Dale Scheuerman, director of service for All Copy Products in Denver, CO spends a fair amount of time on the road traveling between the dealership’s eight branches scattered across four states. One day you may find him at the home office in Denver, another day at the Kansas City branch, while the next week may find him in Phoenix or Fort Collins. Managing All Copy Products’ service operations is a demanding job, but fortunately for Scheuerman, he has a talented team working with him, all of whom are adept at keeping customer’s equipment up and running at peak efficiency.
All Copy Products, which last year celebrated its 40th anniversary, is an independently owned office technology dealership dedicated to providing customers and its team members with what the dealership’s mission statement calls “an unparalleled experience.” It achieves this through superior service, flexible and creative programs designed to improve efficiencies and increase customer’s profitability, community involvement, developing outstanding people, an ongoing investment in partner relationships to provide state of the art technologies and support, and excellence through its work ethic.
Customers choose All Copy Products over competitors primarily because of its people and the level of service they provide.
“We want to set the standards in what we do and the service we provide, from sales to service to administrative, all teams combined to get the business and maintain the business,” states Scheureman, a 30-year industry veteran who joined the dealership in 2003.
All Copy Products is enjoying a growth spurt, driven in part by a series of acquisitions during the past few years. When the company was first acquired by current President and Owner Brad Knepper in 1999, it had seven techs. When Scheuerman joined 13 years ago, there were a dozen techs on staff. Today, All Copy Products employs 72 techs in the various markets it serves.
Ensuring that its customers receive the highest levels of service can be challenging sometimes—especially with all the acquisitions—but time and time again, All Copy Products has done a remarkable job of raising the service excellence of those organizations to meet its high standards. One of the tools that the entire All Copy Products’ service team has in their toolkits, and is an integral component for ensuring that service levels are where they should be, is the BEI Services’ program.
It’s made a big difference and today All Copy Products ranks 14th in the country out of the 175 dealers using the program. Overall, the dealership’s numbers are impressive and have led to All Copy Products receiving the BEI Services/ENX magazine Service Excellence Diamond Award status. The dealership’s Hold for Parts Rate is at 11 percent while its FCE (First Call Effectiveness) consistently rates between 58-60 percent. What’s even more impressive is that those numbers reflect the excellence of 72 technicians who are responsible for servicing a total active machine population of 25,600 devices.
All Copy Products represents Konica Minolta, Canon, Sharp, HP, and now Toshiba—the result of a recent acquisition. Techs working in the Denver metropolitan area specialize in specific brands and their territories are specific to those brands. Techs at the branches are often generalists who are cross trained on all the brands that the branches in those regions sell.
Servicing so many different brands poses a minor challenge, but as one might expect, techs are factory authorized to service that equipment. All Copy Products also has two trainers on staff, allowing techs to be trained locally without having to take time off to travel to manufacturers’ training classes.
“It helps speed up that process since we don’t have to wait for a class to open up,” reports Scheureman. “We can send our trainer to the class where he becomes authorized to train on that particular model.”
Scheuerman does an excellent job of managing his service team thanks in large part to the BEI data, but he still gives credit where credit is due for All Copy Products’ outstanding service.
“I put in a lot of effort, but it comes with a lot of good people who help me.”
The BEI program has been a huge asset in terms of raising All Copy Products’ service levels. The original intent behind implementing the program was to reward technicians for the job they do in the field. This has had a ripple effect and has been instrumental in retaining customers.
“Technicians have a customer base and if we hang onto them, through the bonus program, they get a piece of the pie,” explains Scheuerman. “We’re always looking at the numbers and how we can improve. The number one thing is customer service. If we provide the customers with the best service they’re going to stay and we’ll get more customers.”
Having been around the industry for 30+ years Scheuerman can appreciate how service has changed…for the better.
“The technology is changing so fast and there are many more tools that give technicians an opportunity to understand [what some of the issues are] before they even get there,” he says. “This way they can be better prepared by having the parts they need before arriving at the customer’s office. When I was a technician I didn’t have that. You had a car stock and you hoped what you had was what you needed.”
One strategy that has been helpful for driving All Copy Products’ Hold for Parts numbers down is providing techs with company cars.
“That made a difference because the technicians were reimbursed for their miles,” observes Scheuerman. “[Their] small vehicles couldn’t hold many parts, or enough for the territory [they were responsible for]. Company cars have standardized the car size so they can maintain a good car stock for their territory.”
More often than not once techs start receiving bonuses for their performance, they’re bound to keep a close watch on their numbers from that point on. Indeed, All Copy Products’ techs are usually aware of how they’re doing each month based on the calls and clicks they’re completing, but they’re still anxious to see the numbers posted in black and white. Just as motivating as seeing their monthly or quarterly stack ranking within the dealership are the monthly one on one meetings techs have with All Copy Products’ field managers. These meetings are critical for building morale and helping techs pinpoint areas for improvement. This data makes Scheuerman’s job easier too, and he reveals that customer complaints have gone down drastically.
“We’ve been advocating the importance of that one-on-one coaching session with each of the technicians on a monthly basis,” says BEI’s Steve Sharkey. “The difference between a good company and an exceptional company is that exceptional companies do the coaching. The good companies manage by the numbers and have the reports, but they’re not having those one on ones with the technicians and providing feedback.”
According to Sharkey, every one of the Service Excellence award winners offers one-on-one coaching.
One might think that a one-on-one meeting would be commonplace in all dealerships, but it’s not.
“We’ve had a couple of acquisitions over the last six months and the technicians we brought on board from those acquisitions were blown away because we sit down with them monthly,” reveals Scheuerman. “They weren’t used to that.”
Techs who follow the numbers closely have discovered those numbers are what’s driving them to improve.
“They’re very competitive,” notes Scheuerman. “I’m competitive too and want us to have the best service department out there.”
Given the fact that All Copy Products has a large territory to cover, one of the latest enhancements from BEI that Scheuerman appreciates is the Territory Mapping tool. Another enhancement that he expects will make a difference is a Tech Assessment component.
“It’s all about helping field managers and supervisors stay organized with their coaching,” explains Sharkey. “You go in and have a page for each technician; you can set goals, expectations from call backs, hold for parts levels, first call start time, last call completion time. As you’re setting these expectations and goals we provide a means for the manager to compile notes for the discussions that are taking place with the technician at the time these goals and expectations are established.”
That information is then archived so managers can go back and see exactly what conversation they had with the tech six months ago, for example, getting this first call at 8 a.m. or call back numbers on a given model. Here’s where he was and here’s where he is today, and did he meet the goal the service manager set for him?
“It’s the slickest thing we have in the toolbox right now as far as helping the management aspects of the service department and getting organized and staying on top of the coaching and counseling that has to happen,” says Sharkey.
Scheuerman is more than willing to recommend BEI’s program to other dealers who might be looking for a way to enhance their service operations.
“When I go to conferences and networking seminars that’s huge, and when I talk about how we do things, [the BEI program] is a big part of that as far as the data it provides and how we can motivate technicians with the bonus.”
All Copy Products
President/Owner: Brad Knepper
Director of Service: Dale Scheuerman
Number of Technicians: 72
Active Population of Devices Serviced: 25,600
Why All Copy Products is a Diamond Award Winner:
- Ranks 14th in the country overall out of 175 dealers in the program
- 11 percent Hold for Part Rate
- FCE rate consistently ranks between 58-60 percent
