Putting Your Customers' Needs First

• Signature Service -- When I joined American Electric in February 1990, they had just embarked on a bold new initiative called Signature Service . As their new Customer Service Manager, I would soon learn that part of my job would be developing the internal systems necessary to support this new initiative. At the time American Electric was owned by Forstmann, Little & Co ., a private equity firm, specializing in leveraged buyouts (LBOs). At its peak in the late 1990s, Forstmann Little was among the largest private equity firms globally. This was perhaps a good thing as American Electric , at the time, was not held to the same standards as a public company focused only on maximizing current profits. Clyde Moore, the CEO, was a unique individual who thought “outside of the box”. The originators of Signature Service … Mike Gambino, Tom Hudak and Ann Jaehn had a vision to provide a level of service to their customers that had never ever been experienced in the electrical industry. In 1990, American Electric launched its Signature Service program, the first and only major electrical manufacturer to guarantee service levels with automatic rebates for missed service levels to its distributor customers. This was not simply a marketing program, but a drastic change in how this company would serve its customers forever more. Formerly, American Electric had shipped products to its customers from as many as 80 different plants and warehouses, but in 1990, they established a master distribution center concept within the electrical industry serving its U.S. customers from two major distribution centers. Eventually, they would consolidate to a single, one

million square foot distribution center in Byhalia, MS. In 1992, they began a weekly door-to- door Direct Delivery service to their major distributor customers…an exclusive benefit yet to be matched to this day by their competition. This Direct Delivery service provided superior handling of material, consistent and predictable on- time delivery, and a lower cost to the customer.

What began as a program to deliver 500 of their most popular items, soon grew to 1,000 and then 1,500 and then even more items available for two-day shipment. If American Electric failed to ship the Signature Service items within two workdays, they would offer an immediate rebate on the customer’s invoice of 5%, 10% or 15% depending upon how many product lines the customer was signed up for. While Fed Ex might have offered their customer’s a refund if they missed their promised delivery (provided the customer called