Implementing “Extreme” Customer Service
by Terry Heilman, Sunstone Circuits
Becoming a customer-focused organization is a
gradual and arduous process, but one that may be well worth the
effort in terms of driving growth through capturing repeat
business and attracting new clientele. Simply enhancing existing
customer-service programs can help improve and retain critical
business relationships, but to build a solid niche, investing in
"extreme" customer service measures may be necessary.
Extreme customer service extends beyond a
company’s help center and customer-service representatives. It
permeates an entire organization, placing a customer’s needs at
the center of each decision from product and service deployment
to delivery and beyond.
Extreme customer service changes the way
employees think about their jobs and how they approach
challenges and tasks. It requires a commitment from senior-level
managers to invest time, energy, and training in the right
people.
Introducing extreme customer service means
implementing a major shift in a company’s culture. And such a
dramatic shift cannot be expected to take root overnight.
Rather, it is necessary to take measured steps to integrate new
programs and methods to bring gradual acceptance and, more
importantly, regular practice into being.
Growing in a Flat-Trending Industry
In North America, sales growth in the PCB
industry has been flat at best in recent years. With increased
competition from overseas companies offering deep discounts on
large production runs, many domestic operations have closed up
shop completely. Some companies, however, have bucked the trend,
carving out profitable niches in an increasingly challenging
industry.
At Sunstone Circuits, the adoption of a
customer-centric philosophy at every level of the organization
five years ago has produced compelling results:
• Exceptionally high retention rates.
• Many new customers.
• Positive word-of-mouth.
• Average year-over-year sales growth of 20%.
With a focus on the quick-turn prototyping
end of the business, Sunstone has achieved a strong following
through building collaborative relationships, developing
valuable tools, and offering extreme service—all with one entity
in mind: the customer.
Identifying and Training the Right Employees
To offer extreme customer service, companies
must consider their customers’ needs in every aspect of product
or service delivery so even engineers and designers are putting
themselves in a client’s shoes to determine how to better
construct a system or tool that will add value. Adopting such a
holistic approach requires putting the right people in place
because they will be your greatest asset in embracing and
practicing extreme service.
Given the current state of the economy,
employers seeking to fill a position have a larger number of
more qualified candidates to choose from than in recent years.
Whether selecting talent from a large or a small pool, it is
important to consider which qualities candidates can contribute
to an extreme customer-service orientation. While some skills
can be learned quickly on the job, certain qualities never can
be acquired through training, such as the passion and desire to
be an advocate for your customer.
Once the right people are in place, a solid
training program that provides employees with a deep
understanding of a product’s or service’s capabilities must be
implemented. While it is impressive to have a service
representative on call at any hour, day or night, that feature
will be of little use if the representative can’t answer
critical questions from a designer burning the midnight oil to
meet a strict deadline. Customer-facing employees should have an
intricate understanding not only of mundane order-processing
details, but also of the various tools that customers will be
using to create their products.
Instilling a sense of accountability in each
employee also is critical. At Sunstone, it is understood that
customer satisfaction is a key deliverable, and employees are
empowered to make decisions to support customer needs and think
creatively to contribute to improving processes, systems, and
tools.
Assessing Performance
With a top-notch team assembled, it is time
to institute some measurements and benchmarks to determine
performance levels. And the best sources for feedback? Your
customers.
At Sunstone, a report card of sorts has been
implemented for each order. With a survey form integrated into
the ordering process, each customer has an opportunity to
provide valuable insight to their experience with the ordering
process and with supporting tools and software intended to ease
the transaction. The goal is to achieve 100% customer
satisfaction.
In the event an experience is not up to par,
we want to know why so any glitches in our system can be
addressed. In addition to reviewing customer surveys, we pay
attention to all of the feedback areas on our website. It also
may be beneficial to spend some time perusing industry blogs to
see what other designers and engineers are saying about the
tools they’re using and the service they’re receiving. Even if a
conversation isn’t about your company in particular, it could
spur some creative, proactive ideas for improving the customer
experience before issues crop up.
