Taopix launches new services

Print Solutions

Taopix has launched a range of professional services to help customers succeed at every stage of their photo commerce journey.

Choosing the right software on which to base your photo commerce business is more important than ever, but choosing the right software provider, is critical.

The photo commerce and personalisation market is growing at a rate that makes differentiation for direct to consumer brands more and more difficult. As barriers to entry get lower for non print manufacturers and more e-commerce centric players enter the market, the need to focus on the business holistically is increasingly important for everyone competing in the space.

Based on growing demand from its customers and ever greater complexity in the market, Taopix has formally launched a professional services division to compliment its market leading photo commerce software platform.

‘Taopix has been supporting its ever growing customer base with a whole variety of services pretty much since the company was formed, 11 years ago,’ said Nigel Lee, executive chairman. ‘Having more than 300 customers in 61 countries gives us a unique perspective on what constitutes a successful photo commerce business, from planning and inception, to launch, to on-going growth and development.’

Lee continued, ‘It is of paramount importance to us that our customers are as successful as they can be and with the experience we have gathered in more than a decade leading the industry, our expertise is of enormous value to our user community.’

Taopix has always provided comprehensive training as part of the licensing of its software but has decided to formally extend its services in to a portfolio designed to proactively support its customers in every step of their journey. To lead this initiative, the company has appointed its former technical services manager, Ollie Renshaw as global head of professional services.

‘Ollie has a 360 degree view of all of our customers, old and new. His expertise in the product, the needs of our customers, and the market in general are second to none. Ollie’s commitment to excellence and a genuine desire to see our customer’s succeed make him the ideal person to lead this initiative,’ said Lee.

The new professional services offering is divided in to three main categories – planning, execution and growth.

First, the company will offer a range of services at project inception in order to ensure project success and to provide customers with the best possible basis on which grow a successful business. ‘All of the seeds of success are sown in the early stages of the project,’ said Ollie Renshaw. ‘We will offer a range of services including feasibility studies, proof of concept, and project definition and project management all of which can be delivered before or after commercial commitment to the Taopix software has been made.’

Secondly, it can now jointly or fully support the process of customers implementing their photo commerce software platform. These services will include technical deployment, systems integration, product set up, website creation and thereafter, on-going management and monitoring of the software and its environment. ‘Our customers need varying degrees of help and support from us in order to go live and stay live, be it technical or from a product marketing point of view. Our customers can choose how much help they ask for, we are happy to provide whatever help they need and are even able to do it all for them,’ said Ollie.

Thirdly, once live, success in using the platform is largely determined by a customer’s ability to market themselves and their business on the Internet and to deliver a first class customer experience from photo product creation to the end customer receiving the finished product. ‘When designing the new professional services division we decided to include a full marketing agency style portfolio of services to help our customers succeed in doing business on the Internet. Whether it is help and guidance or full involvement from Taopix in digital marketing and campaign management, we’re on hand to make our customers as successful as they can be. We can even take care of customer services.’ concluded Ollie.

All professional services packages will be tailored to specific customer needs. ‘There’s no one size fits all when it comes to helping our customers, every customer has unique needs and our offering reflects that. Nor are the services we’re offering right for all of our customers, but I think our message is clear; our customers’ success is of critical importance to us and we’re available to help in whatever way we can,’ summarised James Gray, Founder and CEO.