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Solutions September 2005
Case
Study
A
Gem of a Card
Chip
Grayson keeps note pads next to
every chair in his house—even
on a bench outside his shower.
When a creative business idea
pops into his head, Grayson can
jot it down no matter where he
is. “The paper is my memory
bank,” says Grayson, president
of SBF Inc., a distributorship
in Savannah, Ga.
Several
years ago, one of those slips
of paper held an idea for a custom-shaped
loyalty card: a plastic card shaped
liked a cut diamond for Friedman’s
jewelers. Grayson pitched the
idea to Friedman’s, suggesting
the jeweler give the cards to
top customers at its 660-plus
stores.
Customers
finance purchases with Friedman’s
AdvantagePlus Cards and receive
special discounts, advance notice
of sales and other benefits. Previously,
the jeweler distributed credit-card
sized 30 mil plastic cards. The
diamond-shaped cards provided
a more memorable option—and
landed SBF an order it had lost
a few years back.
More
than a dozen years ago, SBF earned
its first business with Friedman’s
providing computer paper, copy
paper and supplies. The distributorship
was a reliable source for behind-the-scenes
printed products and landed a
large contract for all the jeweler’s
forms and supplies. Grayson chipped
away at the account, slowly earning
business from its marketing department.
“They gave us a little piece
here, a little piece there,”
says Grayson. “I hit the
gas pedal and went after other
business.”
SBF
eventually supplied 4-color mailings,
credit and loyalty cards, and
billing statements. The distributorship
processed more than 700,000 statements
monthly for Friedman’s.
When the jeweler built a new headquarters,
SBF installed $500,000 worth of
office furniture.
But
SBF was reminded that even top
customers will go elsewhere if
mistakes are made: When a card
manufacturer delivered a batch
of loyalty cards late, SBF lost
the jeweler’s card business.
Not one to mope, Grayson began
thinking of ways to win back the
order. The answer was the diamond-shaped
card, used as part of a tiered
customer loyalty program. Friedman’s
top customers would receive the
diamond cards, and others would
get gold or platinum ones in the
standard card shape.
Friedman’s
had problems with other card suppliers
during its hiatus from SBF, so
it was willing to rely on the
distributorship for cards again.
To ensure it fits easily in wallets,
the diamond-shaped card is die
cut from a basic plastic card,
so it still measures 3 3/8 inches
across at its widest point and
21Ú8 inches from the top of the
card to the tip of the diamond’s
bottom point. Grayson patented
the card’s design in 2003.
It’s manufactured by Innovative
Plastic Printing Corp., based
in Carol Stream, Ill.
The
front of the card is constructed
of a silver holographic foil,
so the card shimmers like a diamond
when it’s tilted. It features
triangular dark silver lines to
resemble the cuts in a diamond.
Friedman’s name, logo and
the words “AdvantagePlus”
are imprinted in black. SBF, which
handles fulfillment for the jeweler’s
loyalty cards, personalizes the
cards with customers’ names
using an ink jet printer. The
back includes a magnetic stripe
and text about the AdvantagePlus
program. SBF provides up to 1
million cards (including all three
levels of the AdvantagePlus cards)
at a time.
—Susan
Keen Flynn
1.
Think creatively. “All
of us walk in the door offering
the same products,” says
Chip Grayson, president of SBF
Inc., Savannah, Ga. “But
you have to ask yourself, ‘Is
there anything I can do differently?’”
For SBF, that often means adding
a new twist to an old product,
such as the diamond-shaped plastic
cards he sells to Friedman’s.
“It re-opened the door at
Friedman’s, and we were
able to request all their cards,”
says Grayson.
2.
Offer fulfillment.
Grayson says distributors are
missing a big opportunity—and
leaving themselves vulnerable
to competitors—by not handling
plastic card fulfillment. SBF
personalizes cards and carriers,
inserts them in envelopes and
mails them for Friedman’s.
3.
Keep on the cutting edge.
The plastic card market is constantly
evolving. Products such as smart
cards and ID cards using biometrics
are pushing the technological
limits of cards’ functionality.
“I love when a new product
is released in the market,”
says Grayson. “It’s
something else to sell.”
