Hardware
SERVICE WITH A SMILE
Simon Monks , MD of hardware company VBH , tells us why having the right people in the right place is vital to the success of any business , and how a smile can help , too .
Many factors make up a successful business .
Three of the most obvious are to have products that people want to buy , to have stock available for your customers to order ( even in the most trying of times such as we have recently experienced ), and thirdly , procedures to make sure that those piles of excellent goods get to the customer when they want them .
A fourth factor is ‘ people ’; your staff is vital in bringing all these strands together and that ’ s why it ’ s important to get your recruitment right .
It ’ s not always easy , as not only does the team need to be efficient , but also the individuals need to be a pleasure to deal with for customers , suppliers and indeed , colleagues . I am sure that we all have experience of companies who get the job done , but who we don ’ t particularly enjoy dealing with . I refer to companies outside of the industry , of course …
At VBH , we believe that we have the best team of any hardware company . It is a mix of ( lots of ) experience and youth , with all the new ideas and working practices that youth brings .
2021 was a fantastic year for VBH with our sales figures exceeding those of 2019 by 40 %. Our existing team members in all departments did a great job of ensuring that we kept up with customer demand , with only a few glitches along the way .
We have spent the last few months recruiting new people and moving existing staff into positions where their abilities can have a big positive impact on our performance , to make us easy to deal with .
Steve Thomas has moved from our Swansea sales office to the position of Area Sales Representative for South West England . Our customers are already benefitting from Steve ’ s years of experience running the production line at one of our PVCu fabricator customers .
Tyler Shutts , Colin Thomas and Earl Tate have all been promoted to Regional Manager , for Northern England , Wales and South East England respectively . This follows massive increases in business on their sales areas . Tyler is the National Fenestration Awards Young Person of the Year for 2020 and 2021 , and has been building her customer base since joining VBH straight from university . Colin has been looking after fabricators in Wales since 1989 and his area has never looked so healthy , whilst Earl is a ‘ new boy ’, having joined VBH in 2020 following many years industry experience both at a fabricator and at another hardware company . He is now doing great things for VBH . All have different strengths but all are well liked by their customers .
In Scotland Pamela Paterson is now Operations Manager at our East Kilbride site , with responsibility for the day-to-day
running of the depot . Pamela is in her third decade with VBH .
Karen Campbell moves to the position of Internal Sales-Co-ordinator in Gillingham , linking the activities of our sales and marketing teams . She is relishing the new challenge and it is already bearing fruit .
Simon Eshelby returns to VBH in the new position of Distribution & Systems House Manager , following six years away . Simon brings all his technical knowledge to bear in his new role .
Lastly , we have bolstered our Customer Service team with the recruitment of Leah Organ and Georgia Rowlatt at our Gillingham head office . Both are new to the industry having previously worked in banking and retail , but both are bringing their people-skills to the job and are attracting rave reviews from customers . Along with Tyler , they are great examples of the new younger people that we need to attract to our fantastic industry .
In summary , you need to have all your pillars in place , but perhaps the most important things in these days of technology are to make sure that your systems are customer-focused and that you have people who are efficient and a pleasure to deal with . People buy from people at the end of the day .
www . vbhgb . com
70 JUNE 2022 CLEARVIEW-UK . COM