In any business, including the steel business, customer service will ultimately determine your success. Just like the restaurant business, if the waiter is not attentive or responsive to your requests, and it takes forever to get a drink or food, you probably will not return, no matter how great the food is.

What Makes Customer Service in the Industrial Steel Supply Industry So Critical?

In the steel business, most distribution and industrial steel supply companies have somewhat similar products, price and quality. They concentrate on the buying and selling price, and service and delivery are often forgotten.

When a potential customer phones or e-mails for a quote or product information, they expect a quick, knowledgeable response. Usually, they also have their own customer waiting for an answer or perhaps their production line has just gone down.

If your company takes 1 or 2 days to respond, it creates a domino effect whereby your customer’s customer becomes frustrated and upset and vows not to deal with them again. Your customer becomes even more upset and now vows not to deal with you. Everyone loses, including the initial enquirer.

Here’s How to Manage and Exceed Your Clients’ Expectations

Vital to providing “White Glove Quality Service”, is to deliver what you promised. Nothing irritates a customer more than having to phone multiple times to inquire about their order. Now he looks foolish to his customer and both may cancel the order.

No matter how good your product is, you will go out of business if service is not number one.

10 Steps for Customer Service Success

At Titus Steel, we have 10 commandments, which guide the behavior of our employees and their interaction with our customers:

  1. Everyone, including the President, is responsible for answering the phone within a maximum 3 rings. No automated answering systems, no receptionist.
  2. All quotes are sent back to the customer within 1 hour unless complicated fabrication is involved.
  3. All enquires for information are handled immediately after the phone call and all product literature is in PDF format for easy transmission over the internet.
  4. Normal turn-around for delivery of “off the shelf” products is 24 hours.
  5. We deliver next day to all of southern Ontario like Kitchener, London, and Windsor. We deliver in 2 days to northern Ontario like North Bay, Sudbury, Sault Ste, Marie, Thunder Bay, Montreal, Quebec City, Noranda, and Val-d’or. We deliver in 3 days to western Canada like Regina, Winnipeg, Edmonton, and Calgary.
  6. If there is any problem of any kind, the customer is phoned immediately.
  7. We do not over promise to get the order.
  8. We like to build a relationship with the customer.
  9. We take that extra step and even suggest the competition, if the product is not available at our location.
  10. If there is a problem, we take possession of the problem and resolve it to the best of our ability.

One Final Suggestion

Once a year, encourage every person in the company to go across the street and call their department with a question or query. During the experiment, employees should pay attention to how they are treated and how the question or query is handled and make recommendations for improvement.

Get Your Industrial Steel Supply from Titus Steel

Interested in working with Titus Steel? Contact us today to discuss the what the best industrial steel is for your next project.