Fittings 09

Take

meho

me

When toys become tools

How do you want your

7

18

No. 9Spring 2014

a publication

30 minutes update

WoodToday?

How to get

4

LOVEfrom

customers

FOCUS: Customer Service

IS ANATTITUDE

NOT A DEPARTMENT

Customerservice

Inside

THIS ISSUE of Fittings is about customer ser-vice. We gathered sto-ries from different parts of our businesses - and mapped how we aim for one mutual goal: offer customers the best ser-vice possible. Great cus-tomer service drives loy-alty. Loyal customers spend more time with us than with our competi-tors. Hence, customer service, is a key driver for our business. We have a tendency to leave the re-sponsibility for customer service to sales. After all, they are the ones making promises to our custom-ers. But we should re-member that they make promises on behalf of all of us. It’s up to you and me to deliver these promises. Our leaders are responsible to set a clear direction, the cus-tomer segments we pri-oritise, the service level

we provide and the price. Sourcing makes sure we have the right product mix. We have excellent logistics, making sure that all supplies reach the customer on time. We have people taking care of invoices, returned goods, staffing - ISB has people in produc-tion dealing with quality - and so on. What it comes down to at the end of the day, is that we all under-stand this - no matter where in the organisation we work - customer ser-vice is a shared respon-sibility.

Tobias Roser

Fittings issue 9 · Distributed May 2014 · Fittings is the employee magazine for Wolseley CE staff in Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands and France. Publication by Wolseley CE. Circulation: 3,300. Available languages: English, German, Dutch, Italian and French. Editorial responsibility: Wolseley CE/Tobias Roser. Journalistic production and project management: Radical Communications/Patrick May. Design and layout: Appetizer.dk/Simon Johnsen. Photography: Martijn vd Griendt, Caroline Ablain, Eduard Meltzer, Günter Wohlschlager. Print: CoolGray. Editorial committee: Wolseley CE/Tobias Roser, [email protected]; OAG/ Christine Scharrer, [email protected]; ISB/ [email protected]; Wasco/Sacha Büchele, [email protected]; Tobler/ [email protected]

Customer service is a joint responsibility

Tobias Roser

Chief Editor [email protected]

Tobler +41 44 735 50 00Wasco +31 88 099 5000

OÄG +43 50406 0ISB +33 0299856167Wolseley +44 118 929 8700

USEFUL NUMBERS

Treat them like your friendsYou have to be 100% dedicated to your customers

When toys become toolsThe future has already arrived at Tobler Service

HardTalkwith Patrick Headon

Help them helping their customersIf we want customers to do business with us, we have to give them a good reason

Picks customers don’t want to pay for

Run Karine, RunIn the weekend, Karine the business woman transforms into Karine the athlete

The future is responsiveWasco launches a new version of their website

Would you buy from these guys?

BessermachenFittings survey

Can’t wait to get my hands dirty

How do you want your wood today?In ISB, size matters

Fishing with big bait

Sales, sales, sales

810

11

12

7

6 14

151617

18

2023

4How to get love from customers?Solve your customers’ headaches — they will love you for it

You can write to Tobias at [email protected] Feel free to share your ideas and comments – both positive and critical.

2 Fittings 9 · 2014

Champions of customer service

“SEVEN years on this route

now, in the third district in Vienna. I know the city like the back of my hand. What’s changed is the in-tensity of traffic. And the amount of customers. I have up to fifty deliver-ies on a busy day. It used to be 25. The deliveries are smaller, the products cheaper. I have excellent relations to most of the customers. They know me, they trust me. Even with the keys to their premis-es. This way I can deliver their supplies, even when they’re not around. Some-times you meet a custom-er who looks down on us. To them, I’m just a simple lorry driver. That doesn’t really bother me. I treat all

customers the same.” “If there’s anything wrong

with the delivery, I fix it. De-pending on how urgently they need the product, I de-liver it either later the same day or the next day. Alterna-tively, I make sure we send a courier. There’s always a solution. Due to the nature of my job, I don’t see many of my colleagues in person. But this doesn’t mean I don’t have good contacts. I’m on the phone with colleagues a lot.”

“Lonely? My god, no. There’s always the radio. Pop and rock are my favourites. If it was up to me - I would still be driv-ing this lorry, even fifteen years from now.”

“I love driving in the city.

I don’t understand the logic of the streets and the

house numbering in the country side. They can jump from

16 to 37. It makes no sense”, says Josef Eichberger, lorry driver for

ÖAG. A veteran — he’s been with the company for 15 years.

50deliveries

a day

Josef Eichberger

3Fittings 9 · 2014

LOVEThe number of books on customer service available on amazon.com.

