United Business Systems is a staple of the Buffalo, NY community. Their sales and support teams have accrued no shortage of accolades as they continue to be the most trusted partner for office technology in Buffalo. With the help of SalesChain, this stellar team has helped bring better office automation and technology to Central and Western New York for over 35 years.

In this Case Study, we talk with John Kerling of United Business Systems, who represents the sales branch of a family business. We focus on the deal pricing, document generation, and commissions components of the SalesChain system and their benefits. You can watch this case study in video form, or read the transcription we’ve provided below.

You can learn more about United Business Systems on their website: https://www.ubswny.com/

Hi, my name is John Kerling. I am the vice president of United Business Systems in Buffalo, New York.  As the vice president of United Business Systems it’s hard to really explain what I may do in a day, but I am doing whatever it takes to keep the customers happy.

I’ve been with UBS 30 years. My father and my uncle and another partner started UBS in 1983. I got involved with the business as my father had brought a new product and wanted me to come aboard to help him sell.

SalesChain is the hub of our sales organization. We’ve been with SalesChain for twelve years now. We use SalesChain to price our deals and put together our proposals. Getting a deal priced quickly and getting a proposal in front of the customer quickly helps us stay on top.

So, before SalesChain, it was mostly Excel spreadsheets and it was very time-consuming to price a deal. Our sales rep would have to pull pricing from a price sheet, put together an Excel spreadsheet with the equipment on there.

Then we would have to massage those numbers to try and make it work.  By using SalesChain, everything’s right there at our fingertips. We have catalogs within SalesChain that help us price deals. Now we can really look at a deal and depending on the size of the deal, it really helps us massage that deal and be able to figure out how to make it work. With SalesChain, I do not have to manipulate spreadsheets or provide pricing to my sales reps. I don’t have to get as involved with deals because my reps have the information they need and they can price deals within the parameters that I provide.

Because everybody is pricing in the same system, we have fewer errors going on and I have the information I need to view reports. It’s not enough just to have an opportunity. You know, the process of pricing a deal is so fast you have to be ready to hand that customer a document right away or else someone is going to come in and show them an alternative. If that happens, you’re going to lose that deal. SalesChain has helped us present and close orders a lot faster. We can have proposals out in five minutes. Because of that, we are able to make more money.

For us, adding the commission piece with SalesChain has been a real game changer for us.  When we price up the deal in SalesChain and we get an order, now when it comes to commission time I can simply click a few buttons and the guys are paid. Before we were doing commissions in SalesChain it was all spreadsheet and spreadsheet-based. It was time-consuming. Accuracy, I don’t feel it was ever there and there were times where I just threw my hands up and said pay them. Having the commissions system in SalesChain has saved me time and it has saved me money.

Cloud-based SAAS companies are in a unique position to align themselves successfully in a post-pandemic world.  The infrastructure and operations are already in place to function fluidly in the office, remotely, or using a hybrid model.   Back in March, SalesChain published this article, hypothesizing that remote work was here to stay. With the variants of Covid-19 and more offices allowing employees to decide where and how they want to work; we’re seeing this come to fruition.  Companies that either have or can implement this hybrid way of doing business will certainly be at the forefront of the digital transformation that we see today.  “Finding solutions to help remote staff work as efficiently as possible is critical.”

Here we highlight 6 features that our SalesChain product offers that support hybrid office operations.

1) Deal Pricing with Integrated Catalogs

Comprehensive product catalog access is incorporated right into your SalesChain package. Remote workers can run deal pricing, integrating different combinations of base engine machines and accessory packages, whether they are in or out of the office.  They can communicate with other reps and seek manager approval for deals without time-consuming in-person meetings.

2) NEW: Inventory Lookup

SalesChain recently announced a new inventory lookup tool. This is a direct response to the issues the industry is experiencing as a result of pandemic supply chain disruptions. Customers can use SalesChain’s forecasting screen to double-check their inventory and cross-reference it with the proposals and orders priced by sales reps.

3) Integrated e-Signatures

The pandemic has brought a new awareness to the appeal of working as much as possible in a contactless environment. Customers may be more hesitant to participate in multiple, unnecessary face-to-face interactions.  SalesChain software offers E-signatures – the perfect way to close contactless deals with your customers.

4) Built-In Commissions

A system to manage any type of commissions structure is built right into the SalesChain software. Sales reps are motivated to keep up with the easy data entry in the field or at home, knowing that they will be paid, no matter where they are.  They will readily see what they might be paid for each deal, and managers will have a more complete and accurate data set to drive analytics.

