An Idea or Suggestion for DS

or, heck, "franchise" and have "brick and mortar" stores as well as their online system.

Aside from the obvious, expanding your operations platform nationally will always increase the risk of diluting down the customer satisfaction index.  I'm not saying that the idea is bad rather the probable outcome of a small company trying to expand this platform and watching their servicing index flush swiftly to the bottom of the pool could be a reality.

I am an owner in a national company that is based out of Garden Ridge Texas.  We have an 88,000 sq. ft. facility and have our own legal council staffed within our operations.  We have an administration that is a mini Pentagon and a manufacturing dept. that would rival many larger companies like ours.  We also have 16 people staffed to facilitate claims.  Granted, this is not apples for apples in my contrast here, but it is premised on the same potential outcome.   We are around 100 employees strong including 6 Regional Sales Managers and two highly skilled product and technical field advisers.  My company deals in more of a wholesale environment as it relates to our customer but we work within the retail arena with the agents that rep our products nationally.   So we are represented in all the US by independent agents that sell our products but we don't expand our platform as it relates to our operations facility to get closer to the business for the very reason that we don't want to lose control over the quality of personnel that are within the core and how our company "believes" the business model should look like.

It's more important to my company that we look like what we preach.  It's very hard to manage great people within a great company without great management and finding and holding great management apart and away form your core can be a tricky thing.  Not too mention overhead. 

Yes, a company like DS has to make decisions based on intelligent data that justifies an expansion concept, but this kind of company is the kind of company that sets itself apart from many like companies because of their unique work ethic and approach to the business.  I see DS as a company that is actually concerned with the best interest of the customer... unique.  They would need to ask themselves what the cost would be too broaden their reach within their market, financially and relationally, and what that would look like down the line.

Any great company will define who they want to be by they way see themselves today.  If you like what you see now, then you'll carry that forward and build on it.  If you don't like what you see now, then the mark of a great company is one that will change their environment to encourage success within the core first too create success outwardly.

I think the cost of shipping and such would be much much less then the process of hiring, equipping, and verifiying the work of select technicians....

DSO rarely comments directly on suggestions on the forum. No one from DSO commented on my suggestion for increased cooling options in the configurations page, and I have to believe that one would have been easier to impliment than this.

They do read these suggestions though. Even if it seems it's falling on deaf ears, I have seen many suggests suddenly become reality months after the fact.

Well, now that you mention it.  <<clearing throat>>