The best advice however, you won’t find in books. It fits on the back of a napkin: Solve your customers’ headaches — they will love you for it.

More importantly, they will give you their business. Is it really this simple?

YES. No. Confused? Both answers are correct. If we can solve our customers’ problems, they are go-ing to be pleased with us. The trick is, we have to be able to do this for all of our customers, all the time. At the same time, we have to make money too. This requires a strategy and a systematic approach to-wards what, when and how we provide service. It requires dedicated peo-ple, like you. People who understand how to serve customers. Because one

thing is certain, a friendly smile, when meeting our customers, is not going to cut it.

We need to know our customersIf you want to make your customers happy, you need to know what makes them happy. “We put a great deal of effort in to knowing our customers”, says Heinz Wiedmer, To-bler’s CEO. “Both, locally, and from a central per-spective. Our local sales and service people, are the

first point of contact. It is of vital importance that they know our custom-ers and their individual needs and wishes. In addition to the knowledge we gain from our sales force”, Heinz ex-plains, “we con-duct customer surveys. We’ve been doing this for a cou-ple of years now, ask-ing our custom-

How to get

from customers?

93.000!


ers what they rate to be the most important aspect of our service. The result has been consistent - both over time and through ge-ographies: availability. Here’s where we as a busi-ness must excel.”

Give customers what they want“The surveys tell us what kind of service feautures customers want us to fo-cus upon”, says Heinz. “As such, they give us an op-portunity to differentiate ourselves from competi-tors. Especially from those using pricing to muscle their way into the mar-

ket. Instead we put energy in those service feautures our customers think are important to their busi-ness. We have developed measurable objectives for all all three service as-pects. This enables us to monitor and drive quality.”

We must be alertCE scores are high, but we must strive to keep im-proving them together. This means that cus-tomers are happy with our servic-es. High scores can make it hard to improve, but according

to Heinz, there is no way around this. “The market is changing and we need to challenge our servic-es all the time. Customers change their behaviour, competitors challenge our services - we experience regional competitors de-livering twice a day - we have got to stay alert and, based on our strengths, decide on the service lev-el that is aligned best with our customers’ needs.”

is what customers prioritise:

This

1

2

3

PRODUCT AVAILABILITY - they want us to have the products on stock they need the most

ON TIME, IN FULL DELIVERY - they hate it when we are late, or worse, when we have forgotten something

COMPETENT SUPPORT FROM STAFF - they like us when we are able to give professional advice they can use in their jobsstock


5Fittings 9 · 2014

“THE SECRET is hard work”, says Wouter. “You have to be 100% dedicated to your customers. When they visit, make them feel welcome. Take a sin-cere interest in what pro-jects they are working on, and the products they are working with. Get famil-iar with their problems and make them yours to solve. Good product knowledge is essential if you want to be successful. We make eve-ry customer who comes here (which on peak days can be up to 150) our best

friend. That is the feel-ing we want to convey to them.”

An important brick in his strategy is to meet customers on eye level. Our customers don’t have academic degrees. Their language is not neces-sarily sophisticated. “We speak their language. It creates a feeling of be-ing in this together”, says Wouter. “Always be fair. If they order products that are on sale, but they don’t know about the campaign, I tell them and they get

the products at the re-duced campaign price. Be honest, at all times. When they ask you something you don’t know, admit it and tell them you will find out. Customers appreciate honesty.”

When Wouter started in Zuidoost, he was no in-dustry rookie. He had tried various functions in dif-ferent organisations. At Wasco he started as an outbound sales rep. “Cus-tomers from my time as sales rep. happily drive a few extra miles to re-

main with me.” Something Wouter can be proud of. But that’s not his nature. In-stead, he likes to give credit to his team. “Everybody here is top motivated. We meet customers with a lot of posi-tive energy. If a colleague ifor some reason is low on energy, we send them to the back”, Wouter says laughing. “No, seriously, this is an im-portant part of being a team. If one of us needs a ‘day off’, the rest of the team will cov-er for him and make sure our customers get the service they’re used to.”

Six years ago, the future for Wasco’s branch in Amsterdam Zuidoost was bleak. The branch was facing near close. Wouter Quiros accepted a mission impos-sible: make the branch profitable. Today the branch is performing in the top ten, the num-ber of staff increased to four and customers happily drive additional kilometers to meet with Wouter and his team.

Your Friends


Treat them like

Wouter Quiros


WHILE workplace ex-perts predict tablets to replace laptops in the medium term fu-ture, the future has already arrived at To-bler Service (Formerly Sixmadun). 150 tech-nicians are equipped with Panasonic tablets that are linked to the intranet and the local mail server. The ser-vice technicians are on the road a lot and hav-ing a mobile office that enables them to upload technical specifications

on the go, is a must. Before the tablets were introduced, they were hooked up through a device the size of a smart-phone. But due to their small displays, these devices are not ideal for viewing tech-nical documents.

