![\"(From](\"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Brett-Hartgrave-David-Mann.jpg\")
(From left) Brett Hartgrave, Service Manager
and David Mann, CEO<\/p><\/div>\n
\u201cThe quality of service is significant; BEI allows us to measure very accurately the real substance of the quality of our service department,\u201d said Mann.<\/p>\n
Hartgrave sees proper inventory management as a key challenge to retaining high service quality. \u201cIf the techs don\u2019t have the proper inventory, it really puts a damper on performance,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe basic nuts and bolts are a big challenge to any service department.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also important to provide a career path for the company\u2019s 15-person \u2013 and growing \u2013 technical service team. \u201cWe don\u2019t want to hire an entry-level technician and keep him\/her there indefinitely,\u201d said Hartgrave. \u201cWe\u2019re continually striving to provide an upward career path for the service employee, possibly into bigger equipment or network services.\u201d<\/p>\n
If that path leads into the IT service side of the business, \u201cWe pay for classes for technicians to achieve certification in A+, Net+, Security+, even MCSE,\u201d said Hartgrave. \u201cWe also provide training during work hours or using overtime, if need be, to be able to get time in to train.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another career opportunity for SCCS technicians might be to service larger production equipment. \u201cThe training provided by Canon has been fantastic,\u201d said Mann. \u201cBy taking our technicians that expressed a desire to go to the next level, we were able to grow into production print 100 percent internally.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the things we\u2019re most proud of is that we\u2019ve taken full advantage of the Association of Technical Service Professionals (ATSP) certification program that Canon provides, and have achieved an ATSP certification for the dealership 10 consecutive years,\u201d said Mann. This puts SCCS among the elite Canon dealers in the United States in regards to service technician proficiency. \u201cIt is a big teambuilding, motivational and spirited competition once a year to achieve the best in that certification.\u201d<\/p>\n
SCCS also takes the unusual step of handling all copier service requests through its IT support desk. That way, a live person can handle any of the IT concerns that may be associated with the copier service request as it relates to network printing. \u201cThe technicians are able to focus on hardware issues while network queries are handled immediately in-house, reducing our technician-dispatched calls by over 30 percent,\u201d said Mann.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a Canon dealer, we utilize Canon\u2019s \u2018Smart Dispatch\u2019,\u201d said Hartgrave. \u201cCanon has an intuitive software program for our IT support desk to be able to accurately give clients directions on standard user-operable maintenance for the copier, such as cleaning the glass or doing adjustments through the operator panel for copy quality. There also is documentation that our support team can email which has step-by-step instructions. In this way, the client can resolve their own issues without the need of a technician.\u201d<\/p>\n
Establishing a Service Baseline<\/strong><\/p>\n SCCS had a clear idea of what it wanted to accomplish with BEI. \u201cWe were looking to establish a baseline, a status quo across the board allowing us to compare ourselves to our existing baseline, our existing historical data, and then to other companies\/technicians nationwide,\u201d said Mann. \u201cWithout BEI, it was difficult to obtain accurate monthly and annual historical data that was true to form.\u201d<\/p>\n Before BEI, SCCS\u2019s technicians questioned their historical data. BEI made it easy to sit down with a tech and analyze all aspects of their performance. This allowed SCCS to maximize the team\u2019s efficiency.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were able to discover the best technicians on certain models and make sure that they\u2019re the ones taking care of that portfolio of our base when service was needed,\u201d said Mann. \u201cIt also allowed us to get away from micromanaging each technician and each service call. We could compare historical data on that technician\u2019s performance and make it easy to compare or provide a baseline for that technician, especially as it relates to his bonus structure on BEI.\u201d<\/p>\n New building<\/p><\/div>\n That bonus structure through BEI performance helped sell the service techs on the program. \u201cIt\u2019s ultimately money in their pocket,\u201d said Hartgrave. \u201cThere\u2019s an incentive for the technician. \u2018I\u2019m not just doing this for the company\u2019s benefit; I\u2019m doing this for my own growth as well.