5) Outlook 365 Integration

SalesChain offers integrations to key industry software, to help manage business workflow, regardless of worker location. “Two-way integration with Microsoft Outlook 365 means when you schedule, edit, and cancel appointments in Outlook they will automatically appear on your SalesChain calendar.”  Sales reps are enabled to be more professional, reducing the risk of missing appointments and losing important details.  Creating an electronic paper trail means easy access to communication history, not only over the course of a particular deal but for the lifetime of a relationship with a client.

6) Cloud-Based CRM

SalesChain software is a unified solution that incorporates sales CRM functionality. Sales reps may access their data from anywhere at any time, facilitating ease of use and collaboration with clients and colleagues.  This cloud-based CRM package also precludes the errors inherent in manual data collection and saves users time on the road.

When you are looking to partner with a company providing business enterprise software you need to know if this system be able to grow with you?  It is inefficient to invest in something that you will outgrow in a short period of time.  You don’t want to find yourselves using a different software product in a matter of just a few years.

SalesChain provides a system that is designed to support the needs of a complex organization, comprised of multiple business enterprises, managed by different teams and personalities with different perspectives.  Whether you are a small company with five dealers or a large company with 35 dealers, we can provide tailor-made solutions.  For example, you can adjust settings in the system for individual dealers and branches while retaining standard settings at the management or corporate level.  SalesChain has built-in adaptability to do just that.

SalesChain clients are always growing, whether it is the addition of a few new sales representatives, an internal promotion, or the addition of a whole new branch.  As an effective provider, our system needs to be able to provide viable, easily implemented solutions for all these situations.

Here Are 3 Ways the SalesChain System Scales with your Business:

1. Cloud-Based CRM allows companies to easily add users or even new branches. You can import data from InfoUSA or other sources, assign existing accounts and territories to new reps, and managers can easily view reports and charting information from all the different branches and users from a single admin login.
2. Delivery Workflow Automation and Status Tracking helps your infrastructure grow alongside your sales organization. Avoid growing pains in fulfillment as your sales team expands or sells more by automating processes like delivery notifications, scheduling, reminders, and more. Save time by pushing sales orders and other information directly into e-Automate rather than needing a staff member to keep up with this process manually.
3. Dedicated Service Pricing, IT Service Pricing, and IT Products Pricing tools can help your dealership expand into new offerings that help your customers with the digital transformation (DX). If you already have these offerings, leverage cross-selling to include more offerings on a single proposal and help sell your customers more services.

We are a smaller company, focused on the office technology industry, but we take pride in the fact that our system is based on a scalable platform.  Because so many office technology dealers have complex hierarchies, they need to structure permissions and have careful and precise access to data and processes.  Our focus on the industry means that these features are purpose-built for companies with multiple dealerships.  One hundred percent of the tools built into our software product are designed for office technology, so we are not distracted by ideas or features that you will not use.

It’s no secret that Keystone Digital Imaging loves automation. In fact, their attention to detail when it comes to their use of the software is practically obsessive. With the help of SalesChain, this careful determination has helped them cut their DSO in half, and allowed them to provide their customers with a much higher grade of service.

In this Case Study, we talk with Crystal Manning of Keystone Digital Imaging. We focus on the implementation of the Delivery Workflow Automation module of the SalesChain system and its benefits. You can watch this case study in video form, or read the transcription we’ve provided below.

You can learn more about Keystone Digital Imaging on their website: https://www.kdi-inc.com/

I’m Crystal Manning.  I’m with Keystone Digital Imaging and I’m the project manager.  I oversee all the different software that we use.  I take time to see how we can enhance them, how we can move the company forward and into more automation, basically. 

Then I help all our teams throughout the entire company with all our software.  So, if they’re having an issue or if they feel like something’s taking too long, I put out those types of fires.   

I talk to the developers of the software probably more than I talk to half my family, they’re like my second family I would say. We’ve been using SalesChain for a good ten years now.  We were one of the very first.  What I’ve seen in SalesChain is that they are just as forward-thinking as we are. So, they are always redeveloping their software.  They don’t let it go stale.  They are constantly investing in what the industry needs, what people need, what the marketing is, and they move and redesign their own software to keep up with what their dealers and customers need. 

I find SalesChain is very responsive, from their Help Desk, just needing simple things changed or questions answered, all the way through to their development team.  If it’s something that we need or something we want to see, I’ve never come across something that SalesChain wasn’t willing to do. 

I’ve been with KDI for thirteen and a half years.  The company has changed by having a lot more software that we have to deal with.  We were using between five and seven programs at one given time.  Now we have a ton more automation and we’ve taken the number of software programs we’ve had to use and minimized them.   