The tablets save time, paper and they increase the quality of

our ser-

vice. Be-fore, technical information was send by snail mail. This took time, and it required print. Now, new

customer ap-pointments are automatically added to their calendars, to-gether with the specifica-

tions of the customers’ installation. They come prepared. If something is missing, they log into the intranet and fetch the missing documents on location. And cus-tomers? They experi-ence that we are fast-er and finish the jobs without interruptions due to missing docu-mentation.

While workplace experts predict tablets to replace laptops in the medium term future, the future has already arrived at Tobler Service (formerly Sixmadun).

When toys become

The tablets used by Toblers’ service technicians how-

ever, do not feature games or social

media.

67%

10%

Tools

Gaming is responsible for 67% of

time spent on tablets

10% is used on social

networking.


7Fittings 9 · 2014

HardTalkwith Patrick Headon

1 If you could

have a din-ner party and could invite anyone, living

or dead, who would you in-

vite?

At a party you want a cou-ple of good laughs. Grou-cho Marx, he has been able to make me laugh ever since I was a kid. Still does. Slightly rude, and entertaining. I think I would want to invite him. And Oscar Wilde, who had a dry sense of humour and made jokes I wish I had made! We need a few in-teresting characters, peo-ple we look up to. I’d like to invite Winston Churchil and Queen Elizabeth the 1st. Impressive person-

alities, and both changed their country. Sports … I’m going to be a bit self-ish here and invite Bra-dly Wiggins. I love cycling and getting a few tips from Wiggo, would be great. Of course, Charlie George, the legendary (!) Arsenal for-ward. When I was a kid, I thought he was the cool-est man in the world.

2 How much profit have

you made in the past 6 months and how does this sit with the owners?

We’re on target for trad-ing profit. A bit ahead even. This is an impor-tant key performance in-dicator that interests our shareholders. Its particu-larly encouraging to see


In an enterprise with more than 3,000 employees, the top management may seem very distant. With HardTalk,

you get close to top management, because here we put you in contact with CE’s most senior manager.

Patrick Headon answers you and your colleagues

questions, however searching they are.

HardTalk

ISB ahead of budget af-ter a tough 2013. But its more than just the finan-cial aspects which matter. Employee engagement is measured once per year; we have good score but want to keep improving. We monitor customer sat-isfaction – the theme of this issue - , where we continue to make progress in all markets. We are driv-ing forward on key medium term initiatives, focusing on our gross margin and making the organisation more efficient. E-com-merce: here we are tak-ing a common approach across all CE businesses as well as sharing ideas, expertise and resourc-es – which is encourag-ing to see. Finally, a con-cern for us all is “doing the right thing”. Do we com-ply with laws and regula-tions, are our products safe, do we take care of the environment? The lat-

ter is of great importance to Wolseley. If one market does not live up to its ob-ligations, it reflects on the entire group. I am com-mitted to make sure that in all markets all teams ‘do the right thing’ .

3 What is the one thing

in your leadership toolkit that you lack, yet wish you would have?

That’s a fair question for everybody. Nobody has the perfect set of skills – I don’t either! As far as leadership capabilities go, I can say that as a leader, I have a certain style I have developed over the years. This works for me and I try to be authentic to this. If there are any holes here, it is because of me be-

ing Patrick – but luckily I have a strong team around me to plug the gaps! Seen from a business point of view, I would have to say I have less direct experi-ence in sourcing. Thanks to the experience from previous jobs, I have had a reasonable exposure to sales, marketing and strategy. Buying, is anoth-er story altogether. Fortu-nately, I was not brought into Wolseley because of my buying skills. It is a crucial part of our busi-ness though and I am hap-py that we have skilled and qualified people at a local business level and also at CE and on a global level.

4 What tops

your personal buck-et list?

I love cycling and on top of my list is cycling in the Himalayas – ideally with my son. We love doing things together. I real-ly enjoy our cycling tours around the lake of Ge-neva. But I have to drag him sometimes, since he prefers skiing. Num-ber two on my list is cross country skiing, maybe on the Arctic or in Nor-way with the whole family. May take some convinc-ing them, though! There’s one final huge wish on my list. Four years ago, I spent a month in Kerala, India, teaching young so-cial entrepreneurs. They were all blind. That was in many ways a very reward-ing experience. Humbling, too, as these people fought to overcome ad-versity. I promised that I would go back and spend six months with them. So I must do that.

