|
| |
Value Added Services
On a personal note...
I have often considered how effectively my dad marketed our small town Western Auto store by simply giving more than customers expected. In some ways, it seemed quite unprofitable to drive 70 miles and spend 4 hours delivering and installing a $150 air conditioner for nothing, but the effect such extraordinary service had on our store's reputation was evident. The clannish Ozark Mountain community trusted the outsider "city folks" who ran that store, and that was neither a given nor a small element of the store's success. He gave away tire mounting, balancing, and valve stems with every tire purchase, too, and it often seemed like he spent more time fixing peoples' electrical problems for free than installing new batteries. But, in the end, he generated a lot of tire and battery sales that way, and they always went away satisfied and came back.
It was a good lesson for me, a teenager at the time, and one that carries
forward in the way Metro Industries has endeavored to do business since its 1967 beginning, long before I came on board nearly 20 years ago. We may
not be able to routinely give free service on the level my dad did, but
we can usually give at least a little and often a lot more and better service than our customers' expect. (Phil Maxwell, Vice-President/General Manager, August 18, 2005)
How else can we help?
A few of the ways we strive to live up to our high aims of customer service include:
- Information - Our staff has vast knowledge through decades of combined experience with the materials, products,
and fabrication services we offer, including frequently teaming up with professionals in numerous industries on component design issues.
- Personal Service - We guarantee fast, friendly, and free service by a real person on all inquiries, including a response within 1 business day, though quotes and complicated issues may require more time to complete. The person(s) handling your inquiry or order will be an experienced and knowledgeable member of our staff who is physically employed at our facility and empowered to handle most circumstances, even unusual and rush requirements. They represent you to the behind the scenes manufacturing, purchasing, engineering, and senior management staff, who all understand that you are the boss.
- Rush Orders - We will embrace your emergency as our own. A real person will personally do all possible to get you the parts or materials you need when you need them,
and you won't hear excuses about policies or systems getting in the way,
either.
- Stock Maintenance - With reasonable limits and assurances, we will maintain stock on materials and even custom manufactured products to assure continual immediate availability.
- Samples - With few exceptions, we'll supply material and part samples for testing at no charge, provided they are in-stock or otherwise available at no cost ourselves.
- Prototypes - As a key supplier for many equipment manufacturers for many years, we are quite adept at fabricating low-cost prototypes and can usually help shorten the steps and costs in proving out designs.
- Design Assistance - We can help identify lowest cost material options, set dimensions and tolerances, and advise on manufacturing feasibility and costs regarding part configurations.
- Free Shipping & Handing - On orders over $100 for standard products at standard prices and shipped within the continental United States (excluding Alaska, Hawaii). Custom quoted items are shipped prepaid/add or collect unless otherwise agreed.
- Free Tooling - No tooling charges are involved in most products, but even when they are, we usually waive them in full or part on larger orders for custom or semi-standard products.
- Free Certifications - Certificates of conformance (C of C), test reports, raw material certifications are available on request, usually at no additional charge.
- Special Requirements - It would be impossible to itemize the full range of special circumstances and requests we have and expect to continue to face, usually successfully to our customers' satisfaction, but we take any and all requests very seriously. We may not always be able to satisfy every request, but we'll be forthcoming in what we can and can't do, even when it isn't what you want to hear, so you'll at least know what to expect. Our reputation is more important to us than 'getting the order', so if we can't do something, we'll tell you plainly.
|
