DISTRIBUTION MAINTENANCE BULLETIN
B22MB94009
0123X5XX-5-123456789lLM
November 11,1994


SUBJECT: CUSTOMER SERVICE DATA BASE AND A WHOLE LOT MORE

Dear MILNOR Dealer/Customer:

Since the end of March of this year, the Technical Service Group at MILNOR has been using a computer system to document the telephone calls into the Technical Support Group.

Since we suspect many questions have been asked about this in the field, we thought it might help to explain the system and why we chose to implement such a system.

First of all, the PROBLEM:

a) Due to the nature of the phone system, a caller cannot necessarily speak with the same person on a subsequent call.

b) We need to know what machinery we are answering questions about.

c) We need to document the information given to us by the customer or dealer technician and also the advise or solution that we recommended on the telephone. On a subsequent call, we would then have this information available to all service engineers who would help further troubleshoot a given call.

d) We need to develop a "common knowledge" of problems in the field. Due to our field engineers travel schedule, the information taken and solutions known by one engineer may not be known by all others.

e) A "call history" did not exist for any installation to help us make good decisions on how to react to a given circumstance or machine problem at an installation.

SOLUTIONS:

We found on the market a "customer configurable" data base package for the personal computers in our office which addressed many of these issues.

This software package allows us to address the problems mentioned above as follows:

a) We record the customer data, his address, phone number and equipment serial numbers so that we know what machines we are working on. Additionally, if the machine has a "local machine name" we can document this name associated with a given serial number.

b) Each call description (what you tell us) is recorded in the system and our trouble shooting advice is recorded so that another engineer can view this "call record" and know what was said before.

c) When opening a new call, we are able to see a "call history" which may prove beneficial in solving a "long term" problem.

You would be amazed at the number of calls which show more than one conversation about any given problem. We have recorded as many as 10 conversations on one topic before the problem was resolved.

d) The system allows us to see trends with component parts or machine product lines so we can better react to your field report.

On the issue of "common knowledge," it was once thought that everyone in the Service Engineering Group knew about every call and circumstance which was reported to the group. Due to the travel schedules of individuals in this group, it's possible that a problem with any given machine may be "totally new information" to an engineer who was out of town when the problem was originally reported.

The new computer system allows us to input "common knowledge" in a very structured manner so that information learned today can be "captured" and reviewed at a later date by our field engineering staff. This system gives us a single "filing" system for this information while allowing us to import data from other sources and key-in data directly.

The end result is we intend to provide for all of your technical needs given information collected by our Technical Support Group rather than any one individual working in the group.

As more information is inputted into the system and the common knowledge" is enhanced, we will be able to share this information with our dealers to the benefit of our mutual customers. In addition, this software package could be implemented at the dealership level for an amazingly low cost per feature price. We would be happy to share any information we have on the software package and its source.

If desired, please contact me for further information regarding the software package at 504-467-9591, ext.353, or by fax at 504-469-9777.

Best regards,

PELLERIN MILNOR CORPORATION

Gary L. Lazarre
Gary L. Lazarre
Manager
Customer Service

GLL/das