“Changing the foundation for our product” has been the recent focus of the folks behind SAM, the most successful, powerful and most popular workshop management software tool in New Zealand.
Many workshops will be familiar with SAM and may have wondered why the management solutions provider has – until now – been hiding its light under the oil can in the corner.
For the past 12 months or so, the mechanics who make up SAM have been working out ways to better the product which ultimately benefits the end user – that would be you – when it comes to building your business to make you money and save you time.
In December last year, SAM gained something of a turbo boost, as CEO David Murdoch explains: “following the retirement of our founder Dave Hendl, the product portfolio was purchased outright by MTA Group Investments Ltd (MGIL). It’s fantastic that the business is being kept in NZ hands, we’re the only Kiwi provider so it was important to us to keep the business here.”
All the software solutions came together under a new parent company – Australasian Automotive Business Solutions Limited (AASBL) – and within that organisation’s name lies a hint of trans-Tasman expansion for SAM as time goes on.
As Dave Murdoch elaborates, however “we have quite a bit to do here in New Zealand before that.”
“The company vision – shared by the MTA – is to become the fastest growing and most respected automotive software company in Australasia. The MGIL purchase allows us to leverage the strength of the MTA and its deep relationships with its membership to accelerate product development and become more agile in our response to the industry.
“Yes, we have expansion plans, but we have a large existing customer base here to look after. If we do that well, we know we’ll continue to grow here and improve the product offering locally.”
Dave is under no illusion as to where that growth has to come from. Neither – for that matter – is his newly minted general manager for product, sales and marketing, James Chang.
“Our product is arguably the best in the business,” says James, and you need only look to the number of workshops running the software – 50 per cent of the MTA workshop membership alone – to see this; “if we are to look after our customers to the best of our ability, we have to constantly monitor ourselves, find out from our customers what we can do to improve and at the same time, make sure that what we do adds value to our customer’s business.”
Prior to the very valuable and beneficial acquisition by MGIL, Dave and James took the Kiwi-owned company through a brutal self-evaluation process which ultimately led to the development of various continual improvement tools driven by SAM users and customers.
“The data we get from our new customer feedback initiatives, allows us to better determine how we can improve the service and products to our customers,” explains James. “Our monthly CSAT (customer satisfaction surveys) get sent to those users who have recently engaged with our support teams. It allows them to rate their level of satisfaction and comment on it if they wish.”
“James personally sees every survey,” adds Dave. “In order to improve the product and service for our customers, we make sure that we take the time to listen what they have to say and then we can change the way we do things; making it better for the customer.”
In addition to the surveys, the Product team has also set up systems and processes to ensure customer feedback from the support team can go directly to those coding our software. “Of course, our product managers need to juggle the wishes of thousands of users, so not all ideas can be implemented. However, we are definitely keen to listen and learn how we can do better.”
Lastly comes the new initiative of the User Group – a monthly video call where a variety of SAM customers from various sized workshops contribute their input in terms of developmental prioritisation and what they feel will serve them best from SAM.
Internally then, the company has been extensively refocused to the needs of its customers, but has it produced anything to enhance the software itself? Well, yes.
“SAM was designed about 15 years ago and it has seen a wealth of upgrades and enhancements, making it the prime software package it is,” says James. “Being a desktop system, it is a little ‘feature heavy’ for many smaller workshops especially.
“We are currently running Beta testing on webSAM, a more agile package with Cloud-based technology. webSAM can be used via your PC or tablet browser, so it can go anywhere with internet and even ‘go home’ with the business owner. This will free up admin time and allow techs to operate more effectively and efficiently.”
“With webSAM,” adds Dave, “we are building on SAM’s industry-leading quality, but also lifting its flexibility and ease of use. Our goal is to help every customer we have to win more new business, save time and make more money.”
