Sweetwater: What Sweet Customer Service Sounds Like

Sweetwater deserves a spot on my bumper. When I apply a bumper sticker to my car I never use the space to promote a political position or ideology. Instead, I use the bumper as a means to promote and thus reward companies that provide amazing customer service.

Customer service for music instruments and pro audio
Thanks Sweetwater for the customer service that came with a 12-string pack, picks, iJam and new strings for my Henshaw Limited Edition Fender Telecaster.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a Sweetwater bumper sticker. Instead, I’ll share my experience with Sweetwater here at the LexJet Blog. While part of my reason for sharing is that great customer service should be rewarded by sharing it with as many people as possible, the other is to share some tips on what great customer service looks like, or in this case, what it sounds like.

I found Sweetwater whilst searching the Web for someone who carries the iJam and accepts PayPal. The iJam is a device that allows you to plug your guitar into your iPhone or iPad and play and record said guitar with GarageBand.

I ordered it expecting the typical online shopping experience, which is basically an email verifying the order, and that’s about it. What I got instead was a follow-up call from someone personally assigned to my account, Jason Koons, to see if I had any questions and to let me know he was available if I had any questions or needed any help with the iJam when I received it.

Jason wasn’t pushy; just helpful. The iJam shipped as promised, and was packaged with a catalog and some candy as a nice extra personal touch (I gave most of it to my kids; I don’t have a sweet tooth).

Jason keeps in touch via email ever so often to let me know about sales and new products at Sweetwater. Again, Jason doesn’t harass me and I appreciate the helpful check-up correspondence.

I’ve had problems here and there with products I bought online that didn’t show up on time (and one time not at all). In such cases I wasted a lot of time punching 0, 1, 3 and various other digits on my telephone keypad to finally talk to a human being, who is usually located overseas in a land that rhymes with Bindia. Not so at Sweetwater. I call Jason and usually get Jason, and if I don’t someone else is right there with my account information and ready to help.

My most recent order was a couple of sets of guitar strings and some picks. It wasn’t a big order by any means, so I didn’t expect the same service this time around. Wrong. Same service, despite the fact that my order was less than $20. They called to let me know that they didn’t have the exact same style of pick I ordered in stock and recommended a similar style. Fortunately, I’m not that picky (pun intended) and went with their suggestion.

Ultimately, Sweetwater has picked up a customer for life simply because they treat me like a person and not a number. I know they’re likely to get the order right the first time, and even if they don’t I’ll receive individual attention. Sweetwater doesn’t just say they value my business, they show it in tangible ways.

There are many facets to customer service – an easy to use and navigate website, logistics, the right products and other supporting systems – but if you lack that all-important personal touch the rest is all for naught.

Canon’s Digital Learning Center Now Available on the Fly for Mobile Devices

Educational resources at the Canon Digital Learning CenterAs mobile devices become more ubiquitous, digital imaging vendors are providing mobile apps and sites so you can take their tools on the go. Case in point is Canon’s new dedicated mobile site at m.learn.usa.canon.com, which accesses the Canon Digital Learning Center (CDLC).

Canon says the new site has been launched to help make the CDLC’s educational content and resources easily available from any smart phone or tablet. The site allows mobile users to access Canon’s collection of technical articles, tutorial videos, image galleries, PDF guides and events calendar in the field or on the go.

Viewers can also register for Canon Live Learning workshops from their phones or tablets. The CDLC mobile site is optimized for use with Apple’s iPhone, as well as Android and Blackberry devices.

So, if you’re working on a Canon printer, for instance, you’re not tied to the computer and you can follow along with the tutorials on your mobile device. Click here for the Print section at the CDLC. Other sections include Photo, Video, Explorers of Light, What’s New, Workshops & Classes, an Events Calendar and Galleries.

For other helpful Canon iPF large format inkjet printing tutorials, check out the Canon iPF Printers and Workflow playlist at LexJet’s YouTube channel.

