How PrimeSource and Dimora Brands Are Improving CX
In 2019, PrimeSource Building Products Ltd and Dimora Brands began migrating away from an on-premises Avaya PBX to the cloud-based 8×8 unified communications and contact center platform.
Today, all of PrimeSource/Dimora’s 1,450 employees use 8×8 Work for communications, including 400 employees across 40 office locations who also use 8×8 Contact Center. Genelle Chamberlain, IT manager with PrimeSource and Dimora Brands, along with her team and support from 8×8’s professional services group, made that migration (and others) happen.
A B2B distribution hub, PrimeSource/Dimora sells to professional contractors, home remodelers, construction companies, and retailers fastening solutions, building materials, outdoor living products, and more. In total, PrimeSource/Dimora encompass nearly 25 brands across multiple U.S. cities, and is still growing through multiple acquisitions. Each newly acquired company is transitioned from its existing communications systems to 8×8.
The original shift from an on-site PBX has delivered significant improvements for those 400 employees – customer service and technical support agents, inside sales reps and the accounts payable team – as well for PrimeSource/Dimora’s customers.
For example, call queue time is down by 83% from 15 to 20 minutes for some of the company’s specific brands.
“With the old system we didn’t have options for a callback queue or rollover queues. We also didn’t have the option for remote employees to take calls within queue unless we manually forwarded those calls to their cell phone or home phone,” Chamberlain told No Jitter. “It really limited our workforce, too. People were available to work but they couldn’t take calls. Instead, they worked email or fax orders.”
Average handle time has also decreased since PrimeSource/Dimora moved to 8×8, down from about 10 minutes to approximately 5 minutes, though it does depend on the type of call.
“Tech support calls take longer because they’re talking through an issue with a customer,” Chamberlain said. Much of that handle time was due to note taking during the call – and then logging those notes after the call both in 8×8 and legacy systems of record.
“Our sales team would log the wrap-up in 8×8 and then log the call notes in the CRM. The character limitations were different in those systems, so they entered an abbreviated version in one and a longer one in the other,” Chamberlain said.
To alleviate that duplicate work, her team is migrating all CRMs to Salesforce. PrimeSource and Wolf Home Products (a subsidiary brand acquired in 2021), which sells residential building products, have made the switch. Dimora is next.
Beyond the efficiency gains, the combined solution will now provide data-based context about why the customer may be calling.
“The system might say, ‘this customer ordered nails six month ago, that’s probably what they’re looking for,’” Chamberlain said. “And, rather than stop and log the notes before transferring a call – with the next person having to pull them up – now the entire customer record transfers in real time, which has really improved customer satisfaction.”
Already the customer service and sales experience has improved, Chamberlain said. Customers can text a photo to an agent and there are now improved analytics, which helps supervisors spot potential problem areas for targeted coaching.
Long term, when KPI goals are achieved and budget is available, the companies may introduce a generative AI feature that will further expedite call wrap-up time.
More broadly, PrimeSource/Dimora has realized a 20% decrease in overall costs due to IT consolidation and increased efficiency. Part of these savings stem from softphone adoption within the different brands which is less expensive for PrimeSource/Dimora.
The organization is also making a concerted effort to reduce their tech stack – standardizing on Salesforce for CRM, eliminating an on-prem fax server and moving that function, as well as consolidating outbound messaging campaigns capabilities, to the 8×8 platform.
Part of the motivation driving these ongoing changes is the company’s emphasis on customer service.
“Even though we’re a big company, we still try to feel like we’re a small business and keep a personal relationship with our customers,” Chamberlain said. “If a [solution] will make it easier on our customers to tell us about a problem or show us something, it’s the route we’re going to go. Because in our eyes, we’re building these relationships to last.”
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