If there's one thing Datamax always anticipates, it's moving forward.

As a Little Rock Service Manager Mark McKinney says, he and his team spend the majority of every day in “anticipation” mode. Anticipating customer needs. Anticipating potential issues. Anticipating fast-as-possible resolution and a positive customer experience. Anticipation is synonymous with the Datamax service philosophy.

Going backwards, or receding on progress? Not even an option.

Continued progression, improved metrics, a further-satisfied customer; it all takes planning. And that takes investment of both time and effort.

“As (Barry Simon says), if you’re not growing, you’re dying. Our department is always looking at taking that next step forward,” Mark says.

This month, managers from all departments will embark on a huge investment of time and effort as they share their business plans with one another. These meetings are the starting point for a clear direction moving into 2020.

Investment in Planning

Datamax Texas Director of Service Steve Kennemer says he really enjoys the developing Business Plans every year.

He’s spent the past 10 weeks developing his plans for 2020. Most managers spend at least a month working on their own statistics, goals and metrics to share with their peers.

Steve looks forward to later this month when he and other managers will meet to discuss the coming year.

“It’s a great opportunity to get on the same track,” Steve says. “If sales is pushing something we don’t know about, we’re behind the eight ball. If service is wanting to go a certain direction, but sales isn’t, it’s a wasted business plan… If you don’t have direction, you’ll go around in circles.”

The annual meeting – and the discussions preceding it – are also a wonderful time for collaboration.

“I was visiting with (Stephen) Hampton in Tyler recently about some of my plans, and he had ideas I wouldn’t have thought about,” Steve said. “He shot back ideas and I thought, ‘well I think I like that!’ It’s not just my 38 years of expertise. It’s Stephen’s 30+ years. It’s Mark’s expertise. If you share the knowledge you get a better outcome.”

It’s a huge investment of time and effort by the managers but, ultimately a vital one in Datamax’s success.

“I can’t say enough about the process,” Steve says. “If you’ve got a clear path ahead of you, you’ve got a chance at succeeding.”

Investment in Expertise

In essence, the development of business plans are in the works year round. What would we like to see change? How would we like this process improved? What would make our jobs better? What can we do to improve our internal culture?

Service is, of course, no exception.

The question Mark McKinney poses again and again is, given the life cycle of every print device, how can we make these machines run as efficiently and effectively as possible, without a customer having to submit a service call.

He anticipates parts and their limited life span. He anticipates routine, preventive measures that can ward off larger issues. He also anticipates that, when a customer is down, his team should own the highest amount of expertise possible for fast resolution.

And that, too, takes an investment.

Consider these numbers: In the last five years, Arkansas has invested 18,473 hours and $960,854 in service training. Similarly, Texas has invested 17,339 hours and $1,017,285.

These large numbers translate into manufacturer-specific accolades like Canon ATSP and Konica Minolta Pro-Tech, which continuously fine-tune technician skills for the overriding mission for our service team and our organization: Creating Raving Fans.

Investment in Insight

In 2019, Steve played an integral in implementing PrintView. With this new program, we ultimately release a client’s print-related IT and administrative burden by utilizing Canon ImageWare Remote + Snapshot and ECI FMAudit™. Beyond automating tasks like toner replenishment and meter readings, PrintView gives our technicians direct, remote access to device service data, offering enhanced technical insights PRIOR to dispatch.

“We want to have a different kind of service department. Customers will come up to me and say ‘we’ve never done it that way,’’ Steve says. “And my response is, ‘we don’t do what everyone else does. This is the Datamax way of service… (With PrintView), we took things that would normally be a burden for the customer, and we’re taking those things away from them.”

Investment in the Mission

At Datamax, there’s a huge investment in time, in effort, dollars and solutions, to Create Raving Fans. But it comes down to the planning. These meetings are the vehicle that gives our mission a specific direction, says president Barry Simon.

“I started these planning meetings a long time ago, and the whole idea is to sit down with people in administration, sales, and services, we go over past numbers and what we’ve done. And once we’ve got history, we know where we’re at. And then we sit down and say ‘here’s the goal, and here’s the activities to reach that goal,’” Simon said.

It’s ultimately an investment in people. It’s investing in the mission ahead of us.

No going backwards.