Abbott Action
| Industry Corrugated |
| Location Massachusetts |
| Company size 4 locations, 300 employees |
| Processes Digital printing, Flexography, Lithography |
Why did you start using Lumi?
Lumi is honest. Lumi is not claiming to be a manufacturer or competing with us in the marketplace, so that was big. Also, the quality of the Lumi platform is far superior.
Traditional RFPs take a lot of time, and we don’t always have direct contact with the customer. But being able to speak to the customer at the infancy of the project and point them in the best direction gives us opportunities to get more orders.
And since Lumi is a global platform, customers can find us based on our location. Plus, our performance statistics —on-time rate, rejects, etc — will speak for themselves. It's a good competitive advantage, and I'm always looking for ways to leverage myself.
How does Lumi fit into your prospecting efforts?
If all my leads and prospects were coming from Lumi, that'd be awesome because it's leveraging my time. It's a huge help having something that is generating leads, because leads don’t come easily and getting new businesses is not a cakewalk, so anything that helps is huge.
When you're not using Lumi, what is the quoting process like?
It can take 1-2 weeks to go from prospecting to sending a quote. The first thing I do is find a prospect. I go to their website to find out where they’re located, if they have a loading dock, and check a million different criteria before I can call and qualify them.
After I qualify a prospect, getting the right information is always the hardest part. I’m basically looking for all the information that customers fill out on the Lumi quote request form.
When it's time to send a quote, our quotes are made in an old system and they can be hard to read and understand, especially for new customers. So I spend time explaining exactly what they’re looking at.
How does Lumi simplify the process of prospecting and quoting?
The biggest advantage of Lumi is having all the information needed to qualify the lead right in front of me: project information, delivery information, and company information. I can make informed decisions quickly.
I live in my email so I stay on top of the email notifications for new quotes that meet our capabilities. When I find a job to quote, the quoting form provides a lot of good options. For example, I like how I can easily choose between DDP or EXW and decide if I want shipping to be included in the unit cost or charged separately.
It's important to me that I set expectations as best I can. I'd rather under promise and overachieve.
What makes Abbott Action's profile on Lumi stand out?
The biggest thing is that we’re one of the most sustainable corrugated plants in the country. Two of our three facilities are solar powered, and everything in our plants is set up with the intention of being as sustainable as possible.
We also really pride ourselves on being as responsive and accommodating as possible. And finally, we stay privy to the new technology in the field and routinely invest in new machines, new software, etc.
What type of clients are you excited to find on Lumi?
I'm always looking for more customers that are selling to the retail space and want retail packaging. Or companies that are looking for more than just a shipping container — they want their customer to have an experience.
What types of jobs are the best fit for your capabilities?
When I'm looking through opportunities in the marketplace, the first thing I look at is location. I want to make sure it's within our range. I'm also looking for higher graphic, more complex projects, and depending on how complex it is, I may increase our range.
Lumi allows us to use our experience to quote more opportunities. For example, I recently saw a request for boxes that would need to be refrigerated which is a nightmare when it comes to packaging, because it's going to crumble due to the moisture. We do a lot of work with bakeries and bread companies, so when I saw that the customer wanted B flute, I recommended alternate specs, increasing it to C flute.
