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Sometimes, it takes some added value to sell a customer a service and support contract.  In fact, in the case of JD Associates, a retail point-of-sale (POS) and inventory control solution provider, it took a higher priced and more comprehensive service offering to seal the deal with one of their customers, a major enterprise retail customer.

Working with companies such as this, JD Associates understands many large customers have self-sufficient IT departments, and often manage their software and hardware applications in-house. To that end, their customer was satisfied supporting their POS systems internally, and declined the opportunity to purchase JD Associates standard service contract.

So how did JD Associates end up generating significant service contract revenue when their customer initially wasn’t even interested in the standard service contract?
ScanSource VirtualTechnician. As a long-time reseller partner of value-added distributor ScanSource, JD Associates was one of the first resellers to test and deploy the company’s remote management and monitoring tool for POS hardware and software applications.

Because of the significant business efficiencies gained through the use of SSVT, JD
Associates knew it would bring great value to their customer. And when they presented the customer with a premium priced, more comprehensive service contract, including the remote monitoring and management features of SSVT, and outlined the proactive support they could give to the company, they welcomed the opportunity. In fact, when first testing the product, the customer found a store whose anti-virus hadn’t been updating, which could have been disastrous to the company’s network.

By providing this premium level of proactive support, JD Associates can deliver on the promise of less system downtime, and when issues do occur, resolve them in a fraction of the time spent previously. This means higher store productivity for their customer and an enhanced relationship with JD Associates through positive customer contacts. “With ScanSource VirtualTechnician we are able to deliver even better support through the anticipation of issues,” said Don Capman, president of JD Associates. “We aren’t waiting for something to happen. We’re fixing it before it does.”

As with all of their customers, JD Associates worked closely with their enterprise retail customer to outline the level of service and contact they would want with the
implementation of SSVT. “We don’t want to overwhelm our customers, but we do like
to have continuous conversations,” said Capman. In this case, JD Associates contacts
their customer with just the critical issues, not all of the alerts generated. At the end of the month, they deliver a full report outlining all of the issues, large and small, that have been proactively fixed, further validating the value of SSVT. The detailed documentation that SSVT provides is also an effective means for justifying the merit of the service contract and enhancing the renewal opportunity.

In times of increased competition, it is critical for resellers to differentiate themselves, not only with technical expertise, but also with service and support offerings. By integrating SSVT into their premium service contract, JD Associates generated incremental revenue, enhanced their customer relationship, and created a significant barrier to competition. So can ScanSource VirtualTechnician help a POS provider grow their business? Just ask Don Capman.

Click here to learn more about JD Associates.