The Holidays Are Upon Us

For some, it's the most wonderful time of the year.

For others, it's a stress-inducing gauntlet of obsessive shopping, meticulous cleaning and preparation, and ruthless self-critiquing that culminates into a 3-to-4-hour family gathering in which all the hard work is barely noticed, all the delicious food hastily gobbled up, and all the daintily dressed gifts torn open like wild game, after which the mighty beast of holiday cheer slinks back into its cave to hibernate for another year.

Whether you're part of the former or the latter, we want to do our part to make the holidays easy on you. That's why we've extended our special discount on our envelope printing services (20% off) and we're giving away 250 free business cards. It may not be egg nog, but at least it's one less thing you'll have to worry about cramping your holiday budget.

For those in need of holiday products, check out our partner site PaperWithBorders. They've been adding new products over the last couple weeks, including a plethora of new Christmas, Hanukkah and other holiday-related paper products.

Here's to making the holiday season as stress-free as possible. Cheers!

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In Defense of Kinko's (or FedEx Office, if you prefer)

Update: I just found an interesting article on Kinko's founder Paul Orfalea, one of the world's most inspiring entrepreneurs. He is an example of very successful people with ADD.

The other day I wrote an entry criticizing one of the decisions recently implemented by FedEx regarding the takeover and renaming of the world-famous Kinko's brand. The main point of the argument was that, judging solely by comments I found on Twitter regarding the Kinko's brand and experiences in their copy shops, FedEx made a bad choice taking the Kinko's name off the stores and simply calling it FedEx Office. I argued that for many the Kinko's brand was synonymous with bad customer service and overpriced print and copy services, and that unless FedEx plans to fix the problems associated with the stores, those negative feelings once reserved for Kinko's will soon be targeted at the greater FedEx brand itself.

The core of the argument was based on the idea that most people harbor ill will toward Kinko's.

Now let's look at it from a different perspective.

First off, I said off the bat that most of the Tweets about Kinko's were simple statements, like "I'm going to Kinko's." These far outnumbered the qualitative Tweets about Kinko's (e.g. "I hate Kinko's" or "I love Kinko's!"). So one could draw the conclusion that these people in the former group, in advertising and endorsing the Kinko's name, are implying that they've had mostly good experiences with the company (or else why would they come back?).

Now, let's look at the nitty gritty of why FedEx Office (Kinko's) still prospers and will probably continue to do so, even as companies like our own undercut their prices by upwards of 500 percent.

1. FedEx Office / Kinko's has a location in almost every decent sized city. This means that when you need something NOW, not three days from now, you can drive over there and have your copies or books in minutes. This is great if you're in a bind or short on time, and it's no wonder they are so popular with students.

2. They have no minimums. Sure, their color copies might cost $.50 a piece, but if all you need are 10 copies that's not too much of a concern. Again, that's part of why they're popular among students (and teachers, for that matter).

3. Kinko's is much more geared at the consumer. While companies like ours do serve thousands of single-person consumers, our prices and services are much more geared at businesses and organizations who typically need a lot more than just 10 color copies or three bound books.

4. Kinko's does a lot more than color copies and printing. In short, they are diversified. You can get your passport there, you can rent time on a computer with Internet access, you can pick up some basic office supplies, and you can ship packages. We do none of those things; color copying and printing is our specialty, and we couldn't implement some of these other things if we wanted to.

These are the four main points I can think of off hand why Kinko's is useful, and why they will never be put out of business by the likes of us and other online printing companies. Can you think of any more reasons? Post in the comments below.

Kinko's, or FedEx Office? My Two Cents

As our in-house search engine optimizer, social media networker, public relations guy, etc., I do a fair amount of research on what's being said about us and our "competitors" on a regular basis. One place where I can always get up-to-the-minute feedback is on Twitter. I frequently search to see what's being said about other companies in our industry, and of course the one company that's always a-buzz is Kinko's (or, as they are called now, FedEx Office).

Most posts are simply people sending status updates to their friends like, "I'm off to Kinko's (again), then to Starbucks, then to the gym..." (Actually, you would be surprised how many people follow up a trip to Kinko's with a trip to Starbucks. I read this as saying that Kinko's is right across the street from Starbucks, which seems almost too perfect -- people can get their overpriced copies from a huge corporate chain and walk right across the street to get overpriced coffee from another huge corporate chain! But I digress...)

Other times, the Tweets are qualitative judgments on the Kinko's experience (e.g. "The customer service at Kinko's is terrible," or "The guy who helped me at Kinko's was super nice."). Now I'm going to make a rough estimate here, since I haven't done any scientific quantitative studies on this, but it seems to me that those types of Tweets are roughly 5-to-1 in favor of bad experiences. When they're bad, it's usually something to do with A) outrageous prices, or B) bad service from under-trained employees. Regardless of the reasons or the exact ratio, it is safe to say that the bad comments outnumber the good.

Over the last year or so since FedEx and Kinko's merged, the brand name has been in constant flux. I believe that most recently, they have done away with the Kinko's name all together in favor of FedEx Office.

Though I'm not really a Public Relations expert (I have a BA in Journalism, thank you -- the Light Side to PR's Dark Side), I think FedEx corporate would do well to fire their head PR officer over this.

For a lot of people, their brand name has become synonymous with "bad service," "high prices," and "unreliability."

Regardless of how the general public viewed FedEx before the takeover, it simply cannot be good for the all-encompassing FedEx name to replace the Kinko's name. It seems to follow reason that, eventually, all the negative qualities associated with the Kinko's brand are going to be passed on to the larger FedEx name. I wonder what sort of exchange FedEx's PR department has with their customers, specifically Kinko's customers, and whether this was ever a topic of discussion among top managers when they considered switching the brand. It seems like a no-brainer that this should have been given serious thought.

Unless FedEx is going to make a concerted effort to lower their prices and actually train their employees on how to run the machines and treat customers like their business matters, they are going to absorb all the negative connotations associated with the Kinko's name. If they're not going to increase the quality of their services, they might as well change the name back to Kinko's and forget FedEx Office ever existed. After all, it's only a name. Why not stick with the name that's already been sullied with years of bad customer satisfaction?

For the record, I know not all Kinko's are that bad. The one I occasionally had to go to for last-minute prints in college had a staff that was mostly very courteous and helpful. I am basing this purely on what I have observed in the Twittersphere, and even then there's still that roughly 1 in 5 that had a good experience. But they should not discount the other 4.

Ultimately, it matters not to us, because the more displeased people become with the large corporate brands they are used to dealing with (Staples, Office Depot, Kinko's), the more likely they are to look for alternatives and end up finding us.

But I thought I'd share my 2 cents on this... maybe, just maybe, someone in the FedEx corporate offices will read it and take it to heart.