9Fittings 9 · 2014

ÖAG is Verena’s second home. She’s been with the company for 16 years, in different departments. It hasn’t always been easy, Verena admits. A wom-an doing a man’s job, was something both, col-leagues and customers, had to get used to. “My colleagues had a bet go-

ing on when I started. They thought I was not going to last three weeks”, Verena says laughing.

“Our customers are challenged. There are many new products on the market and they need to know them all. And their customers are more de-manding than ever. Fortu-nately we can help. We’re a big company with a lot of resources. We pass on

our product knowl-edge, so our custom-ers can then pass it on to their custom-ers. We make sure they get their sup-plies on time. With-out any mistakes in the delivery. And if there is a mistake anyways, we move heaven and earth to make it right.”

“Two weeks

ago, one of our drivers called me with a prob-lem. A customer did not get his supplies. It was outside of opening hours. I called a colleague who runs a branch in the neighbourhood. He was on his way home, but re-turned and made sure the customer got his sup-plies. It’s moments like this when I feel the team spirit.”

“We have the same products as our competitors. If we want customers to do business with us, we have to give them a good reason”, says Verena Redl, the branch manager for IZ3, one of ÖAG’s 44 branches. “Fortunately, we’re busy. We get between 50 and 60 visitors a day. On top of that, we have customers calling in orders, we prepare orders and we manage a small stock. We’re three people doing all this.”

HelpChampions of customer service

them helping their customers

Verena Redl


EVERY DAY

a small army of pickers in our

organisation are making sure that each single item our customers are order-ing, also makes it to their delivery. But there’s a dif-ferent kind of pick - the so called ‘replenishment pick’. The products picked here are being distribut-ed internally, to our own branches and to other dis-

tribution hubs. In other words, they’re not picked for the customer. At least not directly.

While replenishment picks are necessary to bal-ance stock in the branch-es, these picks cost mon-ey. The problem is, that the customer doesn’t neces-sarily perceive these picks as a service worth pay-ing for. Therefore, reduc-

ing these picks is impor-tant. There are different ways of doing this. Tobler, for example, has increased the amount of fast moving products to keep on stock in the branches. Now pick-ers in Däniken gather a larger amount of items per pick, but there are fewer pick lines - and this reduc-es costs. ÖAG and Wasco have applied similar solu-tions.

Picks customers don’t want to pay for

Efficiency@work

do they come from?Where

57 74 50pickers pickers pickers

picks a day14.200

14.200 12.300 10.000picks picks picks

11Fittings 9 · 2014

“FOR MOST people”, Karine explains, “run-ning is something you do on asphalt. Trail running is taking run-ning into the nature. Preferably on hilly tracks or mountains.”

And whereas nor-mal runners run dis-tances between 5 and 42 km, trail runners go the ex-tra mile. Many ex-

tra miles. Karine is currently training for the Transvulcania Ul-tra Marathon. An 83 km! trail on La Palma (Canar-ies), including more than a 8 km mountain track and the highest peak being at 2460 meters. “I have al-ways run. Two years ago I started trail running. Thanks to friends who en-couraged me. My man runs too, but he’s faster. Some-

On normal work days, Karine Demay sits at a desk, handling customer claims. On the weekend, Karine the business woman transforms into Karine the athlete. She finds a pair of running shoes and drives to the country side - to do some serious running. Trail running, to be specific. Trail running?

RunKarine,Run

Karine

Demay


Meet your colleague

times when training, I take my two sons along. They follow me on their bikes in the forest. It’s addictive.

Once you’re trail run-ning, you never want

to go back to nor-mal running. You’re active while en-joying the fantas-tic nature around you. Since I’ve start-

ed trail running, my weekends have be-

come small holi-days.”

Last year, Karine ran the 85 km in Madeira and

the 95 km at the Ile de la Ré-

union, both well known trail events. “It

takes good physical health an a strong mental condi-tion. Sometimes you run for 20 hours or longer. You can get close to giving up.

I’ve been there myself. I wanted my medal so bad-ly, I had to push myself beyond what I thought was possible. The kick you get from finishing after such a battle is incredible. You see very few run-ners under 35 years. It’s mentally hard. Last year, in La Réunion, two guys at 72 years of age participated. They ran the 168 km distance and finished in the middle of the field. Impressive.”

After a run it can hap-

pen that Karine is physi-cally worn out. “I go to bed early the following week. I would love to get into bet-ter shape. But I also have my job and my family to

take care of. And, be-lieve it or not, I have a social life as well”, she adds laughing. “Everyone can get started with trail running. You don’t need to run absurd distanc-es. Just find your run-ning shoes, find a forest and run. At some point, it catches you and you want more. For a lot of peo-ple, trail running is more than a sport. It’s a life style.”


the online purchases are still done on computers and laptops. For example, when our customers come home in the afternoon or early evening. Thanks to the new release, it’s a lot easier to order parts on the fly. Either on their smartphones or tablets. Freeing valuable time for our customers.”

