SalesChain Case Study: Keystone Digital Imaging

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.