Innovation within Customer Experience and Cloud Solutions: Exclusive Interview from ECI Connect

Ray Stasieczko (RS): Anna, I interviewed you at another meeting not too long ago at the start of your new role. How's everything going in the new role, keeping the dealers motivated about ECI or getting them to switch to Printanista?

Anna Grubb (AB): The last couple of years have been fantastic. As a Canadian, I primarily worked internationally until a few years ago. Coming back to my home territory and meeting customers in person has been a game-changer.

For this event, one of the reasons we’ve seen such an impressive turnout for our division is that I made a point of inviting everyone to come up, meet me in person, and share their thoughts on how things are going. It’s been so engaging that I can’t even walk down the hall to grab a drink of water without having meaningful interactions. It’s been an amazing experience.

RS: Is this the first event since COVID for you guys?

AG: The first event was in Denver two years ago. It was well-timed, as everyone was just starting to emerge from the COVID pandemic. I still had to wear a mask on the plane, as it was still very close to the peak of COVID.

RS: Is the plan to do it every two years?

AG: Yes. We hold our event every other year opposite the EUG event. Many people in our industry know about the EUG, our e-automate user group. However, it’s important to note that the EUG is not an ECI event. To complement it, we hold our ECI Connect event during the alternate years.

ECI Connect is especially significant because it brings together all our divisions, not just one. This allows us to hold dedicated sessions to showcase upcoming products and innovations. We also host interactive roundtable discussions to gather direct feedback from attendees—what they need and what they want. In addition, we conduct corporate and legal sessions to provide further insights and updates.

RS: Let's go back to "customer service". We’re under pressure for innovation and information. When a company becomes pressured like that, they may do things that they normally wouldn't do, like blame the software. A lot of times, there's a problem with the mindset.

AG: From my perspective, we want to be extremely customer-centric in everything we do. So, we want to stand behind our software. We want to be able to support it, whether it's a dealer needing assistance or an end customer needing assistance. We're going to be there.

Riz Karim (RK): I’ve been at ECI for just over a year, and one of the first opportunities I identified was the need to overhaul and improve our customer support experience. Over the past six months, we’ve made significant changes to address this.

Previously, we operated with a tiered support model. The first tier, known as the “customer experience team,” would take customer calls and route them to the appropriate teams. From there, product experts and then technical experts would handle the issues. When a dealer was involved, the process became even more complex, adding layers that led to long wait times and a frustrating experience for customers.

To solve this, we reorganized our team using a pod structure and a swarming model. Now, for products like e-automate and others, there’s a dedicated team of product experts who know the product inside and out. When customers call, they speak directly to these experts, who are trained to address the issue as quickly as possible, anticipate potential follow-up issues, and ultimately delight the customer. It's not about being transactional and just getting past this particular hurdle. It’s about understanding what situation the customer is in and putting them in a position to succeed in the long term.

We officially rolled out these changes across all ECI on October 1, and the initial feedback has been very positive in a few key ways.

First, the metrics we track—such as average case age, average response time, and similar performance indicators—are all moving in the right direction. Additionally, customer-focused metrics like customer satisfaction and net promoter scores are also improving, which is very encouraging.

What has been most gratifying, however, is being here this week, talking directly with customers, and hearing from them directly—getting feedback like, “I called and spoke to an expert right away. My issue was solved in 10 minutes.” That’s very, very gratifying to hear. So we’re going to double-down on that and make sure we do more.

RS: If you compare being in the cloud versus on-premise, where are there more problems?

RK: It's clear that in a cloud environment, it's easier and quicker to support the customers because we have control over the entire environment. We make sure security is up-to-date. The database versions, the operating system versions—all of those, we're responsible for that. Updates happen automatically. We have a dedicated team of people that are responsible for monitoring and supporting those systems. When it comes to the cloud environment, the level of responsiveness that we can provide is really at a different level, and that's what our customers who have moved to the cloud are telling us as well.

With on-premise situations, there are more variables. Is there an issue in the software, or is it an issue in the environment? Is there a storage issue? Is there a security patch that wasn’t applied? Then there are additional factors associated with IT. Is the IT person available? What if it’s the weekend or evening?

From a supportability standpoint, there are many reasons why cloud solutions are preferable. 
 

RS: So, Anna, as you're speaking with dealers, current customers, and prospective dealers, what are the conversations like with prospects today compared to when you all started 25 years ago? I'm curious to hear your perspective.

AG: The good news is that e-automate is already fairly well known and is recognized as a tried and trusted solution. This gives us the advantage of being a trusted and stable option.

Ironically, though, most of our new prospects immediately gravitate toward cloud-based solutions. There’s a perception, especially from about 25 years ago, that we only ever sold based on the enterprise model. Today, however, we sell using the SaaS or subscription-based model, which charges a price per user per month. This makes it more affordable. In the past, many smaller dealers felt they couldn’t afford our solutions, but now they can. When you think about it, many of these smaller dealers are likely using software like QuickBooks. In fact, e-automate is essentially like QuickBooks, but enhanced and specifically tailored for this industry.

RW: That’s probably why you’ve been around for 25 years! Any closing thoughts?

AG: It’s just so nice to have you here. Thanks for coming out.

RK: We know our customers made an investment in time and cost to be here, so we’re trying to add as much value as we can. And we appreciate you taking the time to talk to us as well.

Summary: ECI Connect 2024 highlighted how customer experience and cloud adoption are redefining dealer success. Faster expert support, simplified cloud environments, and affordable subscription pricing mean even small dealers can compete like industry giants.

In short: customer-first + cloud-ready = future-proof.