Art’s Way Manufacturing stays ahead of customer demand + supply chain issues with Dialpad Ai

Ever heard of Art’s Way Manufacturing? You should—they play an important role in helping us all get food on our tables. They’re a big name in livestock equipment, so the faster and more efficiently they can work, the more their customers can get the equipment in the hands of farmers, and the more food farmers can get in stores.

Which means it would sure be a problem if they had trouble communicating and providing good customer service.

Well, that was actually a big problem at one point. Art’s Way’s old phone system had, in the words of Marketing Manager Emily Bailey, “very limited capabilities.”

As Emily explains, their phone system couldn’t track calls, and had very little in the way of routing. “It was very cumbersome, and you couldn’t tell what the call was coming in for or who they needed to talk to. So it was really frustrating for our customers to talk to who they needed to solve their problem.”

Sometimes, a customer would call in with a question and not hear back for days as the agent tried to find the person with the answers they needed. And if they wanted to use it with their CRM, HubSpot? Well, there were no integrations, so that was next to impossible.

Emily saw that the employees and customers were both frustrated. In fact, it got so bad that customer service ranked at the very bottom of customer surveys. She knew they needed a better communications platform to give their customers the service they needed.

"We were answering every call blind"

Emily was on the lookout for a phone system that would integrate with HubSpot without any extra costs or coding. On top of that, she knew that real-time call transcriptions would be essential for helping the customer service agents and supervisors monitor their calls, see what issues are arising, and gain new data for marketing.

Several Google searches later, and she narrowed it down to two options.

“Dialpad’s ease of implementation and pricing structure were the biggest things,” Emily said. “With Talkdesk, it was going to be more work to integrate with HubSpot, rather than an out-of-the-box integration. And Dialpad can scale, so we knew we could start off with our customer service team and move the rest of our team over if it worked well.”

One of the biggest problems with Art’s Way’s old phone system was the call routing, or more specifically, the lack of call routing. Sure, callers could press a button to say they were calling about parts, for example, but the routing was sometimes just wrong—they could end up talking to the same person whether they wanted to order service parts or speak to someone about accounting.

At the same time, the agents had no idea what they’d need to prepare for when the call came in.

“We were answering every call blind," says Emily. "And the customer could be asking a question that's out of the agent’s wheelhouse, while the agent wouldn’t know where to point them.”

After switching to Dialpad, that’s no longer an issue. Now, customers have a much more robust call menu to make sure they’re talking to the right person for the job (or they can just press zero to talk to an agent right away):

Now? There’s no more phone tag, and agents rarely even have to call customers back. They used to have to return calls around 30 times a day, due to missed calls or needing extra time. Now they just need to call back around 3 times a day, and only because an agent might be coming back from their break when the phone rings.

AI that pulls up information for agents automatically

One common issue customers and agents had when calling in about a specific part was having to repeat the part’s number over and over again. Those part numbers can be lengthy, so it would sure be helpful if there was a way to automatically capture them when they’re first said.

As it just so happens, there is: Dialpad Ai automatically transcribes the calls in real-time, which means it logs the part number as soon as it’s spoken without the agent having to take notes:

Not only that, the team can also use Dialpad's AI-powered Real-Time Assist (RTA) cards, which provide agents with information at a moment’s notice. Whenever a preset keyword is mentioned on the call, Dialpad Ai pops up a card filled with everything the agent needs to know.

Analytics to stay ahead of demand

Beyond just using Dialpad to manage all their day-to-day communication channels, Art's Way's team also uses Dialpad to better understand business and customer needs—ahead of time.

“We'll look at our inquiries for the week, and we can check the transcriptions for what machines or parts callers were interested in quoting. That data then helps us forecast what products to plan for. We can adjust our schedule to make more of what’s being asked for, which helps us stay ahead of what the industry is looking for.”

As a result, they’re not just keeping up with demand—they’re staying ahead of it. And while they’re at it, they’re keeping ahead of supply chain issues too, since they’re prepared and stocked up on supplies before demand outpaces it. And considering they work on farming equipment, that leads directly to more food on our tables.

“We’re away ahead of the rest of our competitors as far as lead times go. It’s because Dialpad helped us react faster to what’s happening in the industry.”

What else do they track with Dialpad’s analytics? There’s also:

• Missed calls

• Call volumes

• Customer satisfaction

They can use that information to make sure their agents are up to speed, they’re fully staffed to handle the call volume, and customers are getting the help they need. If anything is falling short, they can use the information to better train and prepare their agents.

Art’s Way started with Dialpad before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, which meant they had it in place when everyone had to start working from home. According to Emily: “It was a very easy transition—just a ‘pick up your laptop and go’ moment. That was a huge advantage, since we didn’t have to figure out how to set up our phones remotely.”

Before Dialpad, customer service was struggling, and it was generally a frustrating experience for agents and customers. Now, it’s easy to make and take calls from anywhere, so their teams and agents can work remotely.

They’re seeing more calls resolved, faster resolutions, and more satisfied customers, so the next customer service survey is looking like it’ll be a big improvement over their last one.

And it all comes in a single, user-friendly app. “Dialpad has a cool factor that some other companies don’t have,” Emily says. “I’m an advocate for Dialpad, that’s for sure.”