\u2019\u201d Mann said it took about six months before the technicians recognized that benefit. \u201cThat\u2019s when they started seeing the return on their complete First Call Effectiveness as it relates to commissions through BEI. When they get that first nice commission check, it\u2019s downhill from there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Award-winning technicians<\/p><\/div>\n There has been a measurable difference in customer satisfaction with service, too. \u201cAfter every service call, every customer gets a survey to review our service,\u201d said Hartgrave. \u201cThey can also leave their own comments, and we\u2019re getting positive remarks like, \u2018Technician really communicated well with us.\u2019 It\u2019s great seeing that.\u201d<\/p>\n The company also utilizes CEO Juice to help set benchmarks on the sales and management side of the business. \u201cOur personnel growth really has been in our sales department through the past two to three years,\u201d said Mann. \u201cWe\u2019ve significantly ramped up our sales department as our service department performance has increased without significantly increasing our personnel in the service department.\u201d<\/p>\n Migrating Copier Service to an IT Model<\/strong><\/p>\n What\u2019s next for SCCS with BEI? \u201cWe really want to move on from the traditional copier service industry to an IT service perspective, which is being able to clear the calls remotely, improving our first-call effectiveness and dropping response times dramatically,\u201d said Mann. \u201cWe\u2019re moving toward an efficiency level much like an IT company would offer.\u201d<\/p>\n Quality Service Relies on Good Communication<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cCustomers need someone who can really listen to their issues,\u201d said Hartgrave. \u201cTechs are consultants when they\u2019re at the location and an ear for the customer more than just a hardware guy going in with his tool bag and fixing the copier. It\u2019s more of a personal experience.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCommunication, I think, is the biggest thing,\u201d said Mann. SCCS notifies customers immediately when their service call has been placed in the queue and then when a technician is in-route.<\/p>\n They\u2019re also emailed a survey when the service call completes.<\/p>\n \u201cThe ongoing objective from a service standpoint is to continue to grow our IT clients, establishing new customers outside of our traditional copier base,\u201d said Mann. \u201cRather than getting in with a copier and trying to take over IT, we\u2019re able to go in with IT first and replace hardware as needed. That\u2019s our big focus going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n Earlier this year SCCS made a big investment in a new 15,000 square-foot facility in the high tech district of San Diego. \u201cThat move has permitted us to dramatically increase our sales force and revolutionize our IT department,\u201d said Mann. \u201cWe have already seen significant growth as a result of the move.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n Why They\u2019re a Diamond Award Winner<\/strong> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It\u2019s a long road from selling used office equipment from a garage in San Diego to becoming a successful Canon dealer with more than $10 million in revenue and 45 employees. That\u2019s the story of company CEO David Mann and South Coast Copy Systems (SCCS). Now celebrating 20 years in business, SCCS saw its best fiscal year in 2016 with nearly 15 percent annual growth. What\u2019s driving SCCS\u2019s growth? It was a decision a few years ago to get into production print and managed IT services. Both components are experiencing over 10 percent annual growth according to Mann. The word Mann uses to describe SCCS is \u201cprogressive.\u201d \u201cWe don\u2019t stand by status quo. Status quo is not going to get us where we need to go, which is to grow. A few years ago, we got into managed print very successfully, and now with production print and managed IT services, we\u2019re continually raising the bar.\u201d The company also raises the bar when it comes to service \u2013 one of the reasons it won this month\u2019s BEI\/ENX Service Excellence Diamond Award. \u201cOur customer service differentiates us from competitors,\u201d said Brett Hartgrave, SCCS\u2019s service manager. \u201cThe quality of service is significant; BEI allows us to measure very accurately the real substance of the quality of our service department,\u201d said Mann. Hartgrave sees proper inventory management as a key challenge to retaining high service quality. \u201cIf the techs don\u2019t have the proper inventory, it really puts a damper on performance,\u201d he said. \u201cThe basic nuts and bolts are a big challenge to any service department.\u201d It\u2019s also important to provide a career path for the company\u2019s 15-person \u2013 and growing \u2013 technical service team. \u201cWe don\u2019t want to hire an entry-level technician and keep him\/her there indefinitely,\u201d said Hartgrave. \u201cWe\u2019re continually striving to provide an upward career path for the service employee, possibly into bigger equipment or network services.\u201d If that path leads into the IT service side of the business, \u201cWe pay for classes for technicians to achieve certification in A+, Net+, Security+, even MCSE,\u201d said Hartgrave. \u201cWe also provide training during work hours or using overtime, if need be, to be able to get time in to train.