Digital Office Systems (DOS) in Wichita, KS is a locally owned independent dealership that markets Konica Minolta, Ricoh, and KIP digital imaging systems. Ever since it opened its doors in 2001, DOS has focused on an ethical, personalized, and partnered approach to the way it conducts business, an approach that’s been the foundation for many long-term customer relationships.
DOS also recognizes that superior service is paramount to customer retention. It’s all about protecting customers’ equipment and extending the life of that equipment. A key strategy for making that happen is a proactive service model in which the latest troubleshooting technology and software is used to quickly resolve problems, often anticipating issues before they even happen.
The dealership’s service department is responsible for customers in nine counties in South Central Kansas. Most customers can be categorized as SMBs, although you’ll also find a few school districts and some medical facilities among DOS’s client base. Customers tend to choose DOS because they offer quality products and service, and because they make it easy to do business with them.
Since we’re talking about service, let’s go on record that there aren’t many dealers in the country that do as good a job as DOS. In fact, based on BEI Services rankings, DOS rates as the Number 2 dealership in the country, just 1.8 points shy of the top dealership. Without a doubt that’s cause for celebration and why DOS has earned BEI Services’ and ENX magazine’s Office Technology Service Excellence Diamond award.
“They’re really well run,” says Steve Sharkey of BEI Services.
Need more proof? Just look at the numbers. Their incomplete for parts calls consistently runs in the 5-7 percent range. Their callback numbers are in the 24-28 percent range, and they are currently fourth overall among BEI Services’ dealer customers in First Call Effectiveness (FCE) at 68 percent.
From left to right: Ken Brasted Owner, Paul Wilkinson Service Manager, Brian Wilbert Owner
Contributing to that strong showing is a team of techs, including some of the top rated techs in the industry based on BEI Services data. This is something that DOS CEO Brian Wilbert, COO Ken Brasted, and Service Manager Paul Wilkinson take pride in. After all, service is a team sport and even though much of the burden is placed on the techs in the field, it takes a well-oiled organization using the right tools back at the home office to help those techs be successful.
The addition of BEI Services in 2004 to DOS’s service toolset has made a big difference in the quality of service DOS provides. “It was important to me coming from the service side of things to understand and compare ourselves using real numbers,” states Wilkinson. “When I have real numbers I can really benchmark.”
And as the company has grown to 50 employees, including 16 service techs, that ability to benchmark has made a huge difference in a dealership that has grown from a zero base in 2001 to $11 million in sales last year.
DOS was already doing a fine job from a service perspective prior to implementing BEI Services, but having the metrics to see exactly how they were doing compared to others in the industry and improve upon has enabled them to only get better. “FCE was the biggest thing we improved on,” states Wilkinson. “When we first started, our FCE was pretty low; we’ve now gotten it to where we are regularly in the 60’s and sometimes as high as 70 percent. It’s been a huge improvement as has our hold for parts.”
Having the right parts at the right time has been key to reducing the number of call backs; there’s nothing magical about it. And for those rare instances when a tech doesn’t have the part in his car stock, DOS has a quick fix.
“If the tech gets to a call and sees they don’t have a part we’ll bring the part to them while they finish cleaning the rest of the machine,” states Wilkinson. “Doing things like that has brought our FCE up.”
And up it is. In January 2006, FCE was hovering around 38 percent, today it’s an impressive 68 percent.
Have customers noticed the improvement?
“Our growth is the proof they’re noticing it,” states Brasted. “In a market this size you can’t continue to grow in an industry that’s flat at best. We have concrete proof of that. Our Net Promoter Score is in the low to mid nineties which is evidence that the customer loves what we’re doing.”
Response time has improved as well. As DOS has moved into the upper 30 percent of FCE it has seen its response time drop from seven hours to four. “That’s something an end user notices,” adds BEI’s Sharkey. “These guys are getting there twice as fast as they used to simply because their FCE is so much better.”
The BEI metrics has also allowed Wilkinson to focus more on territory management. It used to be the first tech available would take the call, but DOS now uses a structured territory system, which has also helped reduce service costs. “Having primary and backup techs in territories has cut their travel time and our travel costs quite a bit,” he says.
Other metrics that have helped enhance service is BEI’s parts per model data. “They do a good job of tracking each model’s commonly used parts and that helps our guys get their car stocks in line depending on what models they’re working on,” notes Wilkinson.
Besides providing customers with outstanding and timely service, the program can be used by the dealership to reward techs with bonuses based on their performance numbers. “They really like it a lot,” says Wilkinson who enjoys posting the numbers and handing out the rewards. “They can compare themselves against their peers and if they’re at the low end it gives them the motivation to improve. It also motivates them to get trained on the bigger machines.”
Those bonuses have even impacted recruiting. “From a recruiting standpoint it’s outstanding,” emphasizes Wilber. “Generally, everybody is close to the same labor rate per hour for techs, but when you can reward them with that dollar amount based on how they perform, that’s always above and beyond what they were making [elsewhere].”
Just because DOS is a Diamond Award winner doesn’t mean they can sit back and relax. “I’m always looking to improve our callback numbers and our hold for parts numbers,” says Wilkinson. “The fewer calls we have to come back for with parts, the better we are and the better it is for our customers.”
And what’s the strategy to make that happen?
“Continue to use BEI, continue to look at the numbers, continue to make sure we’re stocking the right parts, continue to make sure we’re training our guys, and continue to make sure that they understand when new products come out that we’re getting them trained right away and they have all the tools that they need to perform,” replies Wilkinson.
Rating the performance of DOS’s techs has proven helpful for training purposes as well. “When we have models where we see that there’s room for improvement we can take the guys who have the best numbers and have them cross train the guys who are struggling a little bit,” says Wilkinson.
Obviously, money is a motivator and with that kind of motivation it’s not unusual for DOS’ techs to take an extra call at the end of the day or start early so that they can make more calls and be rewarded for it.
Being a Diamond Award winner has its privileges and DOS plans to leverage this with their customers, touting it in their newsletter and bringing it up in conversation whenever the opportunity presents itself.
“We think it’s great,” states Wilbert. “It’s a nice honor for us and we appreciate it. What customers understand most is how we pay our techs and that they get paid by how long a machine runs. The longer it runs, the more they make. When we describe it that way, they understand it pretty well.”
Any advice for their peers who would like to see their service numbers improve?
“Training is huge and it’s amazing how many other dealers I talk to and techs I interview that don’t get certified training,” observes Wilbert. “I’d also say invest in BEI. It’s a great program and incents your techs to do a good job.”
Digital Office Systems (DOS)
Wichita, Kansas
CEO: Brian Wilbert
COO: Ken Brasted
Service Manager: Paul Wilkinson
Techs: 16
Territory Covered: South Central Kansas
How they’re doing:
- Incomplete for parts calls – 5-7%
- Callbacks – 24-28%
- First Call Effectiveness 68%
