Written by: Paul Van Metre
It’s important to your clients that when they decide to work with your shop, that it’s the least risky thing for them to do. So when you can provide concrete examples of how you can reduce their risk, and make their lives easier, they will keep coming back and doing business with you.
I recently learned of a great, real-world example of how a customer of ours was able to provide much greater customer service to a client of theirs because they were paperless.
Getting a Panicked Call from a Client
Bryan, the owner, was driving home from work recently. He got a panicked call from a client who realized that they had sent conflicting information on their 3D model and their 2D drawing. There was a precision hole that was modeled one size on the 3D model, but the 2D drawing showed it with a different size. They needed to know if they had machined the parts yet, and if so, which size they had machined the hole to. As I said above, clients are relying on their vendors to have their back, and reduce risk and stress. So how you can respond and support them is critical.
What Would have Happened in the Past
In the days of the past when Bryan’s shop was run on a legacy “Job” type shop management system with paper travelers and zero ability to natively manage inspection records, he would have had to either turn around and drive back to the shop (and be late for dinner with his family), or more likely, wait until the next day to provide an answer. He would have needed to find the job on the shop floor, leaf through the pages of the job traveler packet, assuming there was a paper FAI or in-process inspection sheet with hand written results, and figure out what size they had machined the parts too. It would have been a few business hours later, and Bryan would have spent some of his morning figuring this out so he can call his customer back to provide adequate customer service.
What Bryan was Able to do to Help His Client
Thankfully, in the current day, Bryan’s shop has completely eliminated all paper off the shop floor: there are no paper job travelers, no paper inspection sheets, and nothing to chase down to find the answer his customer was needing. Instead, Bryan pulled over to the side of the road, opened up the web browser on his phone and logged into ProShop. He quickly found the Work Order in question and clicked onto the FAI inspection results page and found the actual measured size of the hole in question. He was able to give the customer the answer he needed within a couple of minutes of their phone call, all without hanging up the phone, on the side of the road. He could then continue home and make it in time for family dinner, having only spent 3-4 minutes in total helping his customer get the answer they needed.
Imagine the difference from the customer’s perspective on the results of the two scenarios outlined above. In the first scenario, the customer would be getting average service depending on how soon the next day they got their answer. Nothing special or notable. But with the second scenario, Bryan was able to give them exactly what they needed from the side of the road in just a couple of minutes. That is impressive customer service! It reinforces the message that Bryan’s company is high-tech, data driven, on top of things, and can be trusted to be responsive in a meaningful way for the client! When the customer is deciding where to place work in the future, I’d have to believe that Bryan’s shop would have a nice positive checkmark in their favor.
What Next?
I never actually learned if the hole was made to the size the customer actually needed, but if it wasn’t, and needed rework or remake, the process in ProShop would have been to literally drag and drop a rework operation into the right spot, or possibly issue a new line item to the vendor for more material and issue a new work order. In either case, the clerical side of the work would literally take seconds and they could have been helping the customer recover very quickly.
Takeaways
It’s these small details that can make a huge difference in how a customer perceives your company. Being strategic in how you approach running your company can have a very impactful compounding effect in the long run. What might seem like the easy and least cost option in the near term, (less capable software, or do-it-yourself spreadsheets) can often be the most expensive way to manage things when you consider the longer term benefits of choosing to partner with a world class solution and the opportunities that will enable. If you’d like to discuss how ProShop can help you elevate your company, we’d love to talk.