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We love to see all the different types of print that flows through our factory. From antique dealers through to builders – there’s a ton of diversity. And what we love even more? Hearing our customers’ stories behind their print. Recently, we were lucky to hear the story behind Alfa Travel and Cofton Holidays, who specialise in creating high quality experiences for their customers.
First up is Alfa Travel, an inclusive coach holiday company offering a huge variety of destinations, from classic British getaways to European excursions.
Tell us a little about Alfa Travel – what makes it unique?
We are an employee-owned business! Employee ownership makes us a different sort of company and we always try to ensure this is evident in all our interactions with customers and suppliers.
At Alfa Travel, we take great pride in offering quality, value-for-money holidays to the best resorts in the UK, Ireland and Europe. As committed employee owners, we are even more determined to ensure a fantastic customer experience.
With our own portfolio of hotels in superb locations across the UK, an extensive array of carefully vetted partner hotels and our own fleet of luxury Mercedes coaches, we have invaluable control over our guests’ holiday experience, resulting in high standards upon which Alfa Holidaymakers can rely.
What inspired you to start up?
The Alfa Leisureplex Group was started in 1984 when Tony and Peter Sawbridge decided to create a hotel business catering mainly for clients on coach holidays. Leisureplex was founded in 1984 when the first hotel in the group was purchased. Alfa Travel was founded in 1990 to fill the gaps in occupancy of its sister company, the Leisureplex Hotel Group, and since then it has gone from strength to strength.
Today, Alfa Travel operates an extensive tour programme from the five geographical catchment areas of the North West, South, Midlands, North East and Yorkshire/Humberside, carrying over 100,000 holiday makers every year.
In 2015, the company became employee owned as part of a succession planning from a family-owned business.
What print product do you use and how do you use them?
We use a wide range of print products from brochures and business cards to flyers, stickers and posters.
Throughout the year, we have a whole host of marketing activities which require printed items to support our campaigns. We use instantprint when we need a fast turnaround for items to support our exhibitions and events.
Just one example of how we use these items are in December and January when we run our roadshows, which involves our coaches parking up in town and city centres throughout the UK. Printed marketing material is crucial for these events to showcase our products and special offers to potential customers. A typical example of what we would order from instantprint to help support our roadshows include flyers with offers specific to the roadshow, large PVC banners for the coach windows, competition entry forms and newsletters to put into our goody bags.
Why did you choose those print products and what results have you seen?
Printed marketing materials are crucial to our business’s operation. Our average customer age is 70 plus so we find that our printed pieces often produce better results than our online campaigns. We love sending printed items such as brochures, special offer postcards and newsletters to our customers because it allows us to provide customers with more details which they can sit down and take the time to read at their leisure at home.
We find that printed marketing materials also help us to achieve a more personalised and targeted approach to communicating with our customers and by sending them regular offers which are of interest to them it keeps our brand at the forefront of their minds for when they are ready to book their next holiday.
We put offer codes and a dedicated marketing phone number on all of our printed marketing materials which goes out to customers so we can track where our customers have booked from, making it easier for us to monitor ROI on all of our campaigns and determine which pieces our customers prefer.
How do you make your customers feel special?
We pride ourselves on our high standards and from the moment you make your first enquiry to the last day of your holiday, we will offer you the very best service.
The meticulous planning that goes into ensuring we deliver a recognised standard time after time means that our staff know that the details have been taken care of and they can focus on the most important part of the operation – our customers!
Most importantly, being employee owned means that everyone is working together as one team to ensure customers have an enjoyable holiday!
How did you find the whole instantprint experience?
instantprint are a great company to work with. We have been ordering from them since our current marketing team started with the company in 2014. The website is so easy to use and hassle free. It’s great that you can upload your artwork and sign it off yourself, and this saves us valuable time. Prices are extremely great value for money and on the rare occasion when we have had any problems it has always been resolved straight away via a quick phone call or email to instantprint.
Next, we caught up with Chris Jeffery of Devon-based Cofton Holidays – a multi-award winning holiday park with a loyal customer base.
What inspired you to start up?
Cofton Holidays was purchased by my father, George Jeffery, in 1975. He led the way in transforming the holiday park from what was a basic operation into the stunning landscaped grounds that it is today. Cofton Holidays continues to run under the Jeffrey name, and we all strive to ensure that every guest who comes through our gates leaves with special memories that they will cherish forever.
What print products are used, and how do you use them?
We commission a range of printed materials from instantprint, such as our menus that guests will spot in Amelia’s Café and our restaurant, Warren View, which come in both A5 and A4 sizes. We also use table talkers to advertise our wine lists, special events, restaurant deals, and Sunday carvery and guests can spot these in every caravan across the site. Other printed materials include posters, from A2 up to A0, which advertise our entertainment programme, events, gym and food offers. We also produce pop-up banners for the events and entertainment programmes; A5 leaflets that inform our guests of carbon monoxide safety and the use of WiFi, and business cards.
We also release a monthly entertainments guide. It’s so easy to do through instantprint’s website and it’s allowed us to progress from printed A5 leaflets to high-quality booklets with pagination.
What made you choose these print products?
We first started using instantprint to produce waterproof posters as they were great value for money. After being impressed by the quality of the materials, we started ordering more and more. We are fond of the website as it is so simple and easy to use. It’s not necessary to wait for a quote to come through as the website will tell you straight away. This means that we can have materials for the park ordered quickly and produced efficiently.
What results have you seen from your print? Have there been any benefits your business had as a direct result?
By using instantprint, we have seen a significant reduction in printing costs and have been saving a lot of time and energy thanks to the simple, easy-to-use interface.
How do you make your customers feel special?
For Cofton, customer experience is king. We listen to our customers, respond to their needs and reply personally to all emails daily. From the moment our customers contact us to the moment they leave, we work hard to create a total satisfaction experience. Our staff are friendly, engaging, and their enthusiasm for Cofton is infectious. Customers regularly remark on the warmth and helpfulness of staff; this is all part of our commitment to surprise, delight and exceed expectations. We alert guests to specials and what’s on via a new on-site SMS alert service. To enhance customer experience, many of our staff have Welcome qualifications.
A particular factor that we place an enormous emphasis on to enhance the customer experience is that we source our ingredients locally. We love doing this as we have such a rich variety of quality Devon food producers on our doorstep. In our onsite café, Amelia’s Pantry, we love improving the customer experience by giving them the story of where and how their food came to be by using a food map on our menus.
If you could give any business starting out a top tip, what would it be?
I would definitely say to any business starting out, focus on the end product. What is your goal? What is it that you’re striving for? If you always have that in the back of your mind and you continue to reach for it, you will achieve it.
What drew you into ordering print for Cofton Holidays?
We have a constant need to update our entertainment leaflets and food and drink menus on a regular basis so regularly order printed materials. We need to plan ahead but were struggling with the tight deadlines for final artwork set by other printing companies. With instantprint, we know that we can order our materials efficiently and understand the exact lead times. It actually streamlines the process as all of our printed materials are linked together. For example, the posters and leaflets for the entertainment programme have the same messaging, so once the copy is signed off for each, it all falls into place quickly.
How did you find the whole instantprint experience?
We find the user interface really easy to use and some of the latest updates to the shopping process have made it even quicker for us to upload artwork. Even if we do hit some little snags, these issues are quickly resolved and it’s clear to see that the website is under constant development and instantprint are striving to deliver a great customer experience.
Want to get your instantprint success story featured on our blog? Get in touch by emailing us at enjoy@instantprint.co.uk.
