Take a Page from the Grocery Industry: Cross Train to Keep Customers Happy
January 2006

Don’t you hate waiting in line to check out at the grocery store — or any retail store, for that matter? Some grocery store managers feel your pain, and are doing something about it.

Several chains are making an effort to shorten their checkout lines by opening more registers based on the number of people waiting in line. One supermarket designates a “lane spotter” to smooth the checkout flow by directing people to the shortest lines; another uses a bell to alert customers that new lanes have opened.

Those are effective customer service strategies that we can put into practice in the graphic arts industry. Think about it: Grocery stores and printing companies both deal with a variable workload that can change by the hour. Both must be staffed to handle the peaks without compromising service. Grocery stores have found a solution to handle the valleys: they cross-train employees.

The Advantage of Cross Training
In today’s graphic arts industry employee specialization is less valuable than employee flexibility. Idle equipment is costly enough; idle employees equals stagnant revenue growth. To maximize productivity, employees should be cross-trained to run multiple pieces of equipment or otherwise perform a variety of functions. The goal is to remain flexible to keep your workflow moving and keep customers happy.

The concept of cross training has been introduced in our industry before. However, the impact of employee downtime on your bottom line—either in lost productivity or, worse, lost customers—may be far greater than you think. In the supermarket industry, almost all employees are trained to operate checkout lanes, giving stores the instant ability to handle spikes in customers and busy seasons such as holidays without hiring extra employees.

Likewise, prepress, press and post press companies can identify areas with the greatest workload volatility and cross-train employees to handle those functions. In the front office, for example, staff can be cross-trained to handle estimating, scheduling, customer-service and even sales functions.

What Grow Sales Can Do For You
At Grow Sales Inc., we know the graphic arts industry well. In addition to our outbound marketing, public relations, web and graphic design services, Grow Sales advisors function as unbiased talking partners to help you get the most out of your business. Contact us anytime to see how we can help your company.

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