A stellar approach to getting the customer up-and-running is a profound, lasting way to communicate a company’s worth and helps build its reputation within its market.

We’re always looking for ways to communicate, with depth and meaning, what distinguishes SSCS in its market. This week we’ve chosen to focus on our approach to installation, because as a process it encompasses several SSCS philosophies that combine to create tangible value to the customer—an important part of the comforting blanket of customer assistance we mentioned in the previous blog post.

On the surface, the initial implementation of SSCS technologies at a customer site may not seem to be all that exciting or important, but in truth it is one of the most profound and lasting ways a company can communicate its worth to the customer. After all, an organization proves its competency by deeds, not words.

“Marketing and promotional models are evolving rapidly so more and more businesses are turning to non-traditional methods to get their company’s strengths across,” states Engineer Andre LeMire’, SSCS sales engineer and veteran facilitator of SSCS installations, who makes sure customers utilize their technology to the fullest. “Any opportunity to make a solid face-to-face impression is gold, and there’s no better opportunity than a pulling off a stellar installation, especially when your approach to the business is relationship-based, like ours. Our customers tend to be influential; they can be very effective in spreading our reputation.”

The lion’s share of SSCS’s installation efforts are handled by our technical support team. Our strategy is distinguished by the fact that technicians switch between roles: they spend some weeks on the phones and other weeks travelling across the globe to assist customers onsite during deployment.

Several advantages are inherent in this approach. Support staff becomes well-rounded to a degree not otherwisepossible. Their in-house training and experience form their detailed procedural knowledge of our software, but their work “on the ground” in the store as a catalyst to a customer’s successful start provides an important practical dimension to their know-how, whether it relates to POS integration, price book origination and development, or providing guidance during a physical inventory or delivery taken with our hand-held scanning solution.

In addition, the practice of “switching out” our support team results in a de facto integration between headquarters and the field that helps provide process continuity and reinforces the kind of attention to detail that translates into a smooth transition for the customer. In large part this is because the support team is responsible for providing the customer, via phone, pre-installation preparation and post-installation follow-up. As a result, the department comes to function as the core source of end-to-end installation excellence, one that trends toward improvement since the low turnover rate of SSCS personnel promotes an accumulation of experience that can be passed onto others in the department and the building, not to mention to customers.

“Installation is a complicated process with a lot of different variables, some of them dynamic,” adds LeMire’. “You need people familiar with every facet of that process to make sure everything runs smoothly, so we’re fortunate to have professionals with years of experience who can anticipate the subtleties and nuances of what plays out at the customer site.”

One last factor that can play a large role in a successful installation may be less obvious, but is significant nonetheless: the customer.

“Our clients are experiencing a time of dynamic change in the industry and the operators that are succeeding are embracing that change,” says LeMire’. “We’re fortunate that our customers tend to have this mindset, which means they are open to us when we walk in the door and work to create an environment in which our comprehensive approach can take hold. After all, we’re partners with our customers, and that partnership brings out the best for all.”