SBH Shorts - Interview with Kelly Kuester from Printware LLC

[A spin-off from our regular "Small Business Heroes" podcast series, this interview is in a readable/blog format. Thus, SBH Shorts.]

I'm glad to introduce our next guest - Kelly Kuester on our "Small Business Heroes" series. Kelly is a member of Minneapolis ZUG and is responsible for achieving and maintaining super Customer Experience at Printware LLC, a digital printer Sales and Service company located in Eagan, MN. We asked Kelly a few questions to understand how Printware is scaling today. Let's dive-in to her answers.

Tell us about yourself, Kelly:

I am the Customer experience specialist at Printware and joined the company in the summer of 2018. Printware sells and provides support on our commercial plate, inkjet, and HP based printers which are offered in several different sizes ranging from short run, small tabletop units to larger units based on the customers production needs. We have over 2000 machines in the field and are growing rapidly.

Being the main point of contact for customers between our Service and Sales teams, I help in the onboarding of new customers as well as setting up install appointments and training for our Printware equipment. I also am the first point of contact to help troubleshoot issues for our customers who are subscribed to our service and support program. In addition, I work to keep customers engaged with our team by sending regular communications through monthly newsletters and surveys. Another part of my day to day is entering supply orders for customers either through phone or email requests or setting them up with direct access to ordering in our Online marketplace that we launched in late 2019. Needless to say, there are several hats I wear throughout the day.

What is the idea behind Printware LLC?

Our Mission Statement is “Delighting our customers with support and keeping them Printing profitably”. While we have some larger companies using our equipment, a good portion of our book of business is small companies, (aka the 'mom and pop shops') that have a high attrition in their operators/staff. We don’t ever want our customers to feel like they are alone when a problem occurs that gets in the way of them getting jobs or being successful. A customer that has a machine that isn’t printing like it should is an emergency to us and we want to help them get a resolution for that issue as quickly as possible, You can check out our products by visiting our website www.ijetcolor.com.

How is Printware LLC partnering with other businesses in their growth journey?

We work to keep them informed and supported in their day-to-day needs using our Technical Support Team to help them stay productive. We offer FREE and unlimited training to those customers that subscribe to our iJetAdvantage Supply and Support program. We have a well-trained team of Service Technicians that answer the calls 24/7 to help our customers when a support need arises. Through our monthly customer service letters, I highlight articles and support content in our “iJetColor Wizard” that may help a customer with an issue before they have that emergent need to call in.

By using the ZOHO Surveys, we now have a deeper understanding of our customers’ needs and have also been able to capture data for updates in contact information.

By adding custom fields in ZOHO CRM, I have been able to capture even more data than before so that we could continue to grow our support capabilities. As an example, by starting to log calls in the cases section of the CRM and sharing the report to the management showing the volume of our customers’ needs, has enabled us to justify the addition of 2 new technicians so we are better equipped to manage calls.

How do you think Zoho is helping Printware LLC streamline the business processes?

It has helped a great deal! There is better communication among the team, which helps us serve our growing customer base better. Printware had previously been using a non-supported version of CRM when I came on. Being new to the company, I was able to implement the use of cases [module in Zoho CRM] in March 2019, and since we have been able to collect data around what our customers' biggest support needs are. With these insights, we are also able to provide additional training resources and video content to our customer base. Use of reporting in Zoho has helped us grow revenue in additional customer support subscriptions.

Do you have any favorite Zoho CRM feature or a Zoho product?

My favorite is the reporting options in the Zoho CRM as it is very versatile. We are satisfied with all of the products since upgrading to Zoho One after I attended Zoholics in Spring 2019. I had no idea of how much Zoho could do before then! Upgrading to Zoho One gave us more options that we are slowly starting to implement. We hope to move from using cases [module in Zoho CRM] for recording customer support needs to Zoho Desk tickets by the end of Q2 this year.

Any word of advice for small businesses?

Always look for ways to work smarter and not harder even as you help your customers meet their demands.

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