By sticking with SalesChain, we said, ok, these are the things that are most important to us. How do we utilize your software, and customize it to our needs so that we can get rid of everything else?  SalesChain was able to do that for us.  By doing that, it has allowed our team to be a lot more productive.   

Before SalesChain, we were using SalesForce.  When we started looking at other CRMs, SalesChain just seemed to fit a little bit better.  We’re so lucky that we did, because, again, I can’t speak more about the customization.  There’s no other software out there that will customize the way that SalesChain will.  That is what you need to run a business.  You can’t fit into a program’s molding.  You need a software to fit into yours.  That’s what will give and deliver good customer service. 

One piece of customer development that SalesChain has helped us with has been enhancing our delivery desk workflow.  We utilize SalesChain to follow through our entire workflow.  It’s brought our teams together so that they’re able to function better as a team versus individually.  We have multiple types of delivery desks that we do here, what we call jobs.  We took it from a basic copier delivery.  We now have over ten different types of job deliveries.  It’s good for us because we really want to look at the statistics of what each step is.  A copier may be different than a showroom delivery or a copier may be different than our RT department’s work items.  Being able to see what everybody’s work items are and how quickly they’re getting done allows us from management to see where the holes are and how we can make them better. 

The difference between some of the different types of jobs that we have with the delivery desk would be copiers.  That’s our main thing.  We utilize everything, from when the deal is submitted to our order processing team, to our welcome center.  The equipment is ordered, received, set up, then delivered.  Then we have connectivity and ED, which is the software we use, and then we have funding.  Whereas, when we do an IT order, they are much simpler.  We have the order, submit it, the equipment is ordered, it is installed, and it all comes together.  Then we just follow up with a survey to make sure the customer is satisfied. 

Having the ability to have a much smaller scale of those work items, we don’t have to just check a work item off just because it doesn’t fit in that bubble that we have.  So, customizing to us makes things so much easier.  What I mean by that is order processing just used to be our order processors.  Our warehouse used to be just our warehouse.  Now, they’re a team. They all utilize the same workflow.  They all utilize SalesChain and they can all see where the other department is in that process.  So, if the warehouse is wondering was equipment ordered, they can go in and run a report to see all the orders that equipment has been ordered for, so they know what they are expecting in in the next few days.  Same thing with order processing.  If they see equipment has been received, they now have a report of all the bills that they now must run and generate out of our system, whereas before, everything was when equipment gets billed, they then get a notice through a scanned email.   

Now things are tied together.  Are teams working together?  The communications are better and that helps us as upper management deliver better products to our customers.  The delivery workflow works with the ability to give the sales reps the knowledge of where their order is in the workflow process.  Without bothering different members of our team, they can log into SalesChain, log onto the order, and they see exactly where that order is.  What’s the last step that was completed?  What’s the next step that needs to be completed?  By doing that, the sales rep is more comfortable and can give updates to the customer.  

Before we implemented the workflow into SalesChain, we were pretty much around 15 days from the time we received an order to the time that we delivered and funded a deal.  Now we’re around seven days and we don’t have so much equipment.  Most of our equipment gets ordered and then it gets shipped to us.  Then we must set it up.  We must test it. We must deliver it.  Then we connect it.  Then we have training and we’re funded.  All those processes are happening at one time, but it is happening in days and quickly.  It affords us the ability to do that because SalesChain is showing us exactly where we are.  

To do that, you must have a system that can keep up, and you must be able to see, here I am at this step, here I am at this step.  But cutting us down to seven days, just think about that.  You don’t even have a piece of equipment here and you’re processing an order and getting the equipment physically here from another warehouse, another manufacturer, and you’re delivering it to a customer who needs that equipment quickly, who need to swap it out and be tested and ready to go for them so that they can then train their team.   That’s important, that’s good customer service, not waiting weeks.  So that’s what’s important to us, value.

I don’t know where our business would be without SalesChain. 

As the leading provider of sales and business automation solutions to the office technology industry, we have taken the time to learn and develop best practices for the implementation of our software. Because of our experience, going live with the SalesChain system has never been easier. We’ve outlined the typical steps of the go-live process below!

While boxed software is a perfectly viable solution for some business settings, companies often find themselves wishing for more power and flexibility from their technology. Tailor-made software solves a number of problems by allowing users to have a closer relationship with developers and support staff. Here are 5 reasons why industry-specific software is a more compelling option for dealers who want to maximize the value of their software.

As your company grows, you’ll need to add users, functionality, and better reporting. With an expandable, industry specific software, like SalesChain, this will mean flipping the on switch to added features or putting in a request to our development staff. However, with off the shelf systems, this may mean a costly upgrade or, worse yet, changing systems entirely.

