I’m not sure what it is about Kinko’s that seems to absolutely prevent them from getting a print job done right the first time. For the program for Kristi’s thing today, they messed up the order and she barely got the corrected prints for it by this afternoon in time for the ceremony.
It’s been my experience that no matter how good you make the online ordering or project management systems, no matter what lengths you go to in producing a set of instructions that a five year old kid could understand, in the end, it usually just comes down to people not paying attention to them and doing it wrong.
On paper (no pun intended), Kinko’s could dominate the mom & pop / small press printing market, and even expand into taking big commercial jobs away from the competition. They’ve got all the right equipment & resources (at potentially better negotiated deals with vendors than anyone else due to volume), the right network of physical locations across the country, with a healthy balance of storefront shops and central production facilities that they can send large orders to. But, unfortunately, after a long history of this type of work, they are widely regarded (at least by almost all the people I’ve talked to) as having a reputation for poor quality.
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yeap got to agree. managed a branch…..and it’s amazing that it allways seemed to be the easiest orders that were the ones that got jacked. But in defense for the “man” if you are ordering online, they don’t know what production is taking place and “they” give the customer their own pick up time. Which always sucked…..but from personal experience.. now that I don’t do that work….every order I send in even as a former employee that ran producation so I know every in-and-out would be wrong or late. It’s quite amazing. The best part is you swear you’ll never go back but you do.
Exactly. It’s funny because we were talking about it last week, and I was telling her to make sure she had them run a proof copy and leave it with the order for reference, etc. etc. She did everything right, took every precaution, and it still got messed up.
I almost kind of feel bad, like I jinxed it by basically saying then that if there’s *anything* that can go wrong, it will, but I’m pretty sure it was someone’s laziness and not my jinxing that was at fault on that one.
That’s also funny about going back, too. I fortunately haven’t had to do too many print jobs personally with them, although I do still have my fair share of stories. Normally, I’m not one to paint people/companies with a broad brush, either; I’ll give anyone the benefit of the doubt, but there just seems to be something about Kinko’s - I don’t know what it is.
It’s crazy though when I see some of the stuff that gets done for the b, when things are just so totally obviously wrong, like the cutting is so crooked that it’s cutting the image off on one side and is totally uneven, or it’s folded in a way that anyone can see is not right. There’s no way that’s even a case of simply not following directions, it’s just people not caring.
Yeah, they are horrible. Out of the 20+ big jobs that I’ve had to get done there I’d say only one got done correctly and that was because I knew the guy who not only took my order but made it. I hear a lot of good things about Jano graphics.
I was so mad about how they could mess up an order like this that I will never use them again. I nearly had a coronary when they told me less than 20 hours before the ceremony that I found out our order was not correct. My friend Michelle, who was in charge of decorating the pinning ceremony, ordered 2 of the same banners from Kinkos, paid for them both at the same time, and when she picked up her order was only given one. The manager had no excuse or anything to say but “oops. sorry ’bout that.” Yeah. I’m sure they are really sorry.
I’m laughing really hard right now…and all I can say is….
sounds like a typical day at the old job. Seriously i think that happened everyday.
My favorite part is when you do put that so called “proof” in the job bag and the job is still done wrong.
Ah the good ol’ days! Late jobs, things ran wrong, missing sets and the best….crooked cuts and folds!
I used to deal with Jano and they have been excellent.
They might be a little more than kinkos but less stress and minor do-overs.
Customers suck, leave a mess, demand you fix their messed up docs, leave w/o paying, demand refunds for copies “ooops did it say 200???”
etc. etc. you get what you pay for and what goes around comes around . . .
Unfortunately, (at least with Kinko’s) you often don’t though.
I think most of the problems you cited are related to the self service copying area, and I wouldn’t argue with you there, BUT the ones we’re talking about are the full serve jobs that customers can’t do themselves and have to depend on Kinko’s to do.
I’m sure they’re all different, but the local one to us at least (in Ventura, which used to be the corp. headquarters hometown) is (or at least was) notorious for screwing up jobs. I’ve personally seen it on SO many occasions that I can pretty confidently say that they are not isolated incidents.
I wanted them to scan my portfolio so that I can complete my fine art site and move some promotional materials along. They kept my art all day, after I had made an appointment.
Every piece has a mark on it, a ruler imprint from the ruler of theirs they smashed in my portfolio, every - EVERY scanned file has a white line down the middle of it and every piece is dirty. I’m a pen and ink artist and this is devastating.
They are incompetent. I’d like to hope form them it is only the Escondido location, but by the looks of this thread it is a company-wide problem. So only count on Kinko’s if it doesn’t really count.