Johannesburg, 21 Jul 2010
Printacom, sole South African brand representative for OKI Printing Solutions in South Africa, has announced that due to the rapid growth it has achieved in the past two years, it has had to embark on a substantial overhaul of the warranty and call management systems underpinning its warranty, service and support competencies.
The overhaul, which will take on the form of a substantially upgraded IT system that goes live in August, will allow Printacom's customers to make use of the Internet for logging calls and booking repairs, tracking repairs and warranty claims at any time of day or night, as well as rating the quality of the service received from OKI authorised service partners (ASPs) throughout the support process.
This will not replace normal call logging procedures such as e-mail or telephonic channels, but rather integrate the different technologies as the new system also makes extensive use of SMS notifications, which regularly update customers on the progress of their repairs, a measure that allows OKI's ASPs to more effectively manage customers' expectations and shortens repair lead times due to its advanced escalation capabilities.
Neil Rom, managing director of Printacom, says: “The system is not just about implementing more efficient workflows and automating some of the more manual tasks in the warranty/repair environment. It's about providing customers with greater simplicity when interacting with us, keeping them in the loop throughout the entire warranty/repair process and building a powerful rating capability that feeds into a reward scheme we use to motivate and thank ASPs that achieve excellent service levels. Something that has never been done in our industry.”
“The new system is not just designed with customers and ASPs in mind. It goes without saying that all of the information captured and processed by the system is at our disposal,” Rom continues.
“That means we can use the system to track the quality of service rendered by individual engineers, as well as monitoring each individual's certification levels - notifying them when training is due and assisting them in furthering their career in technical support and service, building a stronger technical channel.”
A last benefit, Rom says, is Printacom's ability to take a snapshot of the intelligence in its system and pass it back to OKI's design and manufacturing business to gain further local intelligence into which products develop faults, and at what stage of their life cycle, specifically in South Africa - be that in or out of our warranty period - and more importantly to improve the quality of products in doing so.
“We're extremely proud of this initiative and believe it will go a long way towards differentiating OKI and Printacom as sought after brands in the office automation and output device space over the coming years,” Rom concludes.
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