PPB September 2018

by Terry Ramsay 12 | SEPTEMBER 2018 | INNOVATE Q A DISTRIBUTOR ASKS: I have a customer who places a large order of t-shirts every year. He is very particular—even to the point of using a ruler to measure consistency among shirts. In the most recent order, he has found some that are uneven, and he does not want his group to have to inspect every shirt for quality control. The shirt is printed with seven colors. This happened a year ago with the same client and a different decorator, and at that time I did not see discrepancies outside of what would be considered an acceptable margin. Before this order, I counseled the client on acceptable margins, the weight of the shirt and the complexity of seven-color printing. What is a fair resolution to this problem? A We have had similar clients in the past. Since we are the printer as well, we have often walked our customers through the actual printing process, from the creation of the artwork to the printed shirt, pointing out the complexity of the actual process. In this digital age, so many people clearly do not understand what is involved in screen printing. This usually opens up their eyes to the time and talent that it takes to screen print a shirt. I also like to advise clients that screen printing is not an exact science, but it is art. KRIS MONROE Customer Care Manager Champion Awards, Inc PPAI 103877 When Client Expectations Become Unrealistic