Moraware News
Last month Kathleen published the first in a series of blog posts about promoting great customer service. Maybe you just intuitively understand customer service. Maybe you’re already a great salesperson. But maybe you’ve also had a hard time teaching employees how to “be like you.” This series will help you train your staff to recognize and deliver great service – and sell more countertops! Check out the latest article for ideas on how to teach the importance of communication and vision: Don’t sell the goat. Sell the picnic.
As part of our own effort to provide great customer service, we’ve added a receptionist to the Moraware team. Although we’ve still been responding to help requests within one business day, our phone lines have gotten so busy that some customers were getting frustrated leaving a message. We think we’ve found a solution! Now when you call, Lora will answer the phones if our support team is busy helping other customers. Lora will ensure that we get a detailed message so we can help you solve your problems as quickly as possible.
StoneTalk
Have you listened to StoneTalk , the podcast for countertop fabricators? Check out our most recent interview!
Episode 16: Jordany Nunes from NF Granite Mississippi talks to Patrick abut how NF leveraged the volume they were doing with big box accounts to move into a new market.
StoneTalk is our online radio show that features interviews with fabricators and folks in the industry. Each episode is about 30 minutes, and we think you’ll find it entertaining and informative. You can subscribe from iTunes or download individual recordings from the StoneTalk website.
JobTracker
Want to learn some tips and tricks in JobTracker? Based on the help requests we’ve been getting, people have been inspired by the change of season to do some Spring cleaning in JobTracker. Here are some common questions and useful suggestions.
Q: We haven’t always been good about changing the status of Activities, so our Views and Reports are no longer accurate. What can we do to clean up the Activities that were never marked complete?
A: Although it is always more tedious to clean up after you’ve completed the jobs than it is to keep things up-to-date as you go, there are some things you can do to make the process easier. First, you can create and save a Job View to show all of the jobs that have incomplete activities.
When you select the fields you want to appear in your saved view, include the Date field for each of your Activities. Then you will be able to click on the Date for any Activity and change its Status to Complete.
Of course, once you do get things cleaned up in JobTracker, you then have to tackle the real issue: changing human behavior. No technical solution – whether you use JobTracker or Excel, paper-and-pen or a barcode reader – will work if staff aren’t committed to following the procedures you put in place.
Q: We use JobTracker Inventory, but we never count our physical inventory to make sure that what we actually have in a particular location matches what JobTracker says we have in that location. Now nobody trusts our inventory system. What can we do to get back on track?
A: Patrick has been busy helping customers work through this issue, so he made a help article with videos to walk you through the best practice for cleaning up and maintaining your inventory. He outlines three main steps: (1) Clean up old purchase orders; (2) Create a report to cleanup incomplete activities (Sound familiar?); and (3) Create a serial number detail view. Watch the videos and let us know if you need more help.
Q: We’re keeping current with most of our inventory, but our Remnants are off. Why would some of the Remnants show negative amounts – and how can we fix it?
A: If your existing remnants are listing as negative amounts, it probably means the original slab was assigned to a job, but the remnant was NOT created from within the Job. Check out this video to clean up your existing remnant inventory and to learn how to avoid the error in the future.
JobTracker is scheduling software that replaces your whiteboard, file folders, and spreadsheets. To find out more, request a live demo at support@moraware.com !
CounterGo
We’ve had calls about cleaning things up in CounterGo too. Did you know you can edit your email template and check for bounced email? CounterGo Email Templates contain a Reply-To email address and a From Name, along with the default text that will appear in the Subject line and Body of the message. Customizing this email template can increase the odds that the quotes you email to customers won’t land in their SPAM folder.
When editing your email template, you might choose to have just one email template sent from “sales@mycompany.com,” or you may choose to have a customized template for each salesperson sent from his or her own email address. To create a new Email template, go to Quote>Edit Settings and choose Email. Detailed instructions are available in this help article (https://help.moraware.com/article/176-change-reply-to-email-address) .
But sometimes email bounces. It just can’t be delivered to the email address you entered – usually because you typed the wrong address. You can view a list of any quotes that bounced when they were emailed to customers. Again, go to Quote>Edit Settings and click the Email button.
If you’re just starting with CounterGo, check out our training , which is a sequence of videos that walks you through a quote from start to finish.
CounterGo lets you draw, layout, and quote countertops in 3 minutes. Find out more by calling us at 866-312-9273.
Education
Here are a couple more great opportunities to step outside the endless stream of tasks associated with working in your business so you can spend some quality time working on the business.
Stone Industry Education events are organized by StoneWorld and the Marble Institute of America, and each offers a presentation by an industry expert on a particular business topic, as well as a more general Fabricators Forum panel of industry leaders. There are two chances to attend in June. The first is June 4 in Edmonton, AB with guest speaker Tony Malisani from Malisani, Inc. Tony will share his experience analyzing the true cost of doing business and diversifying his customer base. The second session will be on June 18 in Denver, CO and will feature GK Naquin of Stone Interiors presenting on diversification, risk management and planning for the future. We’ll be at both events, so please come say hello!
Park Industries will also be hosting another Digital Stoneworking Expo in St. Cloud, MN on June 11, 2015. We would love to see you there! Park’s free seminars provide an opportunity to learn from industry-leading stone fabricators who share their experience using digital technology.
RemnantSwap
RemnantSwap is a free place to buy and sell countertop remnants. Take a minute and see what materials are near you. Search for any color or material and we’ll show you what’s closest to you.
Here’s more info, including a 2-minute video.
CONTACT US
You can reach us at support@moraware.com
