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Why do you need a service management program when you already have an accounting system? Accounting systems are central to your business, but one thing they cannot do is help you manage your service department...

Does planning your retirement, managing staff turnover, and attracting new “millennial” talent to your scales business keep you up at night? OK, maybe they don’t keep you up all night, but it’s difficult to imagine that as a company owner or senior manager, you are not concerned that so much of your business processes and customer relationships are tied to a few key employees – that could retire, or leave at any time.

Recently I was approached by a scale dealer who recounted to me that he has spent $100K and 12+months developing a certificate management program that, even once complete, will not have the capabilities of software that is readily available for his industry today at a fraction of the price. This is not uncommon for us to hear.

Three emerging business software trends are impacting the Weights and Measures service industry on a daily basis. Companies that adopt these trends early can get ahead of the competition....and stay ahead! WHEN YOU’RE ON THE MOVE! Mobile Computing remains one of the most important trends today, and can result in a dramatic ROI improvement. According to a field service report by the Aberdeen Group, a top-ranked U.S. research firm, 58% of incoming calls requesting service result in a service rep being dispatched. In the majority of cases...

Rice Lake, Wis. March 27, 2015 — CRS™ Certificate Retrieval System will now become a member of the Miracle Service® family of service management software products. CRS is calibration and certificate management software offered by weighing and measurement solutions manufacturer Rice Lake Weighing Systems® to help scale dealers and their technicians perform onsite calibrations and enter data directly into a handheld device. As well as having the ability to print calibration certificates from the web-based data management system, CRS provides a secure online asset maintenance history and documented inventory of assets.

Over the past few years, there has been a marked difference in the way OEMs have designed their products. Most workgroup and desktop models are now marketed as “serviceless.” Newer model printers are ushering in new technologies such as low cost per page (1 cent mono/5 cent color) ink, and low-cost, high-speed multifunction hardware (under $500). This certainly makes the business logic for repair much less compelling than it once was.

There has been a marked difference in the way manufacturers have designed their products over the past few years. Engineers are now focused on reducing manufacturing costs and are building for “planned obsolescence,“ whereby equipment functions for perhaps only a few years - and when that equipment does fail, the cost of service is not much less than buying a new model. This will cause problems for a service company that is built on the concept of “repair” instead of “repair or replace.”

How often do you get a call from a client looking for some information, or backup related to their scale certificates? Chances are if they are calling you, it means they are being inspected, audited or are in the midst of compiling some regulatory paperwork. Like most scale dealers, you have probably developed a system to retrieve and send certificates to customers. Does your system include giving customers access to their certificates online 24/7? In the age of information, more and more customers are beginning to expect this service. What would this approach tell your customers about your business?