Bishop’s Techs & Service Managers:
Back Row from Left to Right –
Tom Neighbors (Field Service Manager), Scott Watts, Jr. (he did not win any BEI but our managers wanted him in the photo), Stacy Bell, John Lottman, James Driscoll (VP of Service)
Front Row from Left to Right –
Bok-Hyun Lee, Ty Smth, Lee Kordash, Cory Wilson
If your customer retention rate consistently hovers in the nineties you must be doing something right. For Bishop Business Equipment in Omaha, NE, it starts with a mission, a mission that everyone in the company is focused on day in and day out. That’s “to be a company of engaged business professionals whose customers are so satisfied they wouldn’t think about going anywhere else!”
Bishop Business Equipment markets products and solutions from Toshiba, Xerox, OKI Data, Lexmark, and Laserfiche. It also has a sizable MPS program. Bishop’s territories encompass Omaha, Lincoln, and surrounding areas.
“We cover a large area in eastern Nebraska and western Iowa,” explains James Driscoll, VP of service who has been with the dealership for nearly 14 years, starting as a field technician.
Competition comes from a handful of other independent dealers as well as Ricoh, Konica Minolta, Xerox, and Canon branches. Although that competition is formidable, Bishop has proven difficult to displace.
Owner Dave Bishop, whose father started the business in 1954, worked in the family business while going to school and became a full-time employee in 1978 after graduation from college. Asked why customers choose Bishop Business Equipment, he responds, “You need good products, but there are a lot of good products out there. We have great service and great people, and whenever we’re talking about that or thinking about what sets us apart, it always goes back to our people.”
Dave Bishop
Bishop is so focused on ensuring that his dealership has great people that he always interviews every candidate no matter what department before they’re hired. “I care about the culture of this business and the people we have determine the culture we have,” says Bishop. “That comes from the top, but then you need to hire the people who will be working in that culture. It’s all about people and then making sure they understand what’s expected of them. Do they have the tools to do their job? What are we measuring? What they are responsible for? And making sure everybody understands quality service. That’s the bottom line.”
While we’re on the topic of quality service, the dealership has eight field technicians who are assigned territories by zip code. Techs service 250-350 machines each with the best techs responsible for the most devices. A dedicated printer tech handles roughly 2,000 printers.
One tool that’s made a difference in how Bishop Business Equipment provides quality service is the BEI Services program. It’s made a big difference, although as can occasionally happen, it took a little bit of time for service techs to embrace it.
“When BEI first came in, people were skeptical, saying, ‘We’re going to get penalized for using parts,’ but as time went on [people saw] the better job you did, the more copies you had between service calls and the more bonus opportunity there was for you,” recalls Driscoll. “I was seeing sizable bonuses for myself when I was a field technician.”
“We always worked hard to make sure we’re managing things well,” adds Bishop. “We want accountability and to reward those people who are doing a great job.”
And for those who need to improve, the program helps management pinpoint areas where struggling techs can improve.
Bishop also prides itself on being able to provide more proactive service. The overall model rating system provided by BEI allows the dealership to look at the specs on a certain model and the grouping it sells in compared to other similar products in the field and how they’re doing compared to other dealerships. With this information, Bishop’s service department is often well prepared for any issues that may occur with specific machines in the field.
If one looks at the metrics, it’s easy to see why Bishop is a BEI Services/ENX Service Excellence Diamond Award winner.
“Their Hold for Parts numbers are absolutely fabulous when you consider the geographic area they cover and all the equipment they’re working on being a multi line dealer. Their Hold for Parts consistently runs in the single digits—6 to 7 percent,” reports BEI’s Steve Sharkey. “That is a great indication of how well James, the parts room staff, and the technicians are doing managing that car stock activity and making sure they are adequately stocked from a parts standpoint to be completing the calls at that high a percentage. That’s a phenomenal example of the great job they do managing their inventory and making sure their techs have what they need to be successful.”
When asked about the biggest challenge of achieving these kinds of numbers, Driscoll says, “We look at everything as an opportunity. We go over our BEI reviews every month with the technicians, we sit down, dig into callbacks, if they had incomplete for parts, why and what they had an incomplete for, and is it something they need to carry. The callback report is my favorite report to dig into because it holds them accountable and they know I’m going to be asking about it.”
Driscoll and the techs review what was done, did they complete the call, did they follow Bishop’s complete call procedures to make sure it doesn’t happen again, and identify if there’s something that could have been done differently.
“I tell the guys I don’t ever want to see a callback for feed tires, ever,” states Driscoll. “There’s no reason to not put in a $15 set of feed tires because they’re so cheap. Why cause the customer or yourself that kind of heartburn? These are the little things that make a difference. We’ve seen good benefits from going over callbacks.”
Figuring there’s always room for improvement Driscoll would love to see every one of Bishop’s techs consistently score at least 70 percent in First Call Effectiveness. Considering that number was in the mid thirties in 2005 and hovers around 65 percent today, they don’t have far to go to achieve that goal.
“That’s where our technicians need to be to get 100 percent of their bonus,” states Driscoll. “We are very aggressive with that number.”
They are indeed and already have a couple of techs above 70 percent, including the number two tech in the country measured by BEI’s metrics. Their second tech ranks 21st in the country out of more than 6,000 techs monitored by BEI.
“One or two call backs for not having parts can really hurt them,” says Driscoll. “Some guys can be sitting at 69 percent and if they had fixed two more machines they could be getting 100 percent of their bonus, so keeping them informed is key.”
From the owner’s office Bishop likes the way Driscoll operates, particularly those monthly meetings with techs to go over their BEI reports and bonus structure.
“It’s totally different than posting the numbers and passing out the checks and not having conversations, because a lot of times these guys are not working on the right stuff; they’re engaged with it because they get a bonus check, but they don’t take it to the next level,” says Bishop. “I think it’s huge to have your manager sit down with you. James has done a great job with that and I think these guys look forward to their monthly review. It’s, ‘How do I get better and raise the [performance of the] entire group in terms of their effectiveness?’”
Bishop fully understands the benefits of tracking the numbers.
“It’s all about management, watching the right stuff, about parts usage, and efficiency in terms of call backs,” he says. “That’s how you have to be running a service department; if you do, things change. Inspect what you expect, people do what you measure. If you measure something, things change. You’ve got to manage.”
Now that they’ve claimed their Service Excellence Diamond Award, Bishop is exploring ways to leverage this acknowledgement internally and externally. Who knows, it may even help them raise their customer retention rate higher than it currently is.
In the ideal situation, if we were to speak to Driscoll a year from now, how might things have improved beyond where they are today?
“In an ideal situation we’d be consistently above 70 percent,” he answers. “I have the best techs in the business. I tell the guys that all the time. We have mutual respect for each other, we’re like a family. A year from now, things are going to be just as great as they are today.”
Bishop Business Equipment Company
Omaha, NE
President & CEO: Dave Bishop
Vice President & COO: Mark Newhouse
VP of Service: James Driscoll
Field Service Manager: Tom Neighbors
Number of Service Techs: 8
Territory Covered: Eastern NE to western IA
Why Bishop Stands Out
- Improved FCE from mid thirty percent in 2005 to 65 percent today
- Number 5 dealer in the country based on BEI Services’ metrics
- Has the number two service tech and number 21 service tech in the country among more than 6,000 monitored by BEI Services’ metrics