Before Nordin started at Wasco, he worked at the e-marketing department of Wehkamp, a well known Dutch mail-order com-

“THE NEW site is re-sponsive”, says Nordin Ben Jaber from Wasco’s IT team. “This means that, whatever device you use, the website adapts and you have all functionalities

at hand. We increas-ingly receive or-

ders through our on-

line store. Most of

pany. Wehkamp has made the step from post-order to online order long time ago. “It’s exciting to adept the experience I have from the business to consumer mar-ket, to our business-to-business environment. One thing is certain, what we’re doing at Wasco, no one else is doing. And especially not our competitors.”

The next step is under construction too: one-to-one marketing. “Thanks to our customers increas-ingly using our online facil-ity to deal with us, we get to know their online habits. This knowledge we use to offer them products, ser-vices and campaigns - tai-lored to their situation.” Ac-cording to Nordin, this step will help with the relation to our customers. “While cus-tomers use our online facil-ities for the more rudimen-tary inquiries and orders, we can put more focused energy in our one-to-one contacts and get closer to their businesses.”

Wasco is launching a new version of their website. This is not just an average update. No, the new website will leave competi-tion biting the on-line dust. The website is designed to do well on a regular computer screen, and also on any other, smaller screen. A must, since we know that customers increasingly use mobile devices like smart phones and tablets to visit wasco.nl.

The future is


Responsive

Nordin

Ben Jaber


team above makes sure that the organisation around you is geared to giving you all the sup-port you need and has a clear vision for the fu-ture. A lot of the chal-lenges we’re dealing with are similar, wheth-er you’re ISB, ÖAG, To-bler or Wasco. For example pricing and ef-ficiency are relevant to all our businesses. Dis-cussing and working on these across all our markets makes sense. Partly, because dif-ferent people will bring different per-spectives, experi-ences and compe-

IN YOUR daily work, Wolseley CE is prob-ably not on the top of your mind. Business is local. Obviously, that is where your focus is. But while making sure our local customers get the supplies they need, the

tences to the table. Partly, because shar-ing good ideas or best practices helps you overcome obstacles or jumpstart a new initia-tive. Last month, they met in Urdorf, in Swit-zerland. As you might know, that’s where the Tobler headquarters are. What few people know, is that this is al-so home to the Wolse-ley CE team. The picture is taken on the rooftop of the building and as you can see, they’re ea-ger to show that they’re pretty hands on with the products we sell to our customers.

Would you buy from these guys?


NAMES FROM LEFT TO RIGHT, STARTING IN THE BACK: Tobias Roser (HR Director Wolseley CE), Peter Jirasek (FD Wolseley CE), Alexander Ritter von Weinzierl (Logistics & Sourcing Director Wolseley CE), Patrick Headon (MD Wolseley CE)

FRONT ROW STARTING ON THE LEFT: Rob Gold-smith (Head of Legal Wolseley CE), Heinz Wiedmer (CEO Tobler Haustechnik AG), Felix Froehner (MD ÖAG), Pierre Gautron (MD ISB), Herold van den Belt (MD Wasco)


Efficiency@work

“THE FIRST survey”, says Tobias Roser, the edi-tor in chief of Fittings, “is always the most difficult one. Our readers have to get used to us asking for their opinion. And then of course they also have to experience that we actu-ally use their input to im-

prove the magazine.”110 readers took the

survey. Half of them online, the other half used the pa-per version in the last mag-azine. “This is obviously not impressive”, says Antonia Trollius, who’s responsible for the project manage-ment of the magazine.

We want your feedback!“It might not provide enough statistical evi-dence for radical changes but the feedback has been interesting nevertheless. As a result we have, for ex-ample, shorter articles and more pictures.”

You’ve got to love Volkswagen. If not for their cars, then for their ability to make complex things simple. Where Japanese manufacturers (Toyota) use lean methodologies to make the processes in the factories slim and efficient, Volkswagen simply calls it ‘Bessermachen’

That’s the spirit for Fittings as well. We want to make the world’s best staff magazine. And your opinion counts. That’s why we continuously do reader surveys.

Besser machen

More than half of the participants read Fittings for 20 to 30 minutes on average

How do people rate the quality of the magazine?

