SSCS Customer Care

A Comfy Blanket of Customer Care

We can say our after sale support is unsurpassed and a market differentiator, but how do we provide a sense of what that really means?

Around here at SSCS we’re proud of our after sale support. It’s one of our company’s defining characteristics—perhaps the defining characteristic—and serves as a true market differentiator for us.

A lot of essentials go into the comfortable blanket of comprehensive care we weave for our customers. The scope of our efforts is such that it’s difficult to provide a sense of their combined effect short of having someone hang out with a client from installation to years after the sale.

Yes, years. That long term commitment is a key to what we do; it’s a manifestation of our vested interest in our customers’ success. Sure we take a peerless approach to installation and deployment, but that first meaningful contact is far from the last time we reach out.

Being there for the long haul is top of mind right now because of a conversation we recently had with one of our sales representatives. He’d just come back from what we call a site revisit with a customer who started with SSCS in May, 2013.

Our rep’s mission was to work with the store for multiple days to train staff members—some brand new, some with recently changed job responsibilities—and also to quench the thirst of senior personnel for efficiency and profitability through mastering the more advanced features of our Computerized Daily Book (CDB) back office system.

The engagement kicked off with an orientation meeting. This was attended by affected management and staff personnel. Working with our rep this group locked down a common understanding of the goals and objectives for the visit. In addition, they were introduced to the suite of learning tools available on our customer portal including our new set of 20 training videos. These last proved to be an effective orientation to the CDB for brand new people as well as those new to their position looking to become more complete professionals. Since employees had the opportunity to learn at their own speed on their smartphones or tablets, students embraced the videos enthusiastically.

After a few hours of the classroom, our rep headed with staff into the store itself to check on how well SSCS technology was being integrated into daily work processes. Over the next few days he made suggestions and provided technical advice on how to streamline their operation and capitalize on our software to build up a bottom line. For example, the store’s order specialist was shown how to use our Inventory Reorder report and the CDB’s ability to transmit an electronic order based on sales history to the cigarette manufacturer. Given that this site sold approximately 850 cartons of cigarettes a day, the transition from manual to electronic ordering represented a labor savings of three to four hours a week and an immeasurable increase in accuracy.

And that’s the thing about our sales team—they’re expert at selling, but they know the business well enough that they function effectively as operational advisors. Some of them are pretty handy with a screwdriver and cables, too. That’s why they’re such a key part of our success.

Now that you know a little bit more about our long term after sale support, feel free to click on these links to learn more about the other dimensions of our customer care initiative: