Q&A: Why Tom Harris Cellular Has Been With iQmetrix for 20 Years
iQmetrix is extremely proud to be celebrating the 20-year anniversary of its partnership with one of its very first clients: Tom Harris Cellular, Canada’s largest Telus and Koodo authorized retailer.
To mark the occasion, iQmetrix sat down with two of Tom Harris Cellular’s leaders — Dave Smyth, Vice President of Business Development & Support, who has been working with iQmetrix from the beginning, and Eric Tan, Executive Vice President of Sales, Retail Division — to talk about the two-decade-long partnership.
Q: It’s been 20 years since Tom Harris Cellular started working with iQmetrix. What benefits has this partnership given you over those two decades?
Dave: Partnering with iQmetrix for RQ and other solutions has been a great business decision. Twenty years ago, before iQmetrix, it was very difficult to manage multiple locations and track performance. We take it for granted now, but without the services from iQmetrix, we would not have been able to grow our business to what it is today.
Q: What can you remember about the early days of Tom Harris’ partnership with iQmetrix and how it all began?
Dave: I remember being nervous about switching from a DOS-based sales and inventory program that didn’t use a mouse and only used the arrow and number keys. What was I worried about?! After just a couple of days with iQmetrix, we wondered why we weren’t customer #1 instead of 3 or 4. It felt like we had moved from the stone age into the 21st century.
Q: iQmetrix has deeply valued Tom Harris’ willingness to be early adopters and beta testers for our new telecom retail products and features. What has being an early adopter of our tech been like for you?
Dave: One of our core values at Tom Harris Cellular is that we’re always looking for more effective ways to do things. Just because the current process is working, doesn’t mean we can’t improve. Because of that, it’s in our nature to try new systems, new products, and new services. Some don’t work out, but the ones that do give us an edge.
Eric: Being an early adopter of iQmetrix solutions gives us a chance to improve our business with products that we otherwise wouldn’t even know existed. You don’t know what you don’t know. And when iQmetrix comes out with different products and features, at times being a tester allows us to improve efficiencies and make more money.
Q: What do you feel are some of the technological highlights of the partnership between iQmetrix and Tom Harris, specifically when it comes to iQmetrix solutions?
Dave: The biggest technological highlight is something that’s taken for granted. It is the reliability and robustness of the iQmetrix services. We can count on them to work all day, every day. And, in the unlikely event of an outage, the iQmetrix support team is so quick and helpful.
Q: Tom Harris Cellular was a partner in the development of our Queue Management solution, as well as an early adopter of that technology. How have you found Queue Management worked for your stores?
Eric: Our partnership with iQmetrix in development and launch of the QM pilot program was a treat. It was very much necessary during the early stages of the pandemic — a life saver. The feedback we provided was taken seriously every time and, in most cases, implemented in an effort to improve the program.
Dave: iQmetrix was quick to set up this valuable service early in the pandemic. Not only were we impressed with the QM solution, but the fact that iQmetrix put resources behind Queue Management at a time when their customers really needed the help was a great show of support. Thank you!
Q: What are some of the other highlights of being a valued client and friend of iQmetrix over the past 20 years?
Dave: There is nothing else like iQmetrix in our industry that ties so many different carriers and dealers together. There are no other vendors, carriers, or OEMs, that connect different carriers and different dealers, from different countries to learn from each other. The training events and summits are the best “watercooler” events in our industry.
Learn more about iQmetrix’s telecom retail management solutions for Authorized Retailers.
