To Infinity and Beyond

My business cards arrived today. I'm reasonably happy with them. I could have done a better job designing them (I'm not entirely happy with where I put that phone number) but that's on me not Vistaprint. The quality of the card itself is pretty good too, especially considering how cheap it was. Here is a scan of the card (print it out and pass it to your friends, I don't mind. Really). 

The back is blank. I wanted lots of white space so I can write in my web address when I get one or anything else really.

The thing that really blew me away was the delivery time though. I went with the cheapest, and thus slowest, delivery and they told me 21 days. I could have paid more and had them arrive sooner but I was in no rush. Two days after ordering I received an email saying that they would ship ten days ahead of schedule. Four days later they arrived, two weeks ahead of schedule. I already planned to write a bit about the cards when they arrived and I already wrote a little about how I thought it was a good deal when I ordered them but now I'm more inclined to do so. The first thing I thought when I got them was "that was fantastic. I'm going to tell everyone."

My point is that doing that little bit extra can make a huge difference in the minds of customers or clients. It's easy enough to do a job that is merely adequate, just look at some of the posts I've written here, but unless you are stupidly cheap or there are no other options, people won't come back. On the other hand, I'm now more likely to recommend Vistaprint to people and use them again because of something that was probably so trivial on their end as to not be worth mentioning.

My question is what can I do to give people the same impression? If I want my business to be successful, coasting along just won't cut it. Early delivery is one option but I don't think I'm cut out for that. I'm usually so nervous about doing a good job that I keep working on a piece right up to the deadline. (I should mention, I don't think this is a bad thing. If I were to become more blase, I suspect I would be more tempted to cut corners or not check as thoroughly as I otherwise would. In fact, I know it.) 

One thing that I can do is provide personal customer service. When I deal with direct clients, or even with agencies, I know the details of any translations that I have done for them before (if that is the case). I can learn how they like things done without them needing to repeat themselves every time (if I am lucky enough to have repeat clients). This also works the other way, the client or the agency can get to know me, which may be equally important to building a successful business relationship.

What else? I'm not sure yet. But, they'll probably be little things. I may not notice them but they could be very important to someone else.