The newsletter for
Key Operators of
DDMS Systems

Vol. 5, No. 3

Can you think
of anything
we can do
to make ECi
Technical
Support
even better?

Please send any comments or suggestions to keyops@eci2.com

In This Issue:

Welcome to the new format of the KeyOps Dispatch newsletter!

This issue features:

• Results of Support Team Structure Sum Up Success
• New Automated Satisfaction Surveys Exceed Expectations
• What’s New in DDMS Version 7.11
• Get Ready for Year-End 2005
• Dealer Station Mass Changed to Activate Category Search

Results of Support Team Structure Sum Up Success

The new market-focused Support Team Structure has proven to be a great success since it was implemented Aug. 29, 2005.

In response to customer suggestions, ECi Technical Support organized into four industry- and product-focused teams to provide dealers with more personalized service and an improved focus on the customer’s industry. Each customer is assigned to one of these four teams.

“The techs on each team are able to focus on specific customers, rather than a general call queue. As we were planning this structure, I thought that naturally, response time would be quicker because it focuses the accountability for calls,” said Paul Lewis, associate vice president, ECi Technical Support. “What surprised me was exactly how much response time improved — a whopping 43 percent!”

Internal metrics show the following improvements in customer service:

• The overall average response time (the amount of time it takes for a tech to respond when you place a call or send an email or fax request) decreased by 43 percent.
• The average speed to answer a phone call has shortened from 94 seconds to 50 seconds.
• We close more calls on the first contact now (55 percent) than before implementing teams (34 percent).
• We close more calls within the first day now (81 percent) than before (74 percent).

The figure below charts the improvement in first contact and first day call closure metrics.

“The new team structure is a paradigm shift in the way we approach technical support, but the changes have definitely had a positive impact,” Paul said. “We will continue to look at ways to improve service in all areas, and take customer service to the next level.”

We welcome your comments and suggestions.

“I am very pleased with the support I receive from Team Alliance.  Everyone there is friendly, courteous and helpful,” said Andy Cowan of Cowan Office Supplies Ltd. in Nelson, BC. “I also believe it was a great move on ECi 's part to institute the ‘team’ strategy. It helps us dealers get to know our team members.”

For more information or to provide additional feedback, see ECi Support Team FAQs.

New Automated Satisfaction Surveys Exceed Expectations

No more waiting a week or more between your support call and the survey. No more fielding phone calls from a survey company. No more guessing what a specific call was about. No more waiting for the survey agent to finish stating your options.

ECi Technical Support developed a more convenient, more effective, web-based, automated process of surveying customers.

"This process is a world better than the old phone calls two weeks later!” said Juli Work of Floyd’s Office Solutions in Bakersfield, CA. “I also love my team!”

We are delighted to report that the response rate is 23.7 percent since inception Oct. 19th, 2005, a rate remarkably better than the 15 percent average sampling provided by our previous Service 800 phone surveys.

The increased response rate means more dealers are responding to the survey.

“We hope you enjoy the new survey process,” said Paul Lewis, associate vice president, ECi Technical Support. “Especially since you can do the survey almost immediately after your call is closed. Our goal was to make sure you are not bothered by another phone call, and can respond completely at your convenience. We’ve gotten some very positive comments from dealers.”

Here is how surveys work:

• Your support team is building the contact list for your company. During your support call, your team member may gather and update your contact information. This may include your phone number, extension, and email address.
• Shortly after your support call is closed, we will automatically send a message to your email address, notifying you that your call is closed.
• The message will invite you to fill out an online survey. It will link to a page on our Web site that displays details about the closed call, as well as a link to the survey form.
• If you participated in the Service 800 phone surveys, the online survey will be very familiar. The questions cover the tech’s timely response, technical ability, completeness of solution, whether you were kept informed, and timely resolution on that particular call. You will also have an opportunity to provide additional comments if you so wish, or reopen the call if necessary.
• Within a matter of seconds, you can click through your ratings and submit the form. The survey information will go into our in-house customer feedback database.
• If you do not wish to receive these email notifications, the message will provide a way to unsubscribe.

“Your feedback is as important as ever for measuring our performance,” Paul said. “It helps us determine the direction we take in managing ECi Technical Support, including call prioritization, tech training, recognition and rewards, scheduling, department structure, and staffing. THANK YOU for your participation and feedback.”

What’s New in
DDMS Version 7.11

DDMS Version 7.11.30 is available upon request to all DDMS customers as of Monday, Nov. 7, 2005. With more than 150 enhancements and fixes, DDMS Version 7.11.30 includes many features to help your company manage at-risk customers, rising costs, new vendor PSN services, CAP Specifier corrections, and other logistics, including the following:

• Market to new, at-risk, or premium customers with Campaign Wizard.
• Offset rising fuel costs with Minimum Order Charge enhancements.
• Reward large orders with gift items and Additional Volume Discounts.
• Use SP Richards' 2nd Party Logistics Network for faraway customers.
• Connect to Eastern Distributing via the ECi Private Supply Network.
• Use the asterisk (*) wildcard to look up P/Os in Accounts Receivable.
• Process credit card payments in Canada with ParaData.
• Update furniture orders with the new CAP Specifier interface.

