Service department partners with customers, helping them to turn productivity into profits

KBA North America is focusing on its premiere service organization even further with many new technicians, a new apprentice program, and investing in a new training program, all to improve its overall customer satisfaction even higher.

“As KBA has experienced exponential growth with our existing customer base as well as numerous new customers, it is imperative that we continue to be the easiest company to do business with to immediately respond to our customers’ needs,” says Tim McKeon, vice president of service and operations for KBA North America, Inc. “With that in mind, we’ve made three key decisions to ensure we maintain our industry-leading high customer satisfaction experience with our service support team: we’ve added more technicians in the field, we’ve established a two-year apprentice program to develop future technicians, and we’ve invested in a new training program to continue to keep our service technicians up-to-date so they can quickly respond to customers’ needs. And we’re not stopping here. We have several openings for sheetfed and flexo service technicians in multiple locations throughout North America. This is only the beginning of our expansion phase to meet and exceed our customers’ needs.”     

As an example, in Los Angeles, Moritz Gress, an electrician, and Dominik Mueller, a mechanic, have joined the southern California team. Josh Todd is a new mechanic who will be based in Salt Lake City, Utah. Seasoned technician Sebastian Demming, who spent a year of training at KBA’s factory in Germany, has returned as lead mechanic to his base in Chicago. Demming will be visiting nationwide packaging and commercial customers with KBA Rapida presses from 40-inch to 81-inch models. 

Photo: Part of the KBA service expansion includes additional technicians. Back row, left to right : Kim Williams and Stefan Schwarz; front row, left to right : Jonathan McKinstry and Alex Wekerle.

“Our job is to partner with our customers and build a relationship with them,” says Demming. “We’re there to ensure that their press is running to its full potential. Every day is a new opportunity and it’s very satisfying to provide our in-depth knowledge to tackle a problem.”

In addition, KBA’s exceptional customer support specialist team includes Kim Williams, Jon McKinstry, Stefan Schwartz, and Alex Wekerle. “Our customer support program is on a mission to make each customer contact, both external and internal, a positive experience,” says McKeon. “It is a results-driven program providing the utmost support to boost system processing, maintenance, training, color management, and other important areas. The entire team is tasked to resolve issues, find solutions, and act with a sense of urgency for KBA customers. They are active listeners; knowledgeable about the printing industry, equipment, and their area of expertise; and are proactive business partners. 

In order to continue to add more technicians, KBA has established a new two-year apprentice program to develop future technicians. Based in the U.S., the program has been working with veteran organizations to bring new talent into the industry, especially those who have electronic experience. The program is a combination of formal education and on-the-job training. One of the first new trainees has been hired and will be based in Minnesota.

In addition, KBA has implemented an On Demand’s Learning Management System (LMS), a web-based online university tool to develop courses and provide training in the field, track online training, and make training more accessible to all employees. In conjunction with KBA’s regular training programs, KBA is using the LMS to educate its employees across the company to provide better service to its customers. The LMS is allowing KBA’s dispersed workforce access to training and information when and where they need it. This investment in LMS also includes a dedicated administrator to improve overall customer satisfaction.

“The first department at KBA to utilize LMS was the service department,” says Elaine Barnes, Training and Development Specialist. “Since our technicians are spread out all over the country, this was a perfect system to improve communication, provide discussion forums, post up-to-date resource manuals, and offer critical training courses. Certain information lends itself to online interactive information, such as being able to quiz our technicians on what they’ve learned. We’ve had a great response from the service technicians. It allows us to be proactive and be current with their training and education.”