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printIQ helped Mirage Visual simplify their quoting process and gain visibility into their business.
Mirage Visual, located in Palmerson North, New Zealand, is a family-owned company that was started in 1982 by Kelvin and Wendy Blenkiron, as ticket and sign-makers. Now, with more than 23 staff members, the second-generation family business has grown with a focus on design, print, signage, and point-of-sale displays.
Sam Blenkiron, now Director of Mirage, shared that he started his career and worked for a large, Australasian print company before coming into the family business. “I joined the company in 2009 and with my print knowledge, I decided to integrate print and point-of-sale into the organization – and we haven’t stopped there. We now print for brands that are located overseas and utilize the printIQ engine to easily manage and store the assets until they are ready to be shipped. This gives our customers full visibility and control of their inventory and provides a way to seamlessly distribute from one central system.”
Having everything in one location was critical for Mirage. Blenkiron added, “I can be anywhere in the world and know exactly what is going on. We are only scraping the surface with this system, but the visibility and accessibility of the data is unmatched. Back in 2018 when we added the system, I had a thought about how we would access our data if the world shut down. Little did I know, having that mobility in 2020 would be so important.”
Blenkiron shared that the business was growing year-over-year, and he wanted to find a way to get quotes out faster and have the visibility to manage the business from one system. “We had always had some sort of estimating software but felt there was a lack of development overall. With the old system not in the cloud, we could only access it from the office.” By talking with friends and colleagues in the industry, Blenkiron came across printIQ as a foundational system for the organization, that gave him the accessibility he needed.
“I knew not one system was going to do everything, but adding printIQ allows us to integrate just about everything into one system and scale as needed. We really wanted to consolidate things for a more seamless approach,” said Blenkiron.
Mirage decided to take things a step further and integrate their CRM and ticketing, Zoho One, into the system. “All of our external communication now comes through Zoho Desk. If there are any quote requests, they are pushed directly to printIQ. Anyone in the organization that is in Zoho can see the correspondence to the customers along with any notes on the topic. This type of visibility has been invaluable to our business.”
“I feel a company without systems has no value; I have seen this first-hand,” shared Blenkiron. He added that his goal as a director is to ensure they are responsive and loved by their customers. “We want to get quotes out faster. By having a system with different layers and features, we can continue to get more of our team using it so we can be as efficient as possible.”
“I can be anywhere in the world and know exactly what is going on. We are only scraping the surface with this system, but the visibility and accessibility of the data is unmatched.”
Sam Blenkiron, Director
Mirage Visual