Canon also announced a new library of Wireless Files Transmitter (WFT) setup guides at its Digital Learning Center. The guides serve as a resource to professional photographers who currently use, or are curious about Canon WFTs. The step-by—step PDFs are fully illustrated and include instructions for all WFT modes, network configurations and popular operating systems.

A Decorative Art Original: Soicher Marin

Soicher Marin, based in Sarasota, Fla., is the classic American success story. Ed Marin, who is the second-generation owner of Soicher Marin, has maintained the original vision, aesthetic and point of view of the company when it was conceived in the Los Angeles area in 1959 by Harry Soicher.

Inkjet printing decorative artworkEd’s father joined Soicher in 1960, coming to America from Argentina with $125 in his pocket he had borrowed to make his way in the land of opportunity.

Marin was a framer by trade, and the pair took their individual talents into the decorative art market, serving the interior design, home furnishings and home fashion trades. By 1972 Soicher Marin was national with showrooms in every major market. Harry Soicher passed away in 1974 and Ed Marin eventually took over operations in the early ‘90s.

“At that time a lot of us were showing up at trade shows with the same types of products, because the universe of printed art was supplied by a handful of people out of New York and London,” says Ed Marin. “My dad was buying antiques and other artwork that was in the public domain, or he would find an artist he wanted to publish, and we would go to offset printing and do limited runs. It was great because it gave us our own identity and point of view, and we were able to do things exclusive to us. The problem was that you had to be right all the time; if you made a mistake you were sitting on a lot of wasted paper, so we were very cautious about the images we put out and how we put them out.”

Art reproductions for home furnishing and decorWhen inkjet printing became a viable method of art reproduction, Soicher Marin outsourced it at first, but when it became more affordable to purchase the equipment it was brought in-house with an Epson printer and an Onyx RIP.

“We were 100 percent exclusive with our art within a year; we didn’t have anything we were buying from anyone else. We were and are very much a content-driven company and it’s been allowed to happen because of this breakthrough in technology,” says Marin.

All of Soicher Marin’s artwork is produced in-house. Marin acts as the “chief art director,” as he puts it, to ensure that a consistent look is achieved. The Soicher Marin “look” is drawn from both natural history and contemporary art. Either way, it has what Marin calls “a historical perspective” unique to Soicher Marin, which you can see in the accompanying photos.

“If we have a point of view in the industry it’s driven by the aesthetic I want to put out in the market. I have catalogs from our company that date back to the mid-‘60s and ‘70s. Obviously, the artwork and colors are different, but the aesthetic and point of view is not. There’s a common thread that runs through the product line. It’s not a conscious effort; it’s just how we think and the people who come to work here and have become involved in our design process come to see it that way as well.”

The Soicher Marin aesthetic is not forced; rather, it’s a natural extension of a corporate culture that encourages creativity, independence, leadership and customer service. Moreover, the emphasis is on the art, not the technology used to create or reproduce it.

Producing decorative artwork in-house“We don’t over-embellish, over-layer or over-digitize the artwork. We let great art speak for itself. Our biggest responsibility is to reproduce it with the highest fidelity. And the same goes for our framing; we’re very careful about the materials we pick and how we treat the art. We have a less-is-more approach to our design,” says Marin. “Although we have densitometers and other devices that help us reach the optimal, our employees have it down to an art – it’s less science and more art.”

The young artists who work at Soicher Marin are intimately involved in the design process. Marin says they’re given a lot of leeway to “go off the reservation,” and it’s encouraged. By immersing them both in the Soicher Marin aesthetic and independent creativity, the Soicher Marin brand is enhanced.

“There’s another component that’s less obvious and it’s that there’s a certain rightness to our design and point of view. In the biography of Steve Jobs I found that there was a lot of discussion about his obsession with design. There’s a design thread that runs through Apple’s products, and you can see that someone put a lot of thought into each product. There’s a certain organic nature to it,” explains Marin. “We can’t say why it is exactly that the iPhone and all the other products are so pleasing to the eye, but they just are. We look at it the same way. We obsess over small details that change something very slightly, then people stand back and say it looks right, whether it’s scale or color, and that’s the part of organic design that people have a hard time describing, but they know it when they see it. It’s something I think we accomplish here as a team.”

