Can you hear the sound of your office line ringing? Or the frequent ping of email notifications? No? Of course not, because we are officially strolling through The Holiday Zone. Between now and Jan. 2, the only phone calls or texts will be from your spouse, reminding you to pick up the cheese and crackers tray from the supermarket on your way home. As for emails, well, you’ll still see ample offers from Amazon and eBay, Papa John’s pizza specials and reminders about your expired car warranty.
Fear not, gentle readers, we’re still here, providing some light fare to get you through the holidays. Not too much; we understand you need a little time to unwind. So, as we cruise down the home stretch of 2022, we’ve decided to sweep up a number of various issues that confronted our 2022 Elite Dealers. With that, we add our sincerest wishes for a Merry Christmas to all who celebrate, and Happy Holidays to all.
One of the offshoots of the pandemic and remote work is the altered preference for early-stage engagements with clients. Standard Office Systems (SOS) in Duluth, Georgia, found that virtual meetings are now the go-to engagement of choice among its clients.
“Fortunately, SOS offers remote work solutions to its customers, and making the shift to accommodate changing customer dynamics was a painless transition,” the dealer reported.
In addition to adjusting the client engagement approach in the face of hybrid operating environments, dealers needed to reconcile their own HR strategies. At Usherwood Office Technology in Syracuse, New York, employees returned to the office this past June. However, considering the comfort level team members enjoyed working remotely, the dealer provided the option to work from home each Friday, a compromise that has been appreciated by both the company and its workforce.
“There are many benefits that come with working in the office face to face with team members, but we also understand that many have enjoyed the ability to work from home and we wanted to provide that option for them where we are able,” Usherwood wrote. “With everyone back in office we have seen enhanced collaboration and many are excited to be back together again.”
In Memory…
Tragedy struck a number of dealers who suffered losses during 2022. Michael Kidd, president and CEO of U.S. Business Systems in Elkhart, Indiana, passed away from complications caused by ALS, better known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. The executive quickly lost his ability to speak and walk, and while he remained with the company through most of the balance of his life, the dealer did its best to accommodate him and delegate duties.
“We invested in some technology to assist him with communicating with the team, but it was very hard to maintain in depth dialogue,” the company wrote. “Recognizing that this was not going to go away, the leadership team here quickly worked with him to allocate different responsibilities across the team based on skill set alignment with the tasks that needed to be done.”
Another dealer, CopyPro of Greenville, North Carolina, had no advanced warning in regards to the passing of Bill Rogers, the firm’s corporate trainer. “Bill had been with us for 27 years; from a work standpoint, he was not only our technician and sales trainer, but oversaw the care of our production print customers and two of our large university customers,” CopyPro reported.
Al Scibetta, president and founder of Copier Fax Business Technologies in Buffalo, New York, died in January following a brief illness. He founded the company as a Konica Minolta dealership in 1990 and grew it into one of the region’s most successful firms.
Growing Pains
When a company is as active in the M&A theater as Kelley Connect of Kent, Washington, there are a number of obstacles to be faced in reconciling growth. One of the primary challenges is aligning people and processes to keep all team members on the same page.
“With every acquisition, we onboard their existing employees, who are used to doing things their way and, in some cases, are used to working with different suppliers and brands than Kelley Connect,” the dealer wrote. “Streamlining processes, product offerings and technical support are important, and this also presents the need for consistent communication and training for our sales, service and administration staff. Add to that, of course, much of it needed to be remote. We have worked hard to understand and manage these challenges to ensure there is no negative impact on our partner’s level of service and support.”
Rapid growth can be a double-edged sword, and for dealers like Evoke Networking of Rolling Meadows, Illinois, it cannot come at the expense of the “first-rate standard for the exemplary customer service of a small company.” That’s entailed filling new roles with talented individuals while training new employees as a high rate to preserve a strong employee-to-client ratio.
“While our onboarding processes have so far kept up with our expanding clientele, we will need to continue to allocate the proper resources to maintain our standard of service,” Evoke Networking reported.