\u201d Another career opportunity for SCCS technicians might be to service larger production equipment. \u201cThe training provided by Canon has been fantastic,\u201d said Mann. \u201cBy taking our technicians that expressed a desire to go to the next level, we were able to grow into production print 100 percent internally.\u201d \u201cOne of the things we\u2019re most proud of is that we\u2019ve taken full advantage of the Association of Technical Service Professionals (ATSP) certification program that Canon provides, and have achieved an ATSP certification for the dealership 10 consecutive years,\u201d said Mann. This puts SCCS among the elite Canon dealers in the United States in regards to service technician proficiency. \u201cIt is a big teambuilding, motivational and spirited competition once a year to achieve the best in that certification.\u201d SCCS also takes the unusual step of handling all copier service requests through its IT support desk. That way, a live person can handle any of the IT concerns that may be associated with the copier service request as it relates to network printing. \u201cThe technicians are able to focus on hardware issues while network queries are handled immediately in-house, reducing our technician-dispatched calls by over 30 percent,\u201d said Mann. \u201cAs a Canon dealer, we utilize Canon\u2019s \u2018Smart Dispatch\u2019,\u201d said Hartgrave. \u201cCanon has an intuitive software program for our IT support desk to be able to accurately give clients directions on standard user-operable maintenance for the copier, such as cleaning the glass or doing adjustments through the operator panel for copy quality. There also is documentation that our support team can email which has step-by-step instructions. In this way, the client can resolve their own issues without the need of a technician.\u201d Establishing a Service Baseline SCCS had a clear idea of what it wanted to accomplish with BEI. \u201cWe were looking to establish a baseline, a status quo across the board allowing us to compare ourselves to our existing baseline, our existing historical data, and then to other companies\/technicians nationwide,\u201d said Mann. \u201cWithout BEI, it was difficult to obtain accurate monthly and annual historical data that was true to form.\u201d Before BEI, SCCS\u2019s technicians questioned their historical data. BEI made it easy to sit down with a tech and analyze all aspects of their performance. This allowed SCCS to maximize the team\u2019s efficiency. \u201cWe were able to discover the best technicians on certain models and make sure that they\u2019re the ones taking care of that portfolio of our base when service was needed,\u201d said Mann. \u201cIt also allowed us to get away from micromanaging each technician and each service call. We could compare historical data on that technician\u2019s performance and make it easy to compare or provide a baseline for that technician, especially as it relates to his bonus structure on BEI.\u201d That bonus structure through BEI performance helped sell the service techs on the program. \u201cIt\u2019s ultimately money in their pocket,\u201d said Hartgrave. \u201cThere\u2019s an incentive for the technician. \u2018I\u2019m not just doing this for the company\u2019s benefit; I\u2019m doing this for my own growth as well.\u2019\u201d Mann said it took about six months before the technicians recognized that benefit. \u201cThat\u2019s when they started seeing the return on their complete First Call Effectiveness as it relates to commissions through BEI. When they get that first nice commission check, it\u2019s downhill from there,\u201d he said. There has been a measurable difference in customer satisfaction with service, too. \u201cAfter every service call, every customer gets a survey to review our service,\u201d said Hartgrave. \u201cThey can also leave their own comments, and we\u2019re getting positive remarks like, \u2018Technician really communicated well with us.\u2019 It\u2019s great seeing that.\u201d The company also utilizes CEO Juice to help set benchmarks on the sales and management side of the business. \u201cOur personnel growth really has been in our sales department through the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":115,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2195],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21929"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/115"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21929"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21929\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21944,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21929\/revisions\/21944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"New](\"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/SCCS-New-Building.jpg\")
![\"Award-winning](\"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Awards-Winning-Technicians.jpg\")
![\"sccs-logo\"](\"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/SCCS-Logo.jpg\"){kind=logo}
About the Dealership<\/strong>:
\n1. President\/Owner: David Mann
\n2. Service Manager: Brett Hartgrave
\n3. Number of Techs: 15
\n4. Number of Devices Serviced: over 4,000<\/p>\n
\nFirst-Call Effectiveness: 66%
\nCall Back Rate: 19%
\nHold for Parts Rate: 15%
\nRanking: 4th overall of the 170+ dealers<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n