By CARA LORELLO
Staff Reporter
For a guy who admits he's made every business mistake possible, Cheney Copy Junction owner Roger Hagenbuch's philosophy on building a good rapport with customers is a tough one to argue about.
“A happy customer is a returning customer—an unhappy one is not,” the eight-year Cheney resident said from the newly opened Copy Junction in Airway Heights. The store, located at 12015 West 14th Avenue (next door to Curves), is roughly half the size of Cheney's Copy Junction, which Hagenbuch and wife Wanda purchased in 2004.
Opening a second store became a goal for the couple last year after Hagenbuch made the decision to trade a teaching career to managing the business full time.
Knowing what to expect comes easier managing your own store than finding work as a teacher, Hagenbuch said, who substitute taught for three years for Cheney, Medical Lake and Reardan school districts.
Since purchasing Copy Junction, the Hagenbuch's have worked to improve business by bringing in services previously not available to customers.
“To meet customer needs, you need to have technology in place,” Hagenbuch said of the store's networking and computer services, which have expanded from copying, printing and shipping to include personalized photo calendars, business cards, T-shirt printing, photo card printing, mousepads, and more merchandise.
A new wide format copier was purchased for the new store, which offers most of the regular services available at the Cheney store. By comparison, Copy Junction functions like a UPS-Kinko's-Staples mini store, with services ranging from faxing (send/receive), packing, shipping via FedEx, printing from media (CD/DVD, thumbdrives, disks) color copies of camera card photos, binding, laminating (up to 27 inches), overhead transparencies and notary service. Additional FedEx services include custom invitation and booklet production, package acceptance, wide format printing and lamination and heat transfers for quilting on 50 to 100 percent cotton.
Space limits some things in Airway Heights, Hagenbuch added.
“Though we don't have the same equipment, we've duplicated what we can with what we do in Cheney. The copier is a pretty substantial investment in itself,” he said, adding that it was never a goal to go a lot bigger, too new or too old in locating the store—just as long as the store was within the West Plains area. Here at least, Hagenbuch said, Copy Junction is basically one-of-a-kind, whereas Spokane has its share of stores specializing in similar services, or combinations of them.
“The closest UPS store is about eight and half miles from here,” he said of Airway Heights, which the Hagenbuchs chose over Medical Lake.
When it comes to pricing services, Copy Junction aims to stay competitive by featuring prices comparable to big-name stores for the same service. The advantage to owning a small company, Hagenbuch said, is customer service with something extra. Customers needing to alter their media before an order can do so free of charge if the store computer has the right software to do the job, as was the case with one Cheney customer.
It's the personal attention from staff that makes the difference, which comes in handy for the typical customer who's not sure what they need, save for a mental picture.
“Our job is to take that mental picture and develop it into a paper product that fits what they're looking for,” Hagenbuch said.
In a bigger company, everything you get you pay for too, he added.
Though it's uncertain whether a UPS or Staples will ever locate in Airway Heights or Cheney, Hagenbuch said it's his hope Copy Junction will find a market with the locals when it comes to needing these types of services, adding, “There is a difference between quality and quantity.”
Airway Heights Copy Junction hours are 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays. An ribbon-cutting ceremony is planned for Friday, March 14, at 3 p.m.
To contact them, call (509) 244-9200, or email at [email protected].
Cara Lorello can be reached at [email protected]
Reader Comments(0)