Quality Digital Office Technology: Surrounding Customers with Quality

QUALITYLOGO [Converted]Quality Digital Office Technology (or simply “Quality”) is the epitome of foresight. Founded in 1981 by Jeff Poet, who was selling copier and fax machines out of his garage, the company has evolved to be a highly diversified and successful $13 million per year dealership that now offers copiers, printers, managed IT, MPS, document management, and even office furniture to its customers.

Today Quality is run by three partners. Jeff Poet holds a majority partnership while Bill Wurster and Cindy Workinger are managing minority partners.

The Quality Team

From left: Cindy Workinger, Jeff Poet, Bill Wurster

Quality carries about 4500 devices. Their primary vendors are Konica Minolta, Kyocera, Oki, and Brother. They provide HP products on the PC and server side. They offer KIP wide format and partner with Konica Minolta on 3D systems as well.
From its original base of operations in York, Pennsylvania, Quality now covers an area that includes all of south central Pennsylvania and parts of northern Maryland. Many of their major customers also have offices throughout the U.S. and they work with the local dealers in those areas to provide service and be as helpful to them as possible. They support laser printers all over the globe through their contract with the Department of Defense.

With the slogan “Surround yourself with Quality,” the company has built relationships with customers of every size – from enterprise to mom and pops. Most of their customers are SMBs, particularly on the network side.

They currently have 11 technicians specializing in copiers and printers and two that can handle devices as well as connectivity. Seven technicians are designated for network support, document imaging, and docSTAR, the document management software they offer.

All the Pieces in Place

Cindy Workinger has been with the company for 25 years. Vice President of Service, Ken Weigle, is a 29-year veteran of the company.

Weigle recalls a pivotal time in the evolution of the company. He says that like most dealers, they had no idea what to do when devices started being networked. They made the decision to partner with the IT division of a local company and eventually purchased the company. At the time their name was Quality Copy Products. They named the new division Quality Computer Products and launched their own computer networking division.

Still, one piece was missing. Because they wanted to provide all the differentiating office items, they acquired a local office furniture company a few years ago and called it Quality Office Furnishings.

“We’re now all under that Quality Digital Office umbrella,” says Weigle. “Basically, we can provide everything to a customer. We can give them the space design. We can sell them the furniture they need and install it for them. We can set up their network and sell them their servers or PCs, and we can give them everything they need to print, copy, scan or fax.

“From inception to destruction because we also carry shredders,” adds Workinger.

And business is doing very well. Typically, notes Workinger, the beginning of the year is sluggish due to unavoidable factors that plague the northeast.

“The first quarter is usually affected by Pennsylvania weather,” she says. “We had 30 inches of snow this year, but it was still a very good quarter. We did over $2.1 million in hardware. We have quotas within our divisions and every group hit early!”

Managed services has seen significant growth for the company and Weigle attributes that to the advantages of early entrance into the space.

What is key to growth in all areas though, he insists, is the performance of the entire service team. He calls the copier-printer techs the backbone of the company because they can make or break the relationship with the customer.

“Our continued emphasis is going to be on providing what we call legendary service,” says Weigle. “We heavily prioritize first-call efficiency and response time and completing a total service call. By offering legendary service, we see no reason for customers to go anywhere else. That will continue to be a success factor in our company.”

Implementing BEI Services Program

In a highly competitive print space, Weigle believes that maintaining a motivated service department to achieve maximum profitability is critical.

“Everybody is battling to get as many clicks as they can,” he says. “CPP rates are dropping and it’s tough to maintain a competitive balance and still be profitable.”

Ken Weigle and Jeremy Godfrey

Ken Weigle and Jeremy Godfrey

The BEI Services program was a good fit because it met all of Weigle’s key objectives for increased profitability. He was looking to reward performance and productivity while promoting accountability. He also wanted an existing solution so they didn’t have to be tasked with creating one.

“Right now we’re operating at some of the best response times we ever have,” he says. “BEI has heavily impacted our productivity. Techs want to do as many calls as they can because they want those clicks in their bank. They want to do the complete call because they want their first call efficiency high so their bonus is higher and they aren’t getting deductions taken out.”

Weigle is pleased with BEI’s reporting features too. He cites the help desk for increasing productivity, and the parts usage report for improving inventory control. He also likes the fact that he can compare his stats against other dealers around the country and to see how devices are functioning globally. They use the tech packets as a teaching tool.

“It’s neat to be able to sit with a tech and look at their BEI summary,” he says. “It shows me where a tech may have a deficiency or a model where they may have a deficiency. It could show something that they are actually very good at that they can help other people with. It’s taken a lot of the guess work out.”

Their customers are noticing too. Weigle says that one of the things they hear a lot is, “How did you get here so fast? I literally just hung the phone up!”

“That is happening daily because our response times are so good,” he says.

Weigle doesn’t hesitate when asked if he would recommend BEI Services to others.

“Yes, absolutely and I have,” he says. “Any time I’m at dealer meetings or meetings with councils that I’m part of, I ask my constituents if they run BEI. If they don’t, I tell them it’s something they should take a look at.”

“We talk about it on the sales side too, especially with prospects,” adds Workinger. “We explain why our service department is different – why they’re legendary.”

Service Begins at Home

The ability to adapt to increased oversight isn’t easy for anybody, and Weigle admits it wasn’t easy for his technicians at first either. They have many tenured techs, some with 10 -20 years experience, and he cites their professionalism for making the transition easier.

“One strong point I really want to get across is, as leaders of the company, how extremely proud of our service team and all of our employees we are for their commitment and dedication to our customers which allows us to win awards like this,” he says.
Recognizing the effort of all employees is clearly important to Quality management and ownership. They’ve implemented a program called #randomactsofgreatness where peers recognize each other for outstanding work. Honored individuals are rewarded with anything from a gift card to a weekend trip. They also hold a monthly breakfast where they draw names out of a hat from all the different divisions and departments, including ownership. The idea is to say thank you for all the great ideas that they never hear about or get to know about. At Quality Digital Office Technology, it isn’t just the customers who are surrounded by quality.

Quality Digital Office Technology
York, Pennsylvania
Owner or President’s name: Jeff Poet, Founder/Majority Partner; Minority Managing Partners – Bill Wurster, Cindy Workinger
Director of Service Name: Ken Weigle
Number of Techs: 11
Number of Devices Serviced: 4500

Why they’re a Platinum Award Winner
First Call Effectiveness: High 50s to low 60s
Hold for Parts Rate: 10-12%
Ranking: 10th overall of the 175 dealers

About the Author
Todd Turner is a contributing editor of ENX magazine. Todd has a background in marketing and a nearly 20-year history in the imaging industry. He can be reached at todd@enxmag.com