Often users of big-box software find themselves buying additional software products to add functionality where gaps exist. On the contrary, there have been several instances where SalesChain users have found the need for an additional feature, and our development staff has responded in kind by creating the feature for them.

A great example can be drawn concerning our Deal Pricing utility. SalesChain has been providing Proposal and Order Pricing to dealers for years, but in an executive review meeting with one of our customers, we found that their entire staff was zeroing out the value of their accessory pricing and adding that cost back into the mainframe of the machine. Rather than force them to subscribe to the way that our system works, we added the ability to make this change in our pricing calculator with a single button. When we added this button, we learned that many of our other customers were doing this too!

This example serves not only to illustrate the idea that users of custom software systems can see changes they request implemented, but that developers of industry-specific software can also glean significant benefit due to the closer relationship they maintain with their user base. This closeness creates a community environment, which helps users and developers alike reap the benefits of the group-think.

By using software designed to meet the needs of your specific industry and, more intimately, the needs of your business, the process of logging information in that system can make a lot more sense. Much in the same way that there is always a right tool for the job, there is often a software that serves any given situation specifically. When your software developer is familiar with your industry on an intimate level, they can provide a workflow process which makes sense within the bounds of your industry.

One solution that SalesChain has implemented to make sure that our user base is provided with a workflow that makes sense to them is to work with leadership at our client companies directly to clearly define the workflow that they already use. Most of the time, once we glean an understanding of this workflow, we can replicate it accurately within our system. find Many industry-specific software providers designate a senior developer to working with clients to outline these workflows and make sure that the system works for them the way they intend it to.

When your software represents this workflow for prospecting, pricing, documentation and delivery, the system starts to work for you rather than your team being enslaved to the system. When this comfort level is achieved, your team will be more confident and perform tasks faster and more efficiently.

Many pre-packaged software products are built to communicate well with “outside” software to fill the gaps in their own functionality. Quite often, however, they’re built specifically to communicate with sister products in an effort to get customers to buy other products made by the same company. Providers put a thin veil over this practice by calling each component the “best in class,” while ignoring the underlying problem that these are still disconnected software products. This principal also applies to integrations to outside software products. While big-box providers may integrate with partners with very recognizable names, those integrations might not have all that much to do with the day-to-day functions of your organization.

This oversight undermines the goal of SalesChain and other niche providers. With a system that’s built with your industry in mind, integrations to common marketing and ERP tools are already built in, and companies that are focused on development and automation can be sure that this process happens without the need for human intervention.

What’s more, the companies that we choose to integrate with are hand-picked because of their relevance to the industry. Big-box software providers will likely focus on integrating to partners with the largest names or recognition,  rather than those that are most common to a niche user base. For example, SalesChain’s integration to ECI e-Automate, which allows salespeople to create sales orders in e-Auto with the push of a button rather than requiring that a staff member be allocated to writing this information. Industry-specific integrations allow industry-specific software providers to give users a superior experience for their day-to-day functions.

Similar to the selection process for integrations, most small business software is created to appease the masses. Major providers don’t allocate the development resources in order to create custom versions of their software to suit every industries needs. Their solution provides the most basic of functionality that will appeal to a very wide customer base without adding any truly valuable utilities.

Not only does this create problems on an fundamental level with your business, but when your employees fail to see the value in the system they’re using, they will never use it to it’s full potential.

When your organization partners with an industry-specific software solution, you’re presented with a set of tools that is specific to the functions of your business. When there is a clear workflow, and clear utilities to perform that work, your organization can take advantage of that system much more effectively.

With a focused software system comes a focused support staff. Support personnel who are trained and operate in the same industry that a software serves are much more apt to provide competent help and advice. When a service staff member works exclusively in one industry, they solve problems pertaining to that industry alone, and can built a valuable knowledge base much more quickly. Representatives of an industry-specific solution are going to have a great understanding of the day to day functions of your business and know what specific features will benefit your business best.

Software that is marketed as a small business solution for all industries will meet basic needs but may struggle to offer support on an issue that is relevant only to your company. When they’re trained on the software alone, rather than the industry it serves, they are bound to present a much more generic, and less insightful, degree of assistance.

SalesChain, for example, prides itself on fantastic service. Our help desk staff is trained on our system from its most basic functions to its most advanced utilities and is able to help staff of any tier at our client companies with the issues they are facing. Indeed, a staff that is US-Based, English speaking and trained on the intricacies of the copier industry can serve our user base much more effectively.