Catching the big fish with Quote & Print

Rob Taylor of Taylored Systems Limited looks at how Quote & Print can be a real catch for any business.

Jeff Oliver, of Jeff Oliver Print in Whangarei, was an undertaker before he got into printing, drawn by the more relaxed lifestyle of the printing trade.  "If you think printing involves tight deadlines, long hours and pressure, you should try undertaking," he says. He now has a 14m launch and loves to get in a spot of fishing from his home on the Northland coast.

Jeff has seen a big change in his business over the last few years, driven by the advance of digital and office printing technologies, as well as increasing competition from the big-city printers only three hours away.

"Over the last three years, digital has gone from about 20 per cent to 50 per cent of our business, whilst standard lines such as letterheads and invoice books have fallen away because people use email and their laser printer instead," he says.

"You definitely have to work smarter and harder to stay competitive here. You're doing more and more runs of ever decreasing quantity, and your pricing has to be spot on".

Previously, Jeff did all the quotes for his business manually, and found that he was spending much of his after-work time working on quotes rather than doing other things he enjoyed.  He turned to Quote & Print from NZ Distributor, Taylored Systems, to solve the problem.

"To keep clients happy, you need to quote fast, accurately and consistently," he says. "With Q&P, I can do in minutes what used to take me hours, and we've set up a library of quotes so that my staff can now quote as well.  They just choose the relevant library quote, put in the quantities, change some details if necessary, and hit the button to email it to the customer."

"Our customers like the quick turnaround, and it's given us the ability to quickly tune our quotes to the marketplace so we stay ahead of the game."

So, has Quote & Print helped with the fishing?

"It bloody well has," Jeff says. "Take a look at this photo (above)."