“It needs to be painful for people to switch,” says John Kittell with barely disguised glee. He’d never wish a moment’s pain on his customers, but he’s come to realize over the past six years that when his phone rings, it’s usually because someone’s seriously stressed out. He says his customers come to him when they’re frustrated, panicked and need help. What does he give them? Relief, in cheque form.
Kittell is the founder and president of Calgary-based Cheque Print Solutions Inc., a self-described David to Canada’s monolithic cheque-producing Goliath, Davis + Henderson. But, with characteristic bravado, Kittell declares, “we’re taking their customers one at a time.”
Since 2000 Kittell has taken his background in the printing industry and applied his skills and customer service knowledge to an obscure area: the manufacturing of bank cheques. “The biggest problem is that people don’t realize they have options,” he says of customers ordering their cheques from their financial institutions. More often than not, though, he says he gets calls from small- and mid-sized business owners who have heard that he can get them cheques, fast. “We have a repeat rate of about 95%,” Kittell says. From making a single custom cheque (“our client was buying a building but I made him two, just to be safe,” he recalls) to making hundreds, the process is all the same.
“They’re not the sexiest product,” he admits, “but they’re a part of your life.” And who doesn’t like to receive a cheque? Cheque Print produced more than five million for more than 3,500 customers in 2005, so he knows what he’s talking about. Kittell estimates he gets 45 to 50 new clients per month, most calling on the recommendation of existing clients. For security purposes, the company doesn’t advertise its location or product, but Kittell is satisfied with the volume of new business. In light of required changes to cheque formatting, it’s about to get a lot busier.
The Canadian Payment Association (CPA) introduced changes to cheque imaging and formatting in 2005, with a two-year window for completion. Among the changes, which cheque producers must incorporate by a recently extended deadline in mid-2007, the MIRC (magnetic image character recognition) numbers on the bottom of the cheque must be printed with magnetic ink.
“Every business day in Canada, more than five million cheques are transported from one financial institution to another,” says the CPA’s background paper on the new rules. “Some of them log thousands of kilometres en route.” The changes mandated by CPA mean that, instead of being well travelled, the cheques will be scanned and made available for verification from the banking institution from which they are drawn. “The consumer impact is huge,” says Kittell. “Everybody will need new cheques by the end of the year no matter what,” and, true to form, Kittell’s biggest concern is that businesspeople who use specialized accounting software may not be aware their software needs to be upgraded as well to read the new cheques. “Go to our site and read the information there,” he urges. Cheque Print has posted information on the CPA’s specifications and what companies need to do.
Kittell’s mandate is similar to the KISS principle: by keeping the ordering simple, he says he can keep his customers satisfied. “I’m not curing cancer here,” he says, “I’m just trying to keep the customer happy.”
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