This list of enhancements above is not exhaustive. You can find more information on DDMS.com:

• For additional details on this release, see What’s New in DDMS Version 7.11.
• IMPORTANT: Before you load any software update, check our Web site for last-minute changes that may affect you on Release Notes.
• For information about all released changes, use Program Updates on our Web site to look up all corrections and enhancements released in Version 7.11, Version 7.11.0-A, Version 7.11.30, and other versions. Note: Versions with a .X means that we have completed and tested a change, but have not yet assigned it to a specific released software version.
• For information about enhancements released in the DDMS Version 7 software, see "What's New in Version 7 (PDF)".
• For additional information about specific features, use your online help after you load the software update. Tip: You can search for keywords such as "Minimum Order" for fuel surcharge, and "Additional Volume Discount" for holiday promotion gifts.

If you want to take advantage of the new features in Version 7.11, we will be happy to ship the software update and instructions to you via United Parcel Service (UPS) Ground.

Please email a request for Version 7.11 to ddmssupport@ecisolutions.com, and include your DDMS account number, contact name, company name, shipping address, and phone number.

We will announce the release of Version 7.12 soon, and will notify you via email when it is available.

Get Ready for Year-End

We are looking ahead to a busy holiday season, especially with year-end procedures in the mix! To help you prepare for year-end procedures, we offer updated reference material.

This year we have reorganized the Year-End 2005 Key Ops newsletter to reflect lessons learned from last year-end:

• In case of mistakes that require you to restore data and redo certain steps, it is critical to have reliable backups just before you perform Day-End, again before Month-End, and after completing your procedures for your audit trail. We’ve revised the order of ShutDown and Backup procedures in the RoadMap section. In the rest of the procedures, the ShutDown and Backup step appears wherever it is recommended.
• A new step to set your (LM1) Period End Procedures Parameters appears in the Tips section, as well as at Month-End and Year-End. In the Month # for Year End Action field for each database, enter the month number (Ø1-12) you wish to do year-end. This will make the (MK) screen default to Y for year-end procedure when the system month matches the month you set in the (LM1) screen. If you must print 1099s for contractors in December, set the Vendor month # field to 12.
• The FAQs on Preparing to Print 1099s and W-2s has been moved right after the Tips section, giving you plenty of time to order appropriate stock and adjust vendor IDs or parameters as needed.
• When you suspend your procs at year-end, you have a new step to temporarily turn off your Web storefront to prevent online orders from being missed, and schedule your site to automatically come back online after you complete year-end procedures.
• We have added a step to invoice all prepaid orders, to ensure all credit card orders are invoiced before you continue Day-End procedures.
• The step to Print 1099s has been moved to just before you perform the MK steps where you execute the vendor year-end function in December, in both the Month-End Only in December section and the Year-End Procedures section.
• To speed up history searches, renaming journals is now a mandatory year-end procedure due to the amount of data DDMS now archives.
• The steps to print W-2s have been moved right into the Closing Payroll procedures for December.
• To reduce anxiety about “closing” General Ledger before all postings are complete for periods 12 and 13, the section is now titled “Opening General Ledger for the New Year.”
• We’ve removed the UNIX steps and color-coding. UNIX dealers will receive separate instructions.

• We’ve added some hints on color-coding, highlighting, and marking up the checkboxes for your steps as you read the procedures to prepare for year-end.

We encourage you to become familiar with the updated procedures that apply to your business and make any necessary preparations as soon as possible.

The Year-End 2005 Key Ops newsletter has been printed, and should have been in your mailbox right around Thanksgiving. We’ve also published the newsletter on our KeyOps Newsletter page, and additional hints are posted on the Period End FAQs page.

Dealer Station Mass Changed
To Activate Category Search

In response to dealer requests, ECi took steps in November to mass change all Dealer Station® and is.D-Force® sites to activate the Category Search feature for all existing end users. We also changed default user settings to use Category Search, so that future accounts that you create will automatically be able to search by category.

The Category Search feature is the result of completely rewriting the search engine in recent releases of Dealer Station and is.D-Force. For example, the search results for "pen" will first bring up a more manageable list of related categories, such as Ballpoints, Refills, Permanent Markers, and so on, as shown below:

There may be some exceptions to the mass change. It does not apply to sites or records where the dealer has actively decided not to use the Category Search feature. Specifically, we did not override any users where Category Search set to No and Select Catalog from List is set to Yes.

You may want to communicate search improvements to your customers in the Home Page text. For detailed instructions, see Chapter 2: Site Text in the Dealer Station Admin Manual.