Customer service & the printed word

“Automatic Printing Company, may I help you?”

That's the way my dear aunts taught me to answer the phones back in 1977 when I started in the family business.

“Do you print books?” the caller asked.

“We print anything on paper,” I replied.

She came down to the shop a bit later that morning and showed us what she was working on, a children's book in Arabic.

“How did you happen to call on us?” Mike and I asked.

“Well, I was looking for a printer and the first one I called with my question put me on hold and didn't get back to me. You were next on the list. You listened to what I had to say and responded. That's why I am here.”

If that is not a lesson in customer service, I don't know what is! At Automatic Printing the only thing we really have to sell is service and that is a point of pride. We will offer it up with craftsman-like printing. We've been offering it since 1935.

That is the simple story of how our relationship with Dr. Arwa Nasir and her new business Palestine Publishing began, by answering the phone.

We are so proud to be the printers of not one, but four beautiful children's books that Arwa has written and illustrated with the artwork of several gifted artists.

Arwa is a pediatrician and recognizes that physical health, mental health and emotional and intellectual health all work together to help children grow up strong and healthy. She is taking her books with her as she spends the next year as a Fulbright scholar in her native Jordan working on research to back up her belief. Her books will be used with parents to encourage them to sit down with their children and read and learn together.

Having spent time in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq over the past nine years and experiencing the trauma of children in refugee camps, I know Arwa's work is very important and impactful. Refugee children who are offered the opportunity to go to school are taking what they have learned home to impact their families in profound ways.

Books. Printed books shared between children and adults are helping to heal the scars of war. We are proud to be a part of Dr. Arwa's healing work.

You can find her books at www.palestinepublishing.com.

(The photo is of her fourth book, Our New Baby. I was lucky enough to get an autographed copy.)

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