Fun with Kinko’s

In many ways, Kinko’s is a business traveler’s best friend. It’s always there - whether you need a fax machine or 100 binders for your presentation. Many of us take it for granted that Kinko’s will come through for us in a crunch. But what happens when things at Kinko’s don’t go exactly as planned?

For our upcoming Essentials of Business Blogging event in Los Angeles, my boss tasked me with getting the attendee binders and signs for the event printed at Kinko’s and delivered to the Westin LAX where the event will take place this Thursday.

I called the store and spoke to a woman who said she’d be the contact on our project. I gave her all the specifics for what we’d need and she faxed us a bid. We signed the bid and faxed it back to her. I asked her for her e-mail address so I could send the files.

“Our location doesn’t accept e-mails anymore,” she said politely. “You’ll need to use our docstore system.”

She pointed me in the direction of a website - docstore.kinkos.com and told me to upload the file there.

I hung up the phone and got to work uploading the files. Four hours later - after a conference call between myself, my boss and a Kinko’s staffer (our contact had left for the day), repeated trial and error, and many many moments of frustration and panic - we finally got the files to upload to their website.

Throughout the whole process, the system kept asking us for details we’d already discussed with our contact. What page size and paper type would we like? Where would we like the documents delivered? When did we need them by?

We had to re-enter the information each time we attempted to upload the file. This grew incredibly tedious. “Effectively,” said my boss at one point, “we’re doing data entry for Kinko’s. And we’re the client.”

Numerous times during the four hours between when we started the process and achieved resolution, I tried to figure a workaround to the problem. Could we FTP the files to our own site and have the Kinko’s people download them? Could we e-mail them to someone? Could we upload the files to our iDisk?

Each workaround was met with the same response: “Our computers can’t perform that function. They’re locked out to prevent staffers from downloading things onto the computers.”

“I know it’s a terrible system,” a staffer who asked to remain anonymous told me. “We get complaints about it all the time, but there’s nothing I can do.”

When asked what advice he had for business travelers who relied on Kinko’s he said, “there really isn’t any other way. It’s just a terrible system. If we were going to change it, the decision would have to come from Corporate. Just be prepared for a lot of frustration, I guess.”

He paused, then lowered his voice conspiratorially, “to tell you the truth, it’s just as bad on this end. Sometimes I don’t know how I deal with all the bureaucracy.”

Our recommendation is to avoid it altogether, particularly if the location in question doesn’t accept e-mail submissions.

When you’re planning your project in a distant city, try contacting the National Association of Quick Printers (a.k.a. PrintImage International) at (800)-234-0040 or the National Association for Printing Leadership at (800) 642-6275 and ask them to recommend a couple of small printers in the area that might be able to accomplish you project.

Chances are good that you’ll talk to the owner of the company, or maybe a member of her family. The person you talk to may even have permission to download your file from an e-mail or from your own website.

How novel!

We should note that, after a great deal of uneccessary grief and frustration, the products from Kinko’s turned out splendidly. The people at the Kinko’s we worked with were excellent, their computer program on the other hand…