Designing decorative artwork for residential and commercial applications
Soicher Marin designer Thom Filicia (left) and Ed Marin.

This is an integral part of the culture, but most important are the elements of customer service and leadership. For Soicher Marin, customer service begins within the company itself. If that element is lacking, serving the end-use customer will surely lag.

Therefore, great emphasis is placed on interpersonal and interdepartmental customer service. The art department is the digital department’s customer, for instance, so the digital department must please its internal customer first. “That’s the service culture we want,” says Marin.

To foster leadership, Marin explains, “Everyone is a leader and has a responsibility to someone else. My responsibility is to mentor them, teach them, give them my time, listen to their concerns, bring them into the general conversation of the company and work on their leadership skills. Then, their job is to do the same thing with everyone under them. Even if they leave our company, we may hate to lose them, but if they lead somewhere else because of something we taught them, we look at it as a service to the community.”

Like Soicher Marin’s design aesthetic, it’s the little things that make the difference in customer service. In other words, it goes far beyond providing a great product on time. It means answering the phone, showing courtesy and giving customers all the time they need.

Framing decorative art
Ed Marin, second-generation owner of Soicher Marin, Sarasota, Fla.

“Our customer service people have the best job because they get to talk to the customer, even when that means fielding a complaint, since a complaint is often an opportunity to not only make it right, but to solidify that relationship. My dad used to say that it costs so little to keep a customer; it’s much more costly to find them than it is to keep them,” says Marin.

Marin adds that the recession has made things difficult for the entire decorative art market. Soicher Marin made because of a brand that’s more than 50 years old. “The power of the brand is almost infinite when times are tough,” says Marin.

The Soicher Marin brand is strong because the company takes a collaborative approach to branding. Soicher Marin chooses partners wisely; partners that have the same dedication to quality and detail. For instance, Soicher Marin designs artwork for Lillian August’s furniture collection for furniture maker Hickory White.

“Lillian August has a beautiful furniture collection with Hickory White and she will collaborate with us on the design of all the pictures that are supposed to go with her furniture, so it’s a de facto collaboration with an important brand like Hickory White. Our customers know that the licensing relationships we have are really strong and collaborative, which makes our company still relevant after all these years.”

For its art reproduction, Soicher Marin’s choice of giclee materials is purely subjective and vary from LexJet Sunset Photo eSatin Paper to LexJet Sunset Fibre Matte and Sunset Hot Press Rag, as well as canvas reproductions with LexJet Sunset Select Gloss Canvas and Sunset Select Matte Canvas.

Soicher Marin releases four sets of collections per year. Its two “major” seasons are spring and fall, and its two “minor” seasons are summer and winter.

“The type of art we bring to the table will determine the medium we put it on. If it’s photography, for instance, it could end up on an eSatin, a fibre-based or rag paper, based on what the image is,” says Marin.

Again, it’s the seemingly minor and subtle choices that make Soicher Marin so unique and successful in its offering. As Marin puts it, “We don’t just sell prints.”

For more information about Soicher Marin and its collections, go to www.soicher-marin.com. 

LexJet Moves this Weekend: How it Works in Your Favor

LexJet moves to new offices in SarasotaThe time was right for LexJet to move into new offices. With Florida’s commercial real estate market in the doldrums and the opportunity to design the perfect space from scratch for its employees, LexJet seized the moment to create a state-of-the-art technology center that uses technology to ensure more personal interaction with its customers.

“We had the unique opportunity to design the space to our customers’ needs, which was our number-one priority. Our next and equally important priority was making it as employee-friendly as possible. After all, happy employees mean happy customers,” explains LexJet founder and CEO Art Lambert. “Our customer is never out of the reach of their customer specialist, as well as important and timely information about their account and the delivery of their products.”

