Better understand your customers and your business by tracking and analyzing critical data.
Got data? Got information? You probably have both. Are they the same thing? Nope. Does it matter? Yep!
The 98 strokes you take to play 18 holes is data. The number of mulligans and gimmees is information, as are the variables due to your inconsistent swing, your clubs being half an inch too short, and that you never really learned to read a green so you can’t putt to save your life.
Your business also has lots of data and information. Peter Drucker, the guy often credited with inventing much of modern business management, is credited with saying, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.” He probably wasn’t thinking about copier-printer dealers or golf, but his statement still applies. So, you may ask, what am I supposed to measure?
Good question. We’ll get there in a few minutes. But first, let’s define the difference between data and information. There are nuances here, but basically, data is numerical info, and information is the context, the knowledge the data provides. Information can drive action that is driven by data. For example:
- Sales volume is data—whether you tally dollars or units placed, like the $22 million worth of copiers and printers you placed in 43 businesses last year, to which you delivered $11 million of paper, toner, and developer. The numbers sound great, but your ultimate success is measured in how that volume breaks down into the classes of equipment placed with each customer and how they are used. That’s the information you need to understand if you are to continue the success you have become accustomed to. Here’s an obvious one: When you learn that one of ten printers you sold to a law firm leaves users looking for more finishing options, and is continually pushed to 123% of capacity and has too many break-fix dates with your service techs, the customer may consider it less than reliable. That could be a good time to talk about replacing it with a larger and more capable machine. But if you are just counting paper and toner deliveries, you could miss this.
- The number of service calls your techs make is data. How often those calls solve a customer’s problem on the first visit and the sufficiency (or insufficiency) of technicians’ car stocks is information, as is how often and how long customers have to make do without one of your machines while waiting for a part. Since more visits or longer waits are not better, such numbers may mean you have to do a better job of anticipating parts needs, increasing car stocks, or both, based on the information you collect about each customer.
These are just basic metrics you may need to measure so you can improve them. Most readers of The Cannata Report already know this sort of thing, but the press of business has a habit of getting in the way of paying as much attention to the details as one might like. Let’s look at some of the data you should be collecting and how you can use it to help drive your business forward.
Start with What You Know
You know a lot about your customers, but what are you doing with the knowledge? As a dealer, it’s important to focus on data and information that can help you move toward your goal.
“Data is its most valuable when it creates an action, said Wes McArtor, president of Nexera. “While some data is there for reference, most of it should be used to enable an action, as in, ‘if X happens, we do Y.’”
For example, if your service team tells you it is taking three days to return to a customer with the proper part, turn this into information: Is the part backordered or simply hard to come by? Is it not being ordered promptly? If so, why? That is all information you must know to find a solution.
“Dealers collect a lot of data, and it ranges from total volumes to individual or per-department usage data, color pages versus black and white, all kinds of things,” noted Jim Coriddi, vice president, dealer division, Ricoh USA. He adds that interpreting that data can help dealers discover emerging usage trends that can lead to more intelligent procurement strategies. Together, data and information can help dealers form evolving, long-view strategies for customers.
“This supports dealers in recommending technology investments based on real-world usage,” said Coriddi.
Tami Beach, head of U.S. MPS channel sales at HP Inc. agreed. “Data is a way to firmly insert yourself into the customer journey. Successful dealers will build data strategies that shift the focus from how to outfit an office with devices and services to learning about the people doing the work, where are they located, and the demands of a new style of work.”
This can be especially important as dealers’ customers emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic with more people working remotely, and new demands placed on dealers and customers alike.
A Number on the Table
Beach, Coriddi, and McArtor allude to a business angle emerging from all the data, and there is. Jerry Newberry, president and managing partner at Pros Elite Group throws a number on the table: “Fourteen percent. Dealers should target attaining a net operating income of 14% or more,” he said. “Business decisions should be made on accurate information and in conjunction with a financial business model to help identify gross profit opportunities.”
Because a significant portion of a dealership’s ongoing business is after-sales activity, it’s important for dealers to align and monitor all field service organization metrics as they feed into the business financials.
“Even though there’s a lot of data available, we continue see performance well below benchmark because of how dealers measure operational performance,” said Newberry.
“Too many dealers look at the data, shrug, and do nothing,” observed Nexera’s McArtor. “Accountability is key, yet it is terribly lacking in this industry.”
Accountability requires collecting and studying data and the information it provides so you can understand what it means for your business.
“In-depth knowledge can help shape smarter procurement and policies that drive costs down while keeping productivity up,” noted Coriddi. “Both are incredibly important to business continuity. Knowing how a customer is using their solutions day to day can be helpful for dealers when giving expert guidance on how they should change or scale operations.”
One of the best—and often overlooked—sources can be sales and service reps. When properly trained, reps can take time to study customer data before going into a quarterly business review or other meeting to suggest approaches or strategies that will provide better outcomes.
“By knowing a customer’s operation inside and out, a dealers’ sales rep is more likely to have the right solution in mind for any challenge or opportunity that might come up,” said Coriddi.
McArtor is on the same page. He suggests making coaching, review, and audit processes part of continuous employee development.
HP’s Beach added that gathering data and information can help you understand customer workflows, including where and how customers access, edit, and distribute content. “Learning how customers work allows dealers to go beyond selling printers and copiers,” she said. “It also makes print more relevant by offering solutions and services that are personalized to a customer’s unique needs.”
Having this knowledge at their fingertips empowers dealers to better understand what their customers are going through, and what their needs may look like in the future. It helps dealers decide which solutions to focus on for their customer base, updating it in response to actual needs. For example, said Ricoh’s Coriddi, “If volumes are steadily low and people are working from home, focusing on remote productivity and cloud services may be the way to go. On the other hand, if volumes are on the rise, we can talk about the new world of work in a way that helps the customer see new ways dealers can help customers’ staff ease their transition back into the office.”
How to Know What you Don’t Know
“Most dealers don’t look at how sales impacts service profitability,” says Nexera’s McArtor. “The industry has had the luxury of high margins that have provided cover for some counterproductive behaviors that will need to change as a result of this lockdown.”
He believes dealers need to start looking at products and services customers need that create the greatest opportunity for long-term profit. This tips the scale toward what he calls “device-as-a-service,” rather than which product offers the greatest commission and rebate. In other words, a given printer or copier is a tool that serves a purpose. When another product will do the job better (as in faster, cheaper, more reliably, etc.), it is time to upgrade. This is why understanding as much as possible about your customers’ businesses is so important.
“Target your biggest net-new opportunities for marketing dollars to where the opportunities exist,” advised Newberry. Sales quotas can be developed based on this information to grow market share. Dealers must have the right tools, management training, and focused reporting capabilities. At the same time, outside assistance can be a benefit when dealers are seeing a degradation in margins.
Ricoh, for example, is observing changing volumes on a per-device, per-week basis. The company is tracking how volume has changed since before shelter-in-place mandates, with data that can be cross-sectioned by customer, geography, and market segment.
“We noticed print volumes began to emerge as a secondary measure of how badly a given customer, geography or market segment was being hit [by the coronavirus],” related Coriddi. “In many areas, volumes have begun increasing again as re-openings occur. This provides a sense of how far along the path to recovery a business is.”
Opportunity Calling
Sometimes, information can provide opportunities. Many of your customers live off the info that flows through their businesses. As more companies become increasingly virtual or partially remote, the safety of their data and confidentiality of information grows in importance. Addressing this, Canon dealer Gordon Flesch Company acquired an existing managed IT company and called its new division Elevity IT. The name combines the words “elevate” and “security,” conveying the company’s mission to help clients align technology and business goals while protecting against cyberattacks. This kind of differentiation is becoming vital for dealers who want to be successful and seek to expand their offerings beyond equipment, services, and supplies.
Or consider the opportunity thrust upon Systronics, a Canon dealer in Puerto Rico. The dealership had to spring into action as the COVID-19 pandemic charged across an island that was still in the throes of recovery from two massive hurricanes. With a disaster recovery trifecta on its hands, Systronics remained in communication with customers to help businesses get back up and running. The dealership used the “Go” and “Rescue” modules of Canon’s Therefore Information Management product to help recover data and provide printing capabilities.
“After [Hurricane] Maria, we were surrounded by complete destruction and needed to help any way we could,” recalls Systronics Vice President Toty Salinas. “Canon’s support and technology let us use multifunction devices, large-format, scanners, and production solutions to produce supplies local small businesses needed to help get back on their feet.”
Think Big!
Office equipment vendors have the resources to learn details about regional and national markets. The upside is that this often leads to development of software and other tools that reach down to the street level where dealers can take advantage of them. Taking advantage of the tools and services vendors offer gives your dealership benefits you may not be able to achieve on your own.
If you work with Canon, for example, ask about Therefore. If you’re an HP dealer, ask about HP ROAM and Workpath. If you sell Ricoh products, find out about Ricoh’s Smart Integration Platform and DocuWare. Most of these tools are data- and information-driven, so the more you use them the better prepared you (and your customers) will be to take on changes in the market.
In talking with vendors, don’t hesitate to ask about products or services that seem high-end or complex. Your customers are probably reacting to things their customers are asking about, and the products and services OEMs are suggesting may be the very things your customers need or are considering. By having a solution in mind, you can position your dealership as the go-to source from more than equipment and supplies.
What to Measure?
Back at the beginning of this story, you may have asked, what am I supposed to measure? Beyond sales and service tracking, the list can be a tad extensive, but here are a few to get you started:
- Have a CRM (customer relationship management) strategy that captures key information about your customers’ printing needs, including the age of their devices sold, replacement cycles, or usage patterns.
- Conduct regular customer satisfaction tracking to gain an on-going, comprehensive understanding of customer satisfaction with your products and services. Do not, under any circumstances, leave this to Yelp!
- Focus on data that helps you to build customer profiles and segment end-users based on size of business, vertical sector, and the applications they need.
- Understand customer workflows, including where and how customers access, edit, and distribute content.
- Develop, manage, and monitor customer lifetime value (LTV) metrics to help identify your most valuable customers.
- Measure how many new website visitors you have received in the last 30 days.
- Determine what percentage of those visitors turned into strong prospects or even paying customers.
“Data is the new currency, especially when designed and collected in ways that provide clarity, enablement, and support of these strategies,” said HP’s Beach. “Organizations that prioritize and develop a data strategy, organize and invest accordingly, and make data literacy a requirement for employment will be better prepared to compete in the future.”
“The great value of data analysis is that it makes it easier to see what is happening, what has been happening, and what is likely to happen,” added Ricoh’s Coriddi. “It isn’t a crystal ball, as much as we’d like it to be. There is no one fact or figure that will tell you if a customer is thinking of switching things up next cycle. But by paying close attention to relevant data, intelligently contextualizing it [making it information], and maintaining open lines of communication, dealers can develop and continually improve and adapt expert insights into how their customers’ businesses run—and how they could run even better.”
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