Case Study

City Never Sleeps -
City Group, Inc. Drives Customer Service with DDI System Distribution Management Software

Working in sales at a janitorial distributor for many years, Sonny Silber understood that customer service is the foundation of a successful business. As a minority stockholder in that company, Sonny was generating the bulk of the operating revenue and requested equal standing as a partner in the organization but was denied. Departing that company with his entrepreneurial spirit, Sonny started City Group, Inc. in 1988, while his former employer quickly went out of business.

Today, Sonny is Chairman of the Board of a thriving janitorial supply and equipment business with his son Rick serving as president. Located in Jessup, MD, only 13 miles from Baltimore, City Group is a single-location, family-owned janitorial house. The distributor, which is quickly outgrowing its current warehouse space, has a market reach that stretches across Maryland, Washington DC, and Virginia, and into many other states around the country.

According to Rick Silber, customer service plays a critical role in the vitality of their company. City Group takes pride in the value and service it provides to its customers, and expects the same level of commitment from its vendors. When City Group initially set up shop in 1988, Silber used a rudimentary distribution software system that was cumbersome. "We quickly realized that this software system offered no value so we deployed an off-the-shelf solution that we actually used for more than 10 years'" he said.

But the solution required much maintenance and lacked many key features. "Serving our needs adequately for 10 years, we knew this solution did not have the capability or scalability to drive our business to the next level. We needed an updated technology solution that could streamline our operations while delivering the highest levels of customer service."

City Group began the evaluation process by scanning trade publications for distribution software vendors and found DDI System. "We spoke with DDI customers, and gained some good insight into the software,"Silber said. "On top of that perspective, each customer only had positive feedback and touted DDI's wealth of features and customer service focus -- that was the clincher for us."

After receiving software demos with DDI and two other vendors, Silber easily saw that DDI stood head and shoulders above the rest. "The system from DDI was easy-to-use and had the relevant features we were sorely lacking with our previous solutons," Silber said. "DDI's President, Adam Waller was very knowledgeable about the product, whereas the other vendor reps wavered when we asked important questions. The red flag went up once I realized that we knew more about a certain product than their company representative."

City Group implemented the DDI System in 2002 and has not looked back. According to Silber, his employees have been impressed with the usability of the software. "If a customer calls, we can easily bring their information on-screen, instantly view their past purchases, and speed new orders through the system," he said. "Long, tedious processes are now reduced to minutes. Before DDI, it took two days to close the books with our first software system, five to six hours on the retail product, and now we can finish in no more than 15 minutes."

City Group uses DDI's search completion forms to quickly locate customers and products in its database. "With our previous solutions, no such feature was available," Silber said. "Our last system encoded all of our customers with numbers, which not only made our system less user-friendly, but it really slowed down the process."

In terms of customer support, City Group is impressed with the level of service it has received from DDI. "Support has been great and the techs are highly responsive," Silber said. "There is almost always a tech on-site to answer our questions, and when that is not an option, they get back to us quickly. Plus, the fact that DDI can login directly to our system to resolve an issue is an added bonus."

As a DDI customer for more than two years, Silber feels that the system has played a critical role in building its customer service-driven framework. "With DDI, we've increased productivity, and our revenue was up 23% last year," he said. "With upgrades and add-ons such as report generation and the automatic fax option, our business can only realize more efficiencies going forward."

Silber lauds DDI as a company that listens and cares about its customers. "Whenever we have suggestions and comments about specific features, we let DDI know," he said. "And to our surprise, DDI has actually improved those features for us in its next build. DDI is truly keeping up with current trends in the market."