Putting Your Customers' Needs First

them and asked for it), American Electric automatically deducted the Signature Service penalty on the customer’s original invoice! More importantly, every employee at American Electric was made aware of any weekly Signature Service Misses to the customer … o Plants – buyers, operations, shippers, factory workers o Warehouse – pickers, packers, shippers o Headquarters – marketing, sales, purchasing, operations and even the lobby receptionist! Traditional operating protocols in many companies often work on the principle “when it is out of my hands … it is no longer my responsibility”. This was NOT the case with Signature Service . Even though the product was shipping from the Master Warehouse, the PLANT was responsible for making sure the product was not just shipped from their plant site, but that it had time to ARRIVE at the warehouse and be available for Picking, Packing and Shipping in time to meet the customer’s schedule or THEY were assessed with the MISS! This change in philosophy required everyone in the supply chain to take ownership for making sure the product could/would ship on-time! On more than one occasion, logistics chartered a plane to make sure material arrived at the customer’s site on-time! In 1992, Thomas & Betts acquired American Electric ; Thomas & Betts , founded in 1898, brought an exemplary line of electrical products to this marriage, but it was American Electric’s central warehouse supply chain network, its computer systems infrastructure and Signature Service that led T&B to relocate its corporate headquarters to Memphis, TN. • Acquisitions/Divestitures – Companies tend to have two major ways to grow…either internal product growth by developing new and improved products and services from within the organization or by acquisition. Even as companies grow by acquisition, they often end up buying parts of a company that really do not fit well within their customer focus; as a result, various operations may be later sold off to other companies. I spent several years (1992- 2000) with American Electric and then Thomas & Betts heading up the implementation team that was responsible for consolidating these entities once the company had decided to acquire them. In total, we handled about 35 acquisitions and/or divestitures. Most companies that consolidate a new acquisition tend to focus only on the “mechanics” of the business process and fail to capitalize on the opportunities to enhance the customer service experience. Thus, they often fail to reap the full benefits of the newly acquired acquisition. Smart companies will address the human side of how to conduct acquisitions so that they can improve relations with the employees of the newly acquired company as well as provide a better customer experience for the newly acquired customers of these businesses.