D.H. Pace Depends on
e/pop for Training and Certification Programs

D.H. Pace traces its roots back to the 1920s and the invention of upward-acting sectional garage doors, then called “overhead doors.” Over the next half century, D.H. Pace, previously known as Independent Overhead Door, consolidated its operations and in 1973 formed D.H. Pace Company, Inc. Today the company as a whole has more than 25 offices and showrooms providing for the sale, installation, service and repair of doors and door-related products, including access control and integrated security systems.

As the company grew and expanded throughout the U.S., employee training became a logistical nightmare and the training staff began to seek a technological solution to training new employees, provide ongoing training and conduct management meetings.

Pam Barber, D.H. Pace’s training coordinator is responsible for making sure that more than 750 employees in the Kansas City, Missouri, headquarters and the six D.H Pace Door Services’ locations in Atlanta, Denver, Phoenix, Springfield, St. Louis and Wichita receive appropriate training to ensure that they are knowledgeable about sales processes, procedures and are trained on new products and installation in order to provide optimum service to its residential and commercial customers.

According to Barber, she spent about six months researching various types of products that might solve the geographical dilemma and make providing and receiving employee training painless.

“We tried a couple of different collaboration-type products, but we decided to purchase e/pop Web Conferencing for specific reasons,” explained Barber. “WiredRed made it extremely easy for us to purchase and license e/pop and it had the more in-depth sharing features that we required. The other products only allowed document sharing. e/pop allows us to share our Baan application, as well as PowerPoint, Excel and Word. This is extremely important and allows us to accomplish the training and certification programs we provide.”

Utilizing e/pop Web Conferencing, D.H. Pace can provide in-house training programs and certify small classes at the same time. Trainees can chat with the instructor, run PowerPoint presentations dynamically or share any application or document.

Prior to the deployment of e/pop, D.H. Pace required employees to travel to Kansas City for training and management meetings. The use of e/pop has saved the company costs associated with business travel and has greatly minimized the amount of time and number of employees who are required to travel for training classes and/or meetings.

D.H. Pace has also used e/pop for general manager meetings, which allowed managers to stay in their respective offices, rather than spend days out of the office to travel to Kansas City, yet enabled each of the managers to remain interactive in the meetings.

Most importantly, the employees at D.H. Pace like using e/pop Web Conferencing.

“It’s very intuitive, easy to use and requires very little training,” said Barber. “Plus, we are all able to be together, in a sense, to meet at the same time. Using e/pop is far better than emailing documents back and forth. It’s interactive and we know that we’re all on the same page and focusing on the same issue at the same time.”

D.H. Pace’s IT department had little problem deploying e/pop Web Conferencing, which has virtually no software dependencies beyond the Windows OS and standard web browser.

e/pop was installed on a standard Windows 2000 server which also runs the Company’s Baan ERP application and Oracle database, among other software programs. e/pop works seamlessly within the network firewall, which protects data in the company’s headquarters and all regional offices. The T1 Internet connection provides sufficient bandwidth to run all of e/pop’s features, including desktop, application and document sharing, as well as VoIP-enabled audio.

“Although in our business, ‘in-person’ training can’t be eliminated entirely, after using e/pop for about a year the training and meeting process is more affordable and much easier for all employees,” said Barber. “e/pop greatly reduces the coordination required to bring employees to Kansas City for training and manager meetings – it has taken a lot of stress off of the training department and has saved D.H. Pace a good deal of money on business travel at the same time.”

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