Finally, keep track of what your competitors
are doing. Identify a handful of key competitors and make a
practice of reviewing their websites and their customer-service
offerings on a regular basis. Not only does this practice
provide an opportunity to knowledgably tout your company’s
advantages to potential clients, but it also enables your
organization to respond to new industry norms as well as exceed
customer expectations established elsewhere.
Best-in-Class Customer Relations Practices
One of the most appreciated
customer-relations practices is availability. In the quick-turn
prototyping PCB industry, our customers are working evenings and
weekends to meet their tight schedules, and some issues can’t
wait until Monday morning to be resolved. Because our clients
need it, we provide service 24 hours a day, seven days a week,
365 days a year. How many companies do you know answer the phone
on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day with a live and helpful
person?
Depending on your organization’s particular
customer base, extreme service hours may not be necessary.
However, you may find that extending support hours by an hour or
two in each direction can make a world of difference to
designers putting in a few extra hours on a project.
Providing customers with opportunities to
resolve issues in a timely manner can allow them to stay on
track and keep their process moving. Again, survey your
customers to see if such an additional investment would be
worthwhile.
All Customers Created Equal
To create a customer-focused organization,
there must be a concerted effort to provide consistent treatment
to all customers, regardless of project or size. In a truly
customer-centric organization, handling the orders in the same
manner will ensure that each one receives the utmost attention.
By valuing each job and providing the necessary tools and
support for customers to move through the ordering process
seamlessly, an organization can win loyalty at all levels,
improve word-of-mouth, and garner repeat business.
Beyond the Call Center
At Sunstone, extreme customer service that
began with a goal to provide an intuitive quotation and ordering
process supported by 24/7/365, high quality, personalized
customer service has evolved into a new way of doing business.
Extreme service now is integrated in the company culture with
all departments and levels of employees approaching their jobs
with a focus on how to improve the overall customer experience.
This attitude has resulted in creating a total solution for PCB
designers and their requirements.
While the PCB may be the ultimate product
shipped to customers, Sunstone has taken a proactive role in
ensuring an accurate and manufacturable design the first time
around. With a commitment to moving information upstream in the
process, the company has introduced environments in which
customers can design boards, confirm parts availability and
cost, and check the manufacturability of a board at any step,
saving on design turns and, consequently, saving time and money
to achieve customer success.
Working collaboratively and forging
partnerships within the PCB industry have been critical to
efforts to bring more useful information to designers, thereby
providing greater customer support. With an eye toward ensuring
a design team’s success and satisfaction with a job, Sunstone
has developed various strategic partnerships: with design
service firms to ensure that schematics filed with manufacturing
facilities deliver high-yield orders, with tool designers such
as Altium Designer and CadSoft EAGLE to create add-on software
for design rule check, and with assembly firms for an easy
transition to production.
This extreme and holistic approach to
servicing customer needs has been one in the making for several
years. Furthermore, it is well understood that such an extreme
approach will continue to evolve as technologies change and
consumer demands shift.
Embrace the Extreme
Since Sunstone Circuits began instituting its
extreme customer-service philosophy, the company has experienced
phenomenal growth of approximately 4,000 brand new customers
annually, an extremely high retention rate, and an average
year-over-year sales growth of 20% during the past five years.
Building an extreme and comprehensive
customer-service solution requires a significant investment of
time and resources, but don’t dismiss extreme ideas out of hand.
By taking gradual steps to enhance existing customer-service
programs and change a cultural mindset, organizations can make
great strides in improving customer relations and, ultimately,
sales performance.
About the Author
Terry Heilman is president and CEO of
Sunstone Circuits. In more than 15 years at Sunstone, he has led
the company through growth from traditional PCB manufacturing to
online PCBs. In addition to his leadership at Sunstone, Mr.
Heilman has held top management positions at a number of
companies in the high-tech and manufacturing industries. He also
serves on the boards of directors for several companies.
Sunstone Circuits, 13626 S. Freeman Rd., Mulino, OR 97042,
503-829-9109, e-mail: theilman@sunstone.com