business services

At St Ives, our vast array of added value services brings an extra dimension to our pre- and post-production capabilities.

retail creative consultancy

Today, St Ives is much more than a print group. We’ve also built a reputation for ourselves in creative consultancy. We work closely with our clients and their agencies to help resolve creative issues and maximise the visual impact of their promotional campaigns. We advise them on what works and what doesn’t - based on years of experience in many different markets.

project planning & auditing

The most successful projects are those where we’re involved from the outset. This enables us to help with every aspect of pre-production and thereby maximise the impact of a client's print, make the most of their budget, and minimise the overall cost.

Where clients transfer their production to us from another supplier, we ensure the transition is smooth, logical and risk-free. Clients are immediately supported by a dedicated account team and production specialists who understand their business sector and are backed by first class technical support.

They take care of the client's every need - from monthly management reports and daily monitoring of performance on projects, to managing third party relationships and proposing appropriate solutions to particular problems.

We help our clients and their agencies plan their print projects and we’re not afraid to make suggestions and advise them on alternative methods to maximise impact. We continually audit – before, during and after each campaign. We examine their existing print and make recommendations for improvement. And we assess the results of each project and report the findings to our clients.

In addition to bespoke promotional reviews, we commit to regular account reviews with clients. We believe this is fundamental to establishing a strong working relationship. At St Ives, we also recognise that clients’ needs are constantly changing and that only through extensive planning can we fully appreciate and consistently deliver to their requirements.

dedicated help lines

We also believe that communicating with suppliers should be straightforward. That’s why our clients enjoy clear and simple communication via a single point of contact, dedicated phone numbers and email addresses, plus 24-hour voicemail facilities with strict call back KPIs. These facilities are tailored to suit each client and are available 24x7x365.

We have made significant investment in specialist systems and software to provide clients with a professional call centre service. We currently operate over 20 helpdesks, 12 hours each day, seven days a week, offering five languages for European calls. We also provide personalised reporting tailored to each client’s needs.

In addition to providing a valuable resource for data collection, these dedicated call centres act as a single point of contact to advise clients and to handle re-ordering of products and updates to orders.

Thanks to our state-of-the-art call centre software and specialist recording and training facilities, we’re also able to offer customers dedicated telemarketing services and specialised help lines for specific projects.

forward thinking

Forward Thinking provides a full range of print-related added value services to the St Ives Group and its key clients for whom it maximises the return on their print spend. New services are continually evolving as the function is taken up by more St Ives business units and clients.

Forward Thinking offers a comprehensive range of value-added services that you won’t find elsewhere in the marketplace. These include market research, store surveys and auditing, customer communication consultancy, new store openings, and major events management - all designed to ensure our clients get maximum return from their print and POS materials.

market research

Successful retailing means keeping a close eye on competitors and quickly spotting trends in the marketplace and in customer behaviour. With this in mind, Retail Thinking offers a range of market research services that provide insights into industry developments, competitor activity, key market trends, customer expectations and much more.

We can produce regular and tailored market trend reports based on customer research, competitor analysis, retail trends reporting, as well as monitoring market, industry and print technology. Armed with this knowledge, we have all the right information at our fingertips to help clients make sound business decisions, optimise their print spend and deliver maximum impact with their POS material.

site surveys & auditing

To ensure the right materials are designed and distributed to the right place on time, every time, accurate information on the specific characteristics of client sites is essential. We have unrivalled experience in collating such data, photographing client sites and producing detailed site layouts. We can also build on-line databases to provide instant access to this information for reference by everyone involved in a project.

Moreover, since awareness of site compliance is essential to the delivery of successful marketing campaigns, we regularly conduct site audits for clients to measure their conformity, and to identify issues and opportunities for improvement.

customer communication consultancy

Equally important in any drive to improve customer impact and reduce costs is the need for a third party perspective on the effectiveness of a client’s customer communication campaigns and the operational processes involved. To this end, we provide a range of tailored reviews to identify new insights and develop new thinking. These are focused either on the end-to-end operational processes relating to customer marketing print or on its impact on customers.

Reviews can incorporate any combination of design style, content, materials, print quality, placement, ease of maintenance and installation. Each involves the Retail Thinking team in making several visits to the site to observe and talk to customers and staff.

new store openings & major events management

Thanks to its collective experience in project management and new site openings, our Forward Thinking team is well trained in easing the pressure on clients during the stressful build-up to site openings. We visit each site well in advance to identify the POS requirements, discuss and create detailed specifications, brief the production team and arrange on-site installation. Following an event, we visit the store to ensure their print requirements have been met and that POS has been installed in accordance with head office plans.

strategic marketing service

Whilst most of our clients have well-established marketing departments, many are receptive to consulting us on strategic marketing briefs - anything from customer insight, segmentation targeting, and marketing strategies to through-the-line initiatives that meet the client's wider business objectives.

St Ives recently launched a group-wide Strategic Marketing Service to consult on clients' marketing strategies and help align these with the broader business objectives of each client. We have a vast range of innovative services designed to add real value to some of the UK’s biggest brands, publishers and retailers.

The new marketing consultancy service is now integrated into the St Ives solutions portfolio that already offers customers a wide range of added value services in addition to its print capabilities. We aim to be a strategic partner to our clients who can benefit from assessments from neutral ‘professionals’ like ourselves. It means we’re now even better placed to work with clients’ in-house marketing teams to help develop and implement successful strategic marketing plans.

Additionally, our award-winning design facilities and fully equipped photographic studio, for example, provide customers with innovative 3D cardboard engineering and packaging design - over and above the typesetting and retouching services they'd normally expect. Indeed, our all-round customer-focused approach means many clients now view our creative services as an integral part of our overall service to them.