Half of the participants are from

ÖAGChristine Schar-rer, editorial board member for ÖAG, is proud of the fact that ÖAG readers care to share their opinion. “It’s impor-tant that initiatives like Fittings, which should improve overall communica-tions, are evaluated. This is the only way we can continuously improve the quality”.

10 minutes or less

The magazine overall

Between10-30 minutes

Content

More than30 minutes

Design

I did not read the magazine

Picures/ illustrations

Cover

20

56

22

4

12

9

38

14

16

54

48

41

24

41

6

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6 1

13 2

ExcellentGoodFairPoor


Looking from the outside in

“GETTING the job I went through five interviews”, Bernd says. “You’re very thorough, I’ve learned. What al-so appealed to me, when I was waiting in the reception for

my second interview, I overheard the two la-dies at reception dis-cuss an issue. They were working togeth-er to fix this issue in a very pleasant, posi-tive and constructive fashion. This is another

reason that convinced that I wanted to work for this company.”

Bernd is married to a judge (just so you know), he has two kids and a dog. He’s got a weak-ness for Quentin Taren-tino (Django Unchained).

“It’s the absurdity in his movies that appeals to me”. He runs 10K, three times a week, “to stay fit”. And though it’s not fair to ask him before he is even started what he’s going to prioritise at ÖAG, we couldn’t resist. “So far, I have been given a thor-ough introduction to the business and specifical-ly the logistics practice. I joined a teammeeting at Wels - which was very op-erational - and got a good chance to get necessary insights. Of course I need to get acquainted better with all the ins and outs, but my first impression is very positive. The team seems very competent and I am looking forward to getting started.”

Bernd can’t wait to meet customers and learn what their requirements are in terms of delivery. “I need to understand what their expectations are. For now, but also for the future. For me it’s about pulling the shared expe-riences and competen-cies together, and design-ing the best service at the best price for our custom-ers.”

A process engineer with a huge appetite to learn new things has recently joined ÖAG. Meet Bernd Röttgen, the new logistics manager. He comes from the fast moving con-sumer goods industry, and it will be interesting to get a fresh perspective on ÖAG - seen through his eyes.

Can’t wait to get my hands dirty

Bernd

Röttgen


LAURENT is manag-ing the four main distribu-tion hubs in Saint-Malo, Nantes, Honfleur and Bor-deaux.

All wood, both raw and finished (for example pan-els), arrives here and is redistributed to ISB’s pro-duction facilities, branch-es or customers. So far so good.

Add 1.000.000 m3 of wood, the amount ISB sells approximately per year - 12% of the entire market for wood in France. Now you add customers. Lau-rent: “In an ideal world, our customers buy the specifi-cations we have available. Unfortunately, it does not work that way. They re-quire many different spec-ifications for all the dif-ferent projects they are working on. At the same time, we have an invento-

ry that we want to be able to sell. This requires tight planning and continuous quality awareness.”

Most of the wood comes from Russia, Fin-land and Sweden, arriving by sea in large quantities. Logistically it is compli-cated, especially for the wood from Russia. “If we were selling French wood, it would be easier to man-age specifications as well as logistics. But the Nordic wood is of a better quality, a quality that we absolute-ly need. It’s more challeng-ing to deal with Russia. You need to know the cul-ture and the language. At ISB we do. Therefore, we are able to offer custom-ers a superior quality and availability. We consider this an important compet-itive advantage.”

“Our customers are in-

creasing-ly relying on us to having their wood in stock. We need to be efficient when forecast-ing and flexible and creative in find-ing solutions. Planning requires good commu-nication between the Hub, supply chain, purchasing, production, sales and cus-tomers. We can’t afford to not stock the specifica-tions our customers re-quest, and we can’t af-ford the risk to stock large quantities that nobody wants to buy either.”

With a 20% (import) marketshare, ISB is obvi-ously good at managing this complexity. But the market in France is tough. ISB continuously looks for

new ways to stay ahead of their competition. “The fact that we’re so big helps us, too. Thanks to the amount of customers we have, it can pay off for us to offer many different specifications.

At ISB, you can’t discuss customer service without discussing wood specifications. Ensuring availability of the right sections and lengths, Laurent Ogès says, is a major challenge. “If we’re not able to match the specifications our customers require, we will be out of business.”

How do you want your

Today?Wood

Laurent Ogès


“ONE OF THE problems we encounter”, Gwenolé says, “is that there’s an inconsistency in our deliv-ery time. This is a problem especially when dealing with nation wide custom-ers. For them it’s diffi-cult to understand why

our delivery times differ from area to area. This

is not acceptable and therefore we’re try-ing to get every-body on board to solve this. The

objective is

to be able to offer ten days max delivery time for products on stock. Competitors are of-fering the same con-ditions and being the market leader, we can-not afford to fail here.”