The new offices are awash in the latest WiFi technologies, including Mediascape digital signage centers that provide real-time delivery tracking and various alert boards to keep account specialists updated on potential problems, like severe weather, that may affect product delivery. The new office was designed with functionality in mind. WiFi and the digital signage system will allow for meetings on the fly and employees to work from anywhere in the office.

Moving logistics and technology
Almost there... Final touches are being made to LexJet's new offices, which are designed to make it easier for customers to connect with their rep quickly and find what they need when they need it. There will not be (and never has been) any Press 1, Press 2, Prensa Quatro nonsense when you call into LexJet during regular business hours, just a friendly person on the other end of the line ready to help.

“Since one of our policies is to connect our customers with a real person in less than ten seconds we will have an alert board that flags our customer specialists when someone is on hold so they can hop on the phone immediately and take care of the customer,” explains LexJet’s CIO Pete Petersen. “We’re able to wirelessly project any screen from any system in our network so that we can make real-time, informed decisions for our customers. We’ll also upgrade our Cisco phone system platform for smart phone integration. Customer specialists can tie in their smart phones to their extensions so that they’re available anytime, anywhere. It’s really about making technology work for personal, customized support.”

The new office space, located just a block or two away from LexJet’s Fruitville Road headquarters in Sarasota, parallels LexJet’s overriding goal to provide the best customer service experience in the industry while being fiscally responsible.

“We’re being very frugal and sensible with this – how we spend our money and where we spend it. We’re not building the Taj Mahal,” adds Lambert. “We spent a lot of time and effort searching for this space and took advantage of the fact that Florida’s commercial market is down as well as incentives from local, county and state governments. We’ll end up spending less than if we had stayed in our current space.”

The big move is scheduled this weekend, Feb. 26-27. LexJet’s offices will close today at 8 p.m. EST to begin the transition to the new space over the weekend. There will be no interruption in service and LexJet will be ready to roll on Monday morning, Feb. 28.

LexJet’s new address is:

1605 Main Street, Suite 400
Sarasota, FL 34236

Have Fun, Build Business with Simply Postcards App

iPhone iPad iPod Touch app postcardsLet’s face it. People still love to get mail and enjoy their hand-delivered paper products. The death of print has been greatly exaggerated. What we often see instead is a complementary merging of digital and print.

Case in point is Simply Postcards, a division of Simply Canvas and Simply Color Lab, which recently introduced a new app that allows you to create your own postcard digitally and have it printed and sent to the person or business of your choice. The app can be used with an iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad or at the Simply Postcards website. The Droid app is scheduled to be available next week for Droiders, or whatever you call someone who uses a Droid.

“The app is easy and fun, and everyone I know who uses it loves it,” says Dean Lambert, LexJet vice president, who has been overwhelming the U.S. Postal Service with postcards to friends and family.

Lest you think that Simply Postcards is only a means to send birthday cards and such to loved ones, it’s actually an excellent tool for business. Check out a few of the 1,001 ways in which pro photographers are using the app to stay in touch and follow up with their clients at www.simplypostcards.net/1001-uses.html.

“We’re starting to see small businesses use it as a means to easily tap customized direct mail through the app,” says Dan Ptak, project manager for Simply Postcards. “The site includes a nice business function for importing contacts, bulk pricing from 80 cents to a dollar apiece, and a function that allows you to schedule a postcard for a later date so that it arrives on an anniversary, a birthday, as an order reminder or on holidays.”

Simply Postcards recently added Simply Borders to the app’s repertoire. Borders that you can add to the postcard include Featured (Seasonal and appropriately timed themes, including Valentine’s Day… Hurry up for that!), Occasions (Happy birthday, thank you), Travel (Wish you were here, vintage airmail), and Miscellaneous (Vintage photo album look, filmstrip), or create your own using their template http://www.simplypostcards.net/simplyborders/custom.html.

To see it in action, check out Simply Postcards’ YouTube video at www.youtube.com/user/SimplyPostcards

Every user receives their first postcard free after signing up, and just for our readers, Simply Postcards is also supplying three more free with the promo code: lexjet