Wherever you are in your web-to-print evolution, prioritize your people. That’s the north star that’s guided my company’s growth for 20 years, and it’s never steered us wrong. With these incredible new tools set to transform our industry, I want every business owner to see tech as a means to greater collaboration, employee fulfillment and customer engagement–not less.

Like many of our peers, YellowDog recently launched our own web-to-print platform. We’re just as excited about the business benefits as the next guy. Easier ordering reduces the barrier to entry for new customers. Product portals encourage customer loyalty. Account managers no longer have to manually create new quotes for common products. Win, win, win, right?

There’s a little more to it.

As the print industry adopts web-to-print capabilities and shifts toward a more automated future, we have an opportunity to actually improve how teams work. Don’t think of these new tools as replacements for the human touch–think of them as a means to simplify the simple and unlock the creative potential of the complex.

Fewer touches, more collaboration

It used to be that every standard order involved the same back and forth between customers and account managers–getting specs, creating quotes, waiting on approval, and taking time all around on something that doesn’t have a lot of variation. With web-to-print, that standard order can happen instantly.

Great–let the robots handle the stuff that we’ve already figured out.

Meanwhile, our account managers, with their hearts and brains and curiosity, can take the time they would’ve spent on that same old quote to work with clients and come up with something new. Looking for sustainable solutions? Trying to surprise and delight an entirely new audience? Got a crazy idea? That’s where we humans shine–as collaborative problem solvers, not just order takers.

Shift your perspective.

The print industry at large sees the transition to web-to-print as a way to reduce human interaction, turn account managers into order-takers and shift budgets away from human resources. Instead, what if we look at this as a way to unlock a new level of creative collaboration, improve how teams work and level-up the employee experience?

Web-to-print allows me to spend less time on the mundane and more on business development, and gives YellowDog greater capacity to scale and serve larger companies with bigger orders. All of that is a means to a sustainable future for YellowDog and its employees, not a way for me to line my own pockets and gut my workforce.

Guard against the threat of disconnection

So how do you keep that human connection front and center as you adopt more automation? At YellowDog, we’re leaning into the core values that have helped us get this far. Here are a few guardrails you can put in place and best practices to prioritize:

  • Pick up the phone. Things get lost in translation. When a quick email doesn’t do the trick, don’t let either party fume at the screen. A call can usually clear up even the thorniest problems, and that connection builds trust. Live conversations are also where new ideas are born–where we can quickly understand what a client is trying to do and make suggestions they might not otherwise have thought of.
  • Assign an account manager, every time. Sure, most online orders go through without a hitch. When something goes wrong, though, someone needs to be ready to jump in. Don’t let automation take away responsibility. Give every customer and every order a real human who they can trust is ushering their project forward.
  • Prioritize quality assurance. Fewer hands on a project means fewer opportunities to catch errors. Automated ordering puts even more of a premium on our production and quality control teams’ attention to detail so that nothing goes out the door unless we’re 100% confident in its quality and accuracy.
  • Roll with the punches. Networks go down. Tech glitches out. Customers upload bad art and blame you. Automation takes away your ability to adjust as you go, so be ready to correct the major and minor issues that are sure to arise.
  • Be patient. Adopting new technology can be challenging–for customers, for employees and for businesses. Give your teams grace around learning these new tools, and trust that the learning curve is a long-term investment in productivity and professional growth.

I am already seeing the benefits of web-to-print at YellowDog, and our customers love that the convenience of online ordering is backed by a dedicated team of experts that’s always here to help. We can do great things as an industry, as long as we keep people at the center of everything we do. It’s gotten us this far!