Another initiative Gwenolé is keen on succeeding with is cus-tomisation. “Standard-ised products are being abandoned increas-ingly whereas person-alised shapes and col-ours are popular. We

In the beginning of this year, ISB got a new marketing direc-tor, Gwenolé Lees. Coming from Wolseley France, he’s not a novice in the timber industry. Gwenolé launched three ini-tiatives that will take ISB’s service to the next level. All cross organisational, involving different functions and people from different parts of the organisation, and challenging.

Getting everyone on board

have to stay curious, listen to customers, look at what the mar-ket wants and use this feedback to de-velop new, innovative products and solu-tions. We have a new solution mixing insu-lation and cladding in the pipeline. We’re considering to import timber waste to be used for heating sys-tems and a factory to cut beams into the right size.”

ISB



Installers are Wasco’s most important customers. Project developers hire installers, who in return purchase the necessary supplies from Wasco.

Or not. The one million dollar question here is, how can you get rid of this un-

certainty? For Wasco the answer is a no brainer:

1 Approach the project developers

directly.

2 Make yourself independ-ent from the installers in the decision making process.

A brave

move, but

does it

work?

Big Bait

Ad Bressers

Fishing with


“THIS approach is new to us”, says Jan Bijnen, Wasco’s Sales Manager. “If we’d tried this five years ago, the installers, our pri-mary customer segment, would have slaughtered us. But the financial cri-sis has changed the bal-ance in the market.” Re-sponsible for catching the big fish for Wasco is sales rep. Ad Bressers. Back to the question whether it works: like a charm. In the past 18 months Ad’s focus on hotels has paid off: the list of hotels we’re dealing with is growing and this

list tops chains like Citizen M, Van der Valk hotels and even youth hostels (1.000 rooms).

6.000 bathrooms a year“The potential”, says Ad, “is enormous. Every year, a small number of 6.000 hotel rooms are built or refurbished. And they all need a bathroom, which in fact, together with the heating installation, is the largest investment in a ho-telroom. We want to cater to these. And we can take it a step further by tak-

ing care of maintenance as well. When something breaks, it needs fixing - right away. You can’t rent out a hotelroom with a broken bathroom. Thanks to our ‘in night’ delivery service, we’re faster than any of our competitors.”

“These customers are not used to Wasco con-tacting them directly. I have to use whatever tricks I have up my sleeve to get my foot in the door. I activate our network as well, for example suppli-ers like Hans Grohe, who have helped me get impor-

tant meetings with poten-tial customers. This is also new to our organisation. Everything needs to be thought through and built from scratch. Support, un-til recently, was limited. I’ve been making leaflets in both, Dutch and English, myself to give you an ex-ample.”

Internationally yours“A lot of the players in this segment have an interna-


“TRUTH be told, we can get better margins from small-er customers”, Josef admits, “they purchase smaller quanti-

ties, they need more help and therefore are less price sensi-tive. For large customers, the price is decisive. Not to say

everything. Of course, quality, delivery and service are im-portant parameters, but price weighs at a full 70% in their

Josef Mayerhofer is responsible for large projects at ‘Region Ost’ in Kontinen-tale, ÖAG. His region includes the Vienna area and is home to quite a few large companies, and …some of the largest customers. In fact, a relatively small amount of these large customers both, private as well as public, are responsi-ble for approximately 50% of the region’s turnover.

Small customers = good margins, Large customers = Survival

More on next page


tional footprint”, Ad ex-plains. “We have to show them that we can cater to their needs regardless of geographic implications. But we’re not geared to handle this segment yet. Not even at aWolseley level. The latter surprised me. In my opinion inter-nationally operating ho-tel chains are an obvi-ous customer segment to benefit from our group synergies. We had to de-velop our own solutions, work together for exam-ple with the Polish con-struction company used by Citizen M. We’re now able to deliver to Citizen M worldwide. They love

us for it because they now have one supplier for all of their hotels, which makes life a lot easier for them.”

Solve their problemsAd, who started at Was-co two years ago, is im-pressed by Wasco. “We’re doing so many fantastic things. Our showroom for sustainable energy, the WEC, for example. It’s sec-ond to none. But we’re too humble about it. Sustaina-bility is an issue for hotels so of course I am happy I can play that card.”

