Client Listening Tour: SHORTEN TIME TO MARKET

PS President, Ben Harris, and PS VP of Sales & Client Experience, Leigh Janis, set out to interview and speak with over 25 PS clients for a ‘Listening Tour’ in 2023. The feedback they gathered was invaluable and our goal is to implement this information into our strategic plan moving forward. We always want to ensure our clients are being heard!

Let’s dive into Part 5 in our Client Listening Tour series:

SHORTEN TIME TO MARKET

Throughout the listening tour, clients expressed concerns about extended production schedules. Encouragingly, most of our production schedules are returning to pre-pandemic levels as we transition into 2024.

The importance of cadence cannot be overstated. Each client’s meticulously planned and timed programs rely on a precise orchestration of events. Therefore, we are intensifying our focus on prioritizing timing, planning, and agility as indispensable elements to uphold the integrity of the mail program overall. Additionally, ensuring up-to-date data is paramount to positioning our clients for sustained long-term growth.

Just as clients aspire to simplify internal operations, they also advocate for a more nimble and efficient production process. It’s imperative that the entire life cycle of a mailing is shortened and there are many ways PS can impact that lifecycle – from data to production to delivery.

To dive deeper into all of the feedback we gained from our tour, you can find the full white paper here.

This concludes our Client Listening Tour blog series. It’s clear that our clients will continue to confront various challenges throughout 2024, including USPS instability and price hikes, navigating an Election Year, ongoing global conflicts, economic nexus/sales tax complexities, fluctuations in the paper market, and the need for long-term investments in DEI, data security, and sustainability.

To meet the shifting needs and priorities of our clients, PS is dedicated to an iterative and agile strategic planning approach. We follow a playbook where our core values and vision remain steadfast, while we regularly adjust our strategic goals to address market dynamics and threats. Coming into 2024, our current tactical priorities include investments in talent, processes, and technology to help us better serve our clients.

Cost-Containment will remain a top priority. To achieve this, we leave no stone unturned, closely monitoring factors like supply chain trends, commodity prices, and postal budgets.

One approach we developed to address these challenges is an internal pricing index exercise to keep an eye on market fluctuations. Encouragingly, we expect production costs to remain stable as we move into the new year. Regarding postal budgets, nonprofits should anticipate two rate increases per year in January and July. To combat these increases, Production Solutions offers comprehensive strategies, including postal audits, USPS promotions, mailpiece optimization, and address quality enhancements.
We deeply understand that every penny counts for our clients’ critical missions, and we are committed to addressing these challenges with clarity and vision.

All Delivered With Trust and Integrity

Production Solutions has long strived to hire the best of the best when it comes to production management services, and we believe in a people-first environment. We strive to treat our clients’ missions as our own and to treat the organizations and the people that we work with as valued partners. The words used most often to describe PS were integrity, trustworthy, solutions-oriented, and partner.
For many of the participants, the PS production team is a trusted team member or an extension of their teams. Customer service and client centricity will remain the north star for how PS will operate in order to steward the trust we have earned from our clients.

Trust forms the cornerstone of our partnership, enabling us to help guide our clients toward transformation to meet their future goals. Together, we embrace the path forward, seeking continuous improvement and incremental gains that collectively make a significant impact. We leave no stone unturned and will double down on the fundamentals while also prioritizing the long-term vision. Our focus remains steadfast on guiding our clients towards their next best steps, where each penny invested contributes to their mission’s success.

Thank you

In closing, we extend our sincere gratitude to our valued clients. Their participation, time, and candid insights have been instrumental in shaping our collective journey toward solutions and success. Together, we remain steadfast in our commitment to their critical missions, and we look forward to another year of collaboration and achievement. Thank you for coming along on our journey to learn more and listen authentically. If you have any questions or want to learn more, reach out to your PS contact.