The Fedex Kinko’s Outsourcing Nightmare

Okay, this nightmare was not so bad, and Kinko’s was very nice about fixing the problem. My issue is how this problem happened in the first place.

I am a regular client of Kinko’s for book publishing. I like the way they can do a fast publication of 100 or so copies of my course that I sell. They give me a very attractive vinal backing and spiral binding with a clear cover. My customers like it and it gets the job done cleanly. I have been using Kinko’s for decades, and they have been my book publisher for about five years not without issue until quite recently.

I dropped of an order for my book. They got the specifications, did a scan of the materials and gave me a price. Unfortunately, they did not scan the back of the 58 pages in my original. So, they published 70 books that had page 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, etc. Every other page was skipped. I can understand that all of us make mistakes from time to time. But, how is it possible not to check your work before you send it to your outsourced printer? And how is it possible that your outsourced printer would do $700 of work without double checking to see if any pages are missing, let along half of the pages. Yikes! You don’t need a PhD in printing to figure this one out. I was also not given a chance to check their proof. I didn’t think it was critical as they had never blundered before. I thought I was dealing with professionals here.

In any case, I had to go back a second time to give them the original again. This time they gave me four proofs which were all correct. They will have the 70 copies done by tomorrow and shipped to their location by 10am. I also got 30% off. So, I am not too upset. But, seriously, a one minute double check of the work would have saved Kinko’s $500 in damages! How do they train their people I ask?

The other issue I have with Kinko’s is that they are always understaffed or tightly staffed. The problem with being short-staffed is that there is less slack time to double check work, get proofs out, and get work done on the spot. It would be easier for me if they could do the job in house and just let me come back after a few hours to pick up the work. Nobody does it this way, but that is the easiest for the client. The other problem is that you generally have to stand in line and wait for 5-20 minutes per order. If they had more staff, there would be less waiting, faster output, and fewer mistakes. Oh well. They are not a bad company by any standard, but they could be better in my opinion. More training, more staff, and more double-checking. These are the same criticisms I make about everyone including my own company!

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