User-Friendly Tech Tools Improve Customer Service, Boost Sales for Mid-Market Dealers

When historic supply chain disruptions on the heels of the COVID-19 pandemic destroyed any semblance of shipping timelines, providing real-time delivery status updates for customers became more important than ever.

COE Distributing, one of the nation’s largest wholesale distributors of office furnishings, launched its virtual assistant, OLIVIA, in 2021 to make it easier for customers to track orders and expected shipping dates on the company’s website. Olivia afforded customers access to the latest information 24 hours a day. It also yielded significant benefits for COE’s customer service team.

“With OLIVIA fieldling all the basic, ‘When will my order ship?’ queries, our representatives were freed up to tackle more complex issues and spend time having substantive, meaningful conversations with our customers,” according to COE’s Vice President of Customer Experience, Jennifer Jubin.

COE leadership saw the utility of automation capabilities and wanted to expand the platform to make it even simpler for customers to place orders, check stock status and get instantaneous answers to their questions, Jubin said.

Since its initial roll out, OLIVIA has evolved to assist clients with numerous tasks such as checking stock availability, providing product assembly instructions and seamlessly connecting customers with the appropriate sales or customer service representative for greater needs.

"As we continue to look for new and innovative ways to enhance our customer interaction, tech options that provide a smoother customer experience will be central to our success and growth," said COE's Chairman and CEO, J.D. Ewing.

Ewing sees the implementation of tech that improves the customer experience as one of the primary ways mid-market dealers can move their industry forward.

As a leader of the Independent Office Products and Furniture Dealers Association’s furniture committee and a member of the board of directors of the National Association of Wholesalers’ Institute for Distribution Excellence, Ewing strives to make information on tech support and digital marketing best practices more widely available to members. Tech innovations to boost business are the thrust of NAW's Innovator’s Summit this fall.

“Finding a way to marry the speed and precision of artificial intelligence with the personalized attention our customer service team is known for is really the objective,” Ewing said. “If we can find that sweet spot where customers have access to current information around the clock, but still have personal interactions with our team that add value, we’ll be ideally positioned for future growth.”