COMMENT: Price is crucial but proactive service is key.(Print Week's awards)(Brief Article)

Preparation for the PrintWeek Awards is always a fascinating and uplifting time here at PrintWeek Towers.

For a start, we find ourselves spending days surrounded by hundreds of fabulous printed products, which really brings home how vital the printed medium is to businesses and consumers the length and breadth of the country.

Everything from the exquisite - such as bespoke brochures with bountiful budgets, beautiful books that will be treasured for generations - to the more everyday print - such as an apparently humble label that is a mini-masterpiece in its own right.

The awards, just like the industry itself, undergo a constant evolution in order that we can reward outstanding results, whether printed or financial, across all the major disciplines and types of company.

One of the new categories introduced in 2002, the award for Customer Service Team of the Year, has proved particularly compelling.

This industry has come in for criticism for what is too often perceived as a somewhat rudimentary approach to this area or, worse still, a total blind spot.

But ...