When Carsten and I launched LTLprints.com it was our goal to be transparent about who we are and what we do. We want to celebrate our business, our customers, and our successes, while continuing to be open an honest about our failures. In this case, I want to talk about the latter. Yup, we made a mistake. Fail!
I look to a number of companies for advice on how we should operate and do things correctly. One of our customers and a company that I have great respect for is Zappos.com. Zappos is known for their amazing customer service. For example, they offer free shipping for any product returns. They do a great job of taking care of their customers. When I think of how we should run our customer service I often look to Zappos for insight.
When we make a mistake, I want to make it right. We care about the product and our service and I won’t settle for anything but the best. Some people talk about it but we make it real.
Recently we received an order for 5 Kanji symbols. We printed and cut out the black symbols on our unique fabric material. The prints turned out great, except for a couple which had small white boarders, due to a cutout issue (the blade was off by a millimeter). This caused a white “halo” around the black prints which obviously is a no-go, especially when installed on a dark red wall.
I’ll let our customer Steve tell you the rest of the story in his own words.
“When my order of kanji decals arrived from LTLPrints I noted a couple of problems with the registration of the print vs. the cut. I wrote them an email and within 5 minutes Kendall called me with an apology and an offer of a free replacement. In order to satisfy me they completely updated the process they use to produce the decals. Excellent job and excellent customer service. I will most certainly be referring LTLPrints to my partners.”
Larger Than Life prints was contacted by Ronald McDonald House Charities in Tampa Bay, Florida. They were planning their annual Spring gala, the Storybook Ball, and were looking for something new and different to include in their decor. They had discovered our “Wanted poster” template and decided it was a perfect vehicle to help spread their message. When they sent us the details for the posters, we have to admit to getting misty eyes. Printing a poster for a little boy who “wants” a new heart is a little heartbreaking. But every cloud does have a silver lining! We were being given an opportunity to be a part of a magical night that raises money to help sick children and their families.
“Ronald McDonald House Charities® of Tampa Bay provides comfort and care to children and their families by supporting local Ronald McDonald Houses®, its cornerstone program, and by making grants to other local not-for-profit organizations that help children in need. The Ronald McDonald House® of Tampa Bay provides a home-away-from-home for families of pediatric patients in area hospitals.” The Storybook Ball is one of their major fundraisers and we had been asked to provide posters that would help with those fundraising efforts.
“The Wanted Posters that LTL Prints provided for our Storybook Ball, Lasso the Moon, were a huge hit in our silent auction room. Our event decorator was extremely impressed with the quality and look, and all of the guests raved about how perfect they were for our event. We plan to keep them for years to come! Thank you LTL Prints for providing us with such an outstanding product at an unbelievable price.”
It always feels good to have satisfied customers but knowing that we contributed to this very worthwhile charity having a successful fundraising event is an awe inspiring experience. It does feel so good to help DO good!
(This post brought to you by Gloria Bell on behalf of Larger Than Life prints. Questions can be directed to gloria@ltlprints.com)
A few weeks ago, we received a call from Meg Havern from TicketLeap.com. TicketLeap was looking for an easy and affordable way to have their logo displayed at the entrance to their Center City Philadelphia Offices.
This request made us smile for several reasons. First, Ticket Leap is an awesome company! For those of you who may not have see their TechCrunch article, TicketLeap made inroads in the highly competitive event registration and ticketing software market by choosing to cater to small companies and events. Ticketleap not only allows their clients to sell tickets online, but they offer box office solutions through the additional reporting and tracking services available on their website. Second, TicketLeap shares our vision in beginning a start-up adventure here in Philadelphia. Lastly, TicketLeap is comprised of a great team. They recently landed Blake Jennelle as their Director of Marketing and have brought on several others that round out their already fantastic team!
Kendall decided to hand deliver their print since their headquarters is only blocks away from ours. Within hours of receiving Meg’s phone call the TicketLeap crew was standing in their office admiring their Larger Than Life prints logo with pride. Kendall was able to spend time with their CEO, Chris Stanchak discussing their most recent purchase. Here is a video of Chris and his team finishing installation.
(This post brought to you by Gloria Bell on behalf of LTL Prints. Please direct any questions to gloria@LTLprints.com)
Today, I received an email from Lynsie at Showclix. Showclix is search engine for local live music events. Any band or artist planning to give a concert can submit the event to the site for FREE. Anyone looking for a venue to attend can search for cool stuff in his neighborhood. Showclix also provides ticketing services. In short Showclix is a great platform for artists to promote their invents. Get some more detailed information here.
Lynsie, her cofounder Josh and I go way back to spreadshirt - where much of the marketing success was due to Josh’s and Lynsie’s hard work.
Lynsie posted these pictures of her installing the Showclix logo print they ordered last week from LTL on the shlog. Lynsie’s comment in an email to me really encouraged me: “I actually put it up by myself… that’s how easy it was!. Thanks agian. The print looks great on the wall :)”
So there you go community. If Lynsie can install the print - anyone can do it
I’ve had this blog post for a while in my ‘to be finished and to be published blog post’. Last week I read on TechCrunch this post about a TokBox recruiting stunt. At first my attention was grabbed by the headline. ‘Just got fired’ somehow grabs everyone’s attention during an economic crisis, right? Then I learned that TokBox gave Tacos to ex Yahoo folks in order to interest them in the company and to maybe recruit some of them. [You can debate if this is a tasteful or distasteful idea – but this is not the point of this post] Looking at the picture I realized that TokBox taped their logo to their taco truck. (see the red circle)
I thought to myself: ‘A LTLprint would have done a much better job here.’ Instead of taping a paper-print to the truck next time just get an LTLprint. It will look much better, the logo would be contour cut, the logo could be much bigger (up to 7ft), and when you give the truck back you simply could re-stick your logo to a wall in the office.
I am not sure how successful the recruiting stunt was. TokBox has still a variety of open positions posted. But the stunt grabbed my attention and I learned about a new cool company. TokBox allows you to talk with your friends over live video for free. You simply post a link to your facebook profile, blog or website. When someone wants to talk to you they click the link and you guys video-chat. Learn more here and on the TokBox blog.
I am sending them a LTLprint with their logo – next time their truck will be decorated a lot better…
The other day we saved some shipping cost on a print. Instead of shipping it to our customer we went for a short walk and handed a unique larger than print to Lina Moysis. Lina is a graphics artist and designer. She came up with this wonderful design. Not sure what the name of her wall art is - maybe ‘Autumn field with birds’?! Anyhow the wall graphic turned out great and totally fits Lina’s room. We at LTLprints like the decor particularly because it nicely displays our capability of producing multiple ‘cutouts’ in one print. Did you know that having multiple cutouts in one print gives you the opportunity to increase the size of your design when installing it? Just stick the pieces of your print slightly further apart and you make an ‘oversized’ print a ‘larger than life print’.
The catalog is not ready yet but will be launched in October. You can for sure expect Lina’s print to be included in our selection of available prints. If you’d like to purchase Lina’s design immediately just send an email to cpe at LTLprints.com and I will personally take care of your order!
PS.: If you are in Philly - let us know and we save you some time on shipping with your order.
PS.: If you have a great design and want to get it featured in our catalog (starting October) or on the LTLprints blog - let me know!
siness, our customers, and our successes, while continuing to be open an honest about our failures. In this case, I want to talk about the latter. Yup, we made a mistake. Fail!
a little heartbreaking. But every cloud does have a silver lining! We were being given an opportunity to be a part of a magical night that raises money to help sick children and their families.
