The DocuSense team (Donna & Robert Melso are front right)
Ever since it was founded in 1989, DocuSense in West Chester, PA has been growing, expanding, and winning over new customers thanks to a commitment to providing superior service. As anyone who follows the comings and goings of the office technology dealer community clearly knows, superior service is something that everybody claims to offer, or at least strives for, but not everyone truly delivers, or delivers it in the same way. However, DocuSense delivers and that service excellence has been recognized with a BEI Services/ENX Magazine Office Technology Service Excellence Award in the Diamond category for 2015.
It’s only been a year and a half since DocuSense first implemented BEI, but the tools they now have at their disposal along with their previous service track record has propelled them as high as #4 in the nation in Office Technology Service Excellence Award (OTSEA) rankings, an impressive feat.
Let’s review the numbers in a few key categories that illustrate how well DocuSense is doing. Hold for Parts runs between 10-12 percent, Call Backs consistently range from 25-28 percent, and First Call Effectiveness (FCE) ranges between 60-64 percent. Any way you break those out, those are notable numbers.
Meet DocuSense
DocuSense is a certified Woman Owned Business, and a member of the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council. What started as a three-person local operation has grown into a dealership of 15 employees with a variety of national service partners.
DocuSense covers a wide swath of geography from its West Chester headquarters, as far north as Princeton, NJ, south to Delaware, and East to the Jersey Shore as well as the outskirts of Harrisburg, PA. Its client base includes Fortune 1000 corporations as well as small to medium size businesses.
In 2002 DocuSense became a GSA Contractor and a Xerox Peak Elite reseller. It has maintained this status every year since. One trait that helps DocuSense stand out in a competitive marketplace is its pioneering efforts in providing customers with fleet management solutions. Before fleet management was a buzz word, there was DocuSense paving the way.
Robert Melso
It’s Simple, It’s Service
It’s no surprise that DocuSense co-owner Bob Melso identifies service as the primary reason customers choose DocuSense over other options. Considering the wide geographic territory that DocuSense operates in, there’s heavy competition.
A proactive approach to service ensures that customers are well cared for. Virtually all customers are surveyed after each service call. The return rates for these surveys are respectable and often include valuable feedback for raising service to new levels.
“For whatever reason they seem to like us,” says Melso. “We have a great team, a great service manager John Leotta, and five techs on the road all day long.”
DocuSense techs are responsible for about 4.5 million pages per month.
Certifications Make a Difference
Although metrics are important for managing the techs and monitoring service performance, tech certifications are equally important for the dealership, its customers, as well as the techs themselves. Techs are assigned territories primarily by location and secondarily based on their certifications.
That’s something else that sets DocuSense apart from its competitors—the experience of its techs and the certifications they possess. Cumulatively, the dealership’s five techs have more than 100 years of service expertise and are certified on a wide variety of equipment, including Xerox, Toshiba, HP, and Brother.
“There are a lot of certifications that have to happen to support [all this technology],” emphasizes Melso. “We use the tools from BEI to help us define those territories.”
DocuSense supports its techs financially with bonuses for every certification they earn, something Melso believes is unique in the industry.
“We sit down with our techs quarterly, review their certifications, and for every certification they have they get a bump in their salary,” reports Melso. “That changes every quarter because some devices fall off the list and are no longer supported and new devices are added. They can directly influence their salary by increasing their certifications, so we never have to push too hard for them to get a certification.”
Back to BEI
Even though DocuSense had a dynamite service operation before BEI, now they’re even better. Melso recalls the original inspiration for giving it a try.
“We were looking for a way to measure our techs and provide them with feedback and John our service manager was asking ‘Why can’t we incent them a little bit better so they can see the fruits of their labor a little more?’”
Working with their BEI rep, DocuSense was presented with ideas for activity, FCE, and other areas that could raise service levels to even higher peaks.
“We use a simple method to measure our techs,” explains Melso. “If they meet certain thresholds they get a nice check.”
The results of those metrics are shared with the techs every two months in face-to-face meetings.
Did management have to show the techs the money before they saw the value in the metrics?
Melso doesn’t think so; rather he says the techs saw the promise of having these new methods of measuring activity and performance immediately.
“We basically measure their productive hours and their efficiency,” he says. “If they meet their thresholds on efficiency—87 percent—they get a bonus. It’s all or nothing, they can’t fall underneath or they don’t get the bonus.”
Despite covering different geographies, DocuSense’s techs take a team approach to service. To help promote teamwork DocuSense’s service manager measures the team as a whole on productive hours and efficiency. If they meet a threshold as a group, they’ll receive another bonus.
“Part of their bonus is their individual contribution and another part is how the team is performing,” states Melso.
Improvements didn’t happen overnight and DocuSense management wasn’t expecting it to.
“You don’t go for the brass ring right away,” acknowledges Melso. “Every six months we raised it to where we thought it should be and they’ve been able to meet those goals. They were very responsive. Where we’ve made the best strides is reducing the number of call backs and improving efficiency.”
Perhaps one of the best indicators of the quality service that DocuSense provides is its high customer retention rate. Customers simply don’t leave, and for those that do, it’s not unusual for them to find their way back once they realize this level of service isn’t always found anywhere else.
Melso is proud of what the service team has accomplished as well as the contributions of his sister Donna who was instrumental in introducing the dealership to BEI and helping manage the new system.
“I can’t say enough about her and all the guys’ hard work,” says Melso. “They’re very aware of the amount of productive hours they have to put in, but the system kind of runs itself. They know the system well and that minimizes my involvement and we’re able to focus on other portions of the business knowing the service department is running just fine.”
What recommendation would Melso have for another dealer who might be looking to enhance their service operation?
“Check out BEI,” he responds. “They provide us with metrics and a way of looking at the reporting in e-automate that enables us to go ahead and do this on our own.”
What’s next for DocuSense?
Besides wrapping up another good year, Melso says the dealership is planning to move into Managed Services and maybe even 3D printing.
“You have to be in this place now because with print governance and some of the other things coming down the road, software sales are going pretty well,” states Melso. “This is a mature industry. Unless you’re looking outside of printers and associated software, you’re probably missing something.”
What DocuSense isn’t missing are the tools to provide its customers with the best service it possibly can. No matter how they branch out in the future, having the right tools at their disposal along with tenured, certified techs, how can it go wrong?
That’s right, it can’t.
DocuSense
West Chester, PA
Co-Owner: Donna Melso
Co-Owner: Bob Melso
Service Manager: John Leotta
Number of Service Techs: 5
Number of pages managed by its techs: 4.5 million
Why DocuSense Achieves Service Excellence:
- Ranked as high as #4 in the nation in the OTSEA rankings
- Hold for parts ranges between 10-12 percent
- Call backs consistently range from 25-28 percent
- FCE runs between 60-64 percent
