The second half game plan in service has everything to do with finding ways to make customers say "WOW."

More specifically, as Steve Kennmer likes to refer to it, as The “Wow” Factor. The technician, logistics, and delivery personnel actions that often have little to do with the equipment itself, and everything to do with leaving a positive, lasting impression.

“Our people are expected to fix copiers. That’s essential. But what we want to be known as at Datamax is, ‘you NEED to do business with Datamax. They will wow you.’ That’s what we’re looking for (in the second half)." - Steve Kennemer

Making customers fanatical about their service experience: Here's just a few recent examples of what "Wow" looks like:

• Not too long ago, just as Jeremiah Davis was going in for a preventative maintenance call, the Methodist Church he visited was flooding. Jeremiah didn’t’ hesitate, moving rugs to saturate the water flow, and helping the staff there move equipment and furniture away from harm.
• In East Texas, David Olliff went “above and beyond” to help a retirement community solve a number of network and telephony issues, none related to a copier or to Datamax itself. He even helped them reach out to their appropriate vendor. 
• In Arkansas recently, the delivery/warehouse and service teams came together to complete an installation that covered 4 stories (and 140 machines) in an unprecedented four days. The customer was stunned with the results. 
• Pete Rouget, Application/Sales Support Specialist, saved a customer from having to reach out to their third-party IT vendor. When many of their wall ports were not working, he took it upon himself to investigate and provide a solution. 

In the past several months, Texas leadership has introduced a number of programs to help promote the “Wow” factor in service. Our service teams have the unique opportunity to differentiate Datamax, through little actions that carry a big weight.

Three ways Steve promotes the ‘Wow’ Factor:

1. Canon SPA Care Program

Managers and Supervisors in Texas will be attending Canon’s week-long Systematic Problem Analysis (SPA) Care class as a way to introduce advanced troubleshooting skills for first-time fixes.

Care stands for Collect, Analyze, Repair, and Evaluate. The bottom line? “maximize the time and prints before the next service visit.”

“It’s also about discovering ‘what is the real issue?’” Kennemer said. “It’s about getting to the root of the problem. We can fix the hardware, but did we fix the real issue? That’s the customer care side of it.”

2. Refocus on Five Values.

Steve and his teams plan on reinforcing 5 Datamax Principles from the Little Blue Book.

1. Honor your commitments.
2. Make decisions based on the good of the entire organization.
3. Honor our systems or initiate positive change.
4. Respect the opinions and ideas of others.
5. Problem seek/problem solve.

“If you can focus on those five values, your customer service is going to be crazy good,” Steve said. “If your daily work is in accordance with those five things, you’re bound to have positive outcomes.”

3. Survey Award Programs.

The Texas team is now recognizing individual technicians for their positive comments from surveys each month.

“We’re keeping track of and recognizing the positive comments, as well as who has had the most positive comments (each month),” Steve said. “These could be things as simple as noticing a customer carrying a bunch of boxes. You open the door for them, or carry the boxes for them … It may have nothing to do with copiers. But it shows that Datamax is the type of company you’d like to do business with.”

In Little Rock, Mark McKinney stresses continued training, in-the-field practice, and expert troubleshooting as ways to produce the Wow Factor.

“The bottom line is, if we can’t fix the machines, there’s no point in being in business,” Mark said. “We’ve worked hard to cross-train our guys on many types of devices. Also, in today’s climate, they need to know about computers, networking, etc. That comes from training, and when it’s time, doing whatever it takes to help the customer, so we walk out of there and they are happy.”

Arkansas Vice President of Operations Greg Kirtman, who oversees admin and warehouse operations, also offers his insight on a successful 2021.

Greg Kirtman's 3 Key Success Factors for the second half.

1. Continue to recruit and hire the correct personnel.

Those with the Attitude, Skills and Knowledge that we have always looked for in order to continue our success and growth. “Finding the correct personnel has always been the most difficult and challenging part of management.  With the “right person, right job” and proper management and guidance, the rest is relatively easy,” Greg said.

2. Continue to evaluate our parts and supply levels.

This helps ensure to ensure adequate inventory that minimizes backorders that could create “downtime” for our customers while also minimizing our inventory write-offs for obsolete items.

3. Continue to evaluate the “tools” we use.

These tools include e-automate, remote tech, and other software. And when possible, evaluate our internal processes to determine if any improvements can be implemented to ensure that we are responding to customer needs, both current and future.