the chain. Meet James, our Head of Customer Experience. The powerhouse behind the quality and execution of the contact you make with us day in, day out!
1) Can you please tell us what your name is, what your job title is and how long you’ve worked at Route 1 Print?
I’m James Hayes, my job title is Head of Customer Experience and I’ve been here for two and a half years!
2) Can you tell us a little bit about what you do?
Absolutely! I have the pleasure of working with the Customer Service Team, Studio Team, and the Account Management Team, along with our Marketing Team, our Core Technology, and Web Team.
On a day-to-day basis, I look at the volume of work that’s coming through to us from customer demand as well as the output in terms of sales and production. I also ensure that our customers’ journey is as smooth as possible.
3) What does a typical day look like for you?
A typical day for me starts with meeting and greeting the team. At Route 1 Print, we’re very much about the people driving our processes and our performance, so I like to ensure that they’re in a really good place, with the tools they need to engineer a really good customer experience.
I’ll also go on to do a little bit of reporting as well, ensuring that I’ve got my finger on the pulse of our customer’s feedback. Using this feedback, I’ll translate it into what this means for sales and production. I’m also always keeping abreast of any client feedback we receive, through platforms like Trustpilot, and NPS, and ensuring we’ve got a strategy tailored to these so that me and my team are able to continually improve.
4) Can you tell us about your team?
Let’s start with the Customer Service Team, which is our biggest team. We currently have 14 Client Executives who are all client-facing daily, this team is led by Chloe, our Customer Service Manager and two team leaders, Claire and Dan. On a day-to-day basis, they’ll ensure that we are meeting our clients’ needs and they’ll be the ones who will be dealing with their demands and helping us make observations, all whilst also going through plenty of training, coaching, and feedback to deliver the best service.
We also have a Studio Team that’s 9 strong at the moment, again, we have two team leaders in there, Jonathan and Sharon, and they’re led by Helen Davies, who is our Studio Manager. Helen ensures that all the artwork that comes through to us is processed correctly, whilst her team supports our clients to make sure that they’re going to get print that meets their expectations.
I also run the Account Management Team, we currently have seven account managers and we’re even looking to grow that team again. Our Account Managers look after our clients in terms of proactive contact. Our Account Managers ensure that we’re really partnering with our clients to ensure we’re meeting their print requirements. They also create relationships with clients where they feel comfortable reaching out to us, and us reaching out to them, to ensure they’re getting as much value as possible from Route 1 Print as a brand. Me and my team are also always keeping an eye on changes out there in print so that we can help our clients grab new opportunities.
5) What kind of customers and industries do you work with?
Ooh crikey, lots! At Route 1 Print we deal with a lot of traditional print resellers, many of which have been in print for many, many years. Essentially, we have a lot of clients with a host of experience in the print world. We also tend to deal with a lot of print resellers, but there’s kind of a spectrum.
We deal with people who are not so au fait with print too, but they’ve found that print has a margin that they can make some profit out of. We also deal with a lot of creatives; creative people or creative companies that have print as a large part of their offering. Right at the other end, we have some clients that rely on us, sometimes because print isn’t their run-of-the-mill thing. These clients are often used to things being a little bit more digital but they still see and understand that there’s a demand for print, so they can utilise us to help them specialise in that area.
6) What does good customer experience mean to you?
I’m a certain type of customer, I’m what I would call a competitive driver. I want things yesterday, I want it quick, and I want it to be correct, I’ve got a high drive for perfection shall we say. There are a lot of our customers who are exactly the same as me but there are a lot that aren’t as well.
The one thing that I believe, and our brand is set up on, is creating as little effort on the customer side as possible. So, simply communicating with clients in the way they want to be communicated to is a massive reduction in effort for them. With that in mind, we try and make their journey with us as smooth and as effortless as possible. Not only do they get the benefit of really well-crafted print at the right price, with the right delivery, but they don’t have to put in a great deal of effort. We want to look after it for them.
7) How do you know what customers want and expect from us?
Great question, right back to the start of this interview, we do a lot of analysis, looking at client feedback, taking in every single piece, and weaving that into our strategic approach. We also have what we call in the brand ‘mood music’. Out of the 500 and odd contacts that we take in a day from clients, our front-line people are continually feeding information back into the brand to say, ‘hey we’re picking up on this’, ‘this is going really well’ or maybe ‘hey our clients are having a challenge in this area’ ‘is there something we can support them with’ and that happens on a day-to-day basis.
This important feedback we get is then kind of boiled down and crystalised into some actual actions for our team. We’ll make actions based on that, but it’s also an ever-shifting strategy. We know we need to keep our finger on the pulse of client requirements, wants, and needs because it is always changing, especially in the economy we find ourselves in at the moment.
8) What do you think makes Route 1 Print Customer Experience stand out from its competitors?
I believe it’s because we still put the client at the heart of everything we do. Yes, we are a business that wants to be in profit, but we’re not profit maximisers, we’re actually purpose maximisers. We know that if we put the client at the heart of everything we do, and if we strive to take the effort out for our clients and make dealing with us as easy and enjoyable as possible, they will continually come back to us. This is how our clients see the value of Route 1 Print, that we are here in the good times but we’re also here for them when things aren’t going quite well.
If our clients need support, or if they need to challenge us on anything, we’re absolutely happy to do that. That client focus, that client centricity, is something that I don’t believe you get anywhere else in the print world.
9) What do customers tell you they like most about working with Route 1 Print?
I think they find us human. Even though we are an e-commerce business, they know that they can pick up the phone and have a discussion with any of my team.
With the Customer Service Team, it might be about an order that’s already in or a client may have a general enquiry. If they want to discuss future orders and use Route 1 Print to build their business or engage in a business development discussion, our Account Managers are there and dedicated to supporting those clients. If they’ve got a challenge around how to set up artwork or they need some support, our Studio Team is there.
That human-to-human touchpoint we offer is something that we protect, and we know that’s one of the things that really appeals to our clients. That it’s not just a process, that there is a person at the end of it.
10) Based on your experience, what advice would you give to a trade print customer?
The advice that I would give to a trade print customer is to utilise our ability and skills. At Route 1 Print, we will probably talk to more trade printers than a trade printer ever will, we’ve got a heck of a lot of trade printers on our books. This means that we’re able to pick up on all the information that the market is seeing and help trade printers to benefit from that.
Talk to us! Talk to us about the challenges or the opportunities that you’re seeing and utilise our strengths and our skills to make your business even better than it is today. Just get in touch!
11) Lastly, what do you like most about working for Route 1 Print?
Working with my team! It’s amazing, you can probably sense that we wouldn’t be as well a performing unit if it wasn’t for the people, so for me, it’s investing time in my people, I really enjoy that.
Also, the challenges that we face, no day is the same at Route 1 Print. We definitely have a framework, but we also have permission culture to move around in that framework to get the very best results for our clients. So, yeah that ever-changing evolution of the industry and how we meet the challenges or meet the opportunities of that really keeps me on my toes, and I like that because I’ve got a lot of energy.
As you’ve read, there are so many people involved in our customer facing services, so why not get to know them even better? Up next, you’ll be hearing from Chloe, our Customer Services Manager. She’ll be telling you all about the ways she and her team keep on top of your enquiries, why she enjoys getting to interact directly with you, our customers, and how she’s upskilling the team to deliver even better service!
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