“I am lacking the nec-essary knowledge about heating products, but of

course these also have to come into play with our hotel customers. There are more than 65.000 ho-tel rooms in Holland. They spend a fortune on main-tenance. The potential is huge and we have only just begun. In this pioneering phase we’ve got to seize the opportunities that pre-sent themselves.” “Re-cently I visited the Ambas-sade hotel in Amsterdam, a posh hotel with sixty rooms. All of them have luxurious bathrooms with golden taps. I had ten min-utes to pitch our business - so I asked the custom-er what his biggest prob-lem is. Delivery time for

the taps, he told me, was two weeks. So if one broke, they could not rent out the room for two weeks. I of-fered him to take these taps on stock, if he con-sidered doing business with us.”

“The dream scenar-io? Hilton hotels are THE benchmark, of course. I’d love to land them as a customer. I made the first move but the timing has to be right as well. Approach-ing companies of this ca-liber you have to be able to introduce yourself as Ad Bressers, project manager for international hotels at Wolseley. And you have to live up to it, too.”

decision-making processes.”There’s a significant dif-

ference between working with public or private customers. Whereas the public custom-ers invite suppliers to an open tender, privately owned com-panies invite suppliers to come with an offer. “To start with, it is important that we identify that there is a tender. The next thing is the deadline. We send the offer in a closed envelope. It’s a public budget, tax money, so the supplier with the best price offer, wins the tender. Fair and square. When dealing

with private customers, there’s more room for negotiations. Especially, if you have a good personal relation with the cus-tomer and understand their needs.”

Once the tender or the bid is won, the real work starts: the after sales. All promises in terms of quality and deliv-ery must be kept. “An area where we at ÖAG are extremely good”, says Joseph. “The departments work well together - I feel we’re a good team.

We spend a lot of time on the large accounts. We visit them more often than we visit the smaller customers. But when we get the orders, we also talk about large numbers. Actually, if we would not pursue these orders, we would loose signifi-cant market share. Basically the large customers help us

financing for example the fine mazed distribution

network we have. It’s all about finding the right mix between the small-er and the large cus-tomers.”

Continued

Josef

Mayerhofer22 Fittings 9 · 2014

“THAT DOES not mean at all that customer ser-vice is not key any more”, Lukas Schreiner, ÖAG’s HR director says smiling. “We still want our customers to feel great about deal-ing with us, of course. But the market situation is still challenging and we need to react. The message is to know your customers, manage your facts and figures, identify opportu-nities and get new cus-tomers on board. We want to lift relationships from a predominantly emotion-al level to an even more

professional level. It’s not only about where our cus-tomers go on holiday and what their kids are doing, we need to know how we can support them in joint-ly gaining business and thus making profit.”

“Our sales man-agers are currently un-dergoing an intensive sales training, including individual coaching, and

we expect them to pass on their knowledge to their staff. Along with this we facilitate trainings for all

our field sales agents in all regions, a joint

approach with mixed train-ing groups from both ÖAG Haustech-nik and ÖAG

Kontinentale. An important

aspect is that eve-rybody is getting familiar

and comfortable with us-ing our business intelli-

gence systems. They need to know how they can use the system to prepare for their sales meetings. There’s also a lot of atten-tion on approaching new customers and regaining old customers we lost to the competition. It’s about being much more pro-ac-tive than we used to be. And just as important is for our people to feel con-fident, always well pre-pared and positive. Cus-tomers want to buy from winners and that’s the vibe we want our people to ra-diate.”

While in 2011/2012 the customer strategy at ÖAG was all about partnership, today the focus has expanded to getting new customers and … to challenge the competition.

Sales,sales, sales



YOU M

UST PAY TAX ON

THE PRIZE. EN

TRIES WITH

ALL CORRECT ANSW

ERS WILL BE PICKED

RAND

OMLY. N

0 CASH ALTERN

ATIVE.

1 How many hotel rooms (est) are there in Holland?

A 48.000

B 50.000

C 65.000

2 How many customers does Josef Eichberger visit a day?

A 25

B 40

C 50

3 Who would like to invite Bradley Wiggins to a dinner party?

A Patrick Headon

B Ad Bressers

C Bernd Röttgen

4 Where does ISB get (most) of their wood?

A Russia, Latvia, Poland

B Russia, France and UK

C Russia, Finland and Sweden

5 Responsive web-site design means:

A You can get online help while you are visiting a website

B The website works, re-gardless of the device you use

C Pop-ups ask your opinion on the website you visit

Erik Kettelerij, from Wasco, is the winner

of an iPhone. Congratulations.

Send your answers before May 25 2014Use the coupon below or send your answers by e-mail to: [email protected]

The winner will be announced in the next issue of Fittings.

The winner is...

Name:

Address:

Postcode and City:

Country:

Phone:

E-mail:

Employed at:

Send this coupon to:Wolseley Central EuropeAttn Tobias Roser 2nd Floor, Steinackerstrasse 10 CH-8902 Urdorf Switzerland

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Fittings 09

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