At the center of attention
Trelleborg’s sealing profiles operation has more than a thousand active customers in a number of different sectors such as the buildings and construction industry, the automotive industry, agriculture and forestry, as well as renewable energy and power generation. Customers include everything from small businesses who place a few orders each year to major companies with regular major orders.
Whoever the customer is, customer support strives to provide quick feedback. No customer should need to wait more than 30 minutes for a response from customer support. A new order must be confirmed within 24 hours.
“We work with a lot of different industries, and all customers have specific preferences and needs. That puts demands on us as a team to quickly and efficiently solve any problems that arise and communicate a solution. We can’t solve everything ourselves, but we know who can answer questions and we’re good at chasing people and following up to make sure that the customer gets an answer,” says Grazyna Beckert, Customer Support Manager at Trelleborg’s sealing profiles operation.
Customer support, with four employees in Värnamo in Sweden and one in Finland, has the ultimate responsibility for nurturing the business’s customer relationships. Day-to-day work involves receiving, registering and confirming new orders. The team monitors deliveries and notifies the customer in the event of a delay. They also deal with and register any complaints and report back to the quality department. Their work requires progress checks and planning with other central functions in the business on issues such as stock, development and manufacturing. But it can also involve support for the sales department. Customer support works primarily with customers in Northern Europe, but they sometimes have to step in to help customers all over the world.
“I love solving problems – if the customer’s happy, I’m happy. That’s the foundation of our brand and something we strive to achieve every day. We must be a modern, service-minded company that customers want to work with for many years to come, and we’re constantly trying to develop the way we work with new procedures and tools for the best customer support,” says Grazyna Beckert.
Like many others, Trelleborg’s sealing profiles operation is facing challenges in a constantly changing and increasingly digital world. In the past, the phone was customer support’s most important tool and channel, but now almost 80 per cent of all communication takes place by email. There are demands from many major customers for work to be even more automated and digital, using automated, web-based EDI systems to go into customers’ systems and be part of the production flow.
“We try to be available for our customers at all times. We’re now working with Facetime, for example, which is making us more visible to our customers. Strong technical competence and upgraded business systems combined with Trelleborg’s investment in Excellence programs is setting a new standard for what customer support can be like in the future,” says Grazyna Beckert.
