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Success Story
Return to Britannia Brings an End to Headaches for Illinois Dealer Fischers, Inc.
Herb (fourth from the left) and the team at Fischers, Inc.
- Dealership:
- Fischers, Inc.
- Industry:
- Office Supplies
- Office Furniture
- Office Machines
- Janitorial
- Office Furniture
- Britannia User:
- More than 20 years
- Fischers, Inc. Uses:
Software for growing office dealers
It seemed like such a good idea at the time.
After using Britannia to manage his dealership for more than 20 years, Herb Kober was looking for a change. As president and owner of Fischers, Inc. in Oregon, IL, about 90 miles west of Chicago, Herb had long relied on Britannia to keep his business running smoothly. But new owners had entered the picture at the software company, along with some significant price increases, and Herb was concerned about Britannia’s future direction.
[Britannia] V5 is great right now and it’s going to be even better in the future.
That was back in June 2007, and as Herb switched to a new technology provider, he was looking forward to lower costs and smoother sailing. Sometimes, though, you get what you pay for and it isn’t always what you’ve been led to expect.
“I had always relied on Britannia for excellent customer service and responsiveness any time I had an issue and the system itself was fairly easy and intuitive to use,” he recalls. Now, however, he found himself facing a very different set of circumstances.
“My new technology provider expected us to download their training manual and work through it all, almost like a correspondence course,” he explains. “And when I called for assistance, I had to leave voice mail and hope I’d maybe get a call back reasonably quickly. Usually, that didn’t happen, and when I did finally hear back, they’d tell me the problem was my fault because I hadn’t done the training properly.”
After working through two different technical support people and taking his concerns to top management without success, Herb Kober realized it was time to regroup.
As an entrepreneur running a small dealership and wearing multiple hats in his organization, Herb found himself in what was rapidly becoming an untenable situation.
Two years after pulling the plug on Britannia—and they were two very long years, he says with a wry smile—Herb moved back, just in time to take advantage of the power and user-friendliness of the new Britannia V5.
“V5 is great right now and it’s going to be even better in the future,” he reports happily. “Like any piece of software, it’s not perfect, but so far any bugs we’ve seen have been resolved fairly quickly, and if there is a glitch of any kind, the Britannia folks will admit it, tell us what they’re going to do and they’ve lived up to their commitments to get it fixed.”
The return to Britannia couldn’t have come at a better time for Herb and his team. While business has not exactly been easy in recent years, Fischers has been picking up some very nice new customers of late, due in no small measure to the efforts of daughter, Angie, who has been setting the pace in outside sales for the dealership.
Herb and his team have also been quite successful targeting their new business development efforts towards accounts that are likely to appreciate the high-service, relationship-based marketing approach that is the hallmark of so many independents.
“While there’s so much less loyalty in the market in general than there used to be, we can still find companies who appreciate service and a local presence,” Herb explains. “We find organizations that usually have a high level of service expertise themselves—like banks and other financial institutions, schools and local government agencies—tend to appreciate what we do and respond very positively to the kind of value proposition we offer.”
At the same time, Herb has been broadening the product mix at Fischers to give customers even more reasons to buy from his dealership.
Moving back to Britannia was absolutely the right thing to do for our business. Online ordering is going to become more and more important for our customers.
Office supplies currently account for about 75 percent of total sales, but the dealership also does a nice business in office furniture and machines, including service, and recently they’ve been seeing some healthy gains in the janitorial area as well.
And of course, it helps when you can offer the kind of feature-rich, easy-to-use online ordering system that comes with the Britannia V5 Web storefront.
And as for that decision to move back to Britannia?
“Moving back to Britannia was absolutely the right thing to do for our business,” Herb says confidently. “Online ordering is going to become more and more important for our customers and Britannia certainly gives them everything they need and then some. And it’s certainly nice for us that we don’t have to worry about poor service anymore. Now that we’re back with Britannia, I can be sure we’ll get our calls returned and be working with a technology partner who actually listens to their customers.”
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