Doors & Windows
“ What does it take for a team to achieve 97 % right first time rates ? Hard work !”
In the new year issue of Clearview , we kickstarted a series of features to get the complete picture of Universal Composite Doors . The introduction itself drew the comparison of Universal by name and Universal by nature ( definition : existing everywhere or involving everyone ), and the intrinsic link between the people , products and processes that makes up UCD ’ s USP .
Two positions that epitomise this are Denise Garwood , office manager , and head of production , Andy Turner . So , this month we turn the spotlight onto them to find out about their individual roles within the company , but also how they drive each other – and their departments – everyday to be even better …
DENISE GARWOOD
Denise , what does it take to offer the best customer service ?
We have dedicated departments for the different requirements of the business , and we all work very closely together . We are always looking for ways to improve and streamline our processes so that we can be more efficient whilst giving excellent service . For me , when I started to look at the processes I wanted to put in place , I saw that we really needed to keep the customer fully informed every step of the way and this includes giving the news that customers don ’ t want to hear , but as a team giving constant feedback to our customers builds trust and they know we are doing all that we can to meet their needs . Also embracing new IT systems really do help the team to have clarity at any given time so that they can in turn give accurate and up-to-date information to our customers . We have implemented various standard operating procedures , but we also always welcome feedback from our customers as this enables the team to grow and learn how we can best serve that customer .
How do you measure and evaluate customer service ?
I have put some comprehensive KPIs in place , which we use as tools to look at areas where we can improve as a team , but also to see the great improvements we have made over the last year . As Andy will also mention , we have regular quality meetings to go through any issues and put processes in place to eradicate them moving forward .
UCD took on 90 + new customers last year , what does that mean for an already-busy office team ?
Yes , it has been extremely busy , and we have added some roles to our team to deal with this and we are still recruiting further to ensure that we can more than meet the demand from the extra sales . We have a new Door Design Portal which we are currently launching that will make creating
quotes or placing orders much quicker and simpler for our customer base . This in return will also help to streamline our processing process and also within Andy ’ s production team .
What does a typical day look like for you ?
There is no such thing as a typical day at UCD ! Our daily production team meetings enable us to look at what jobs are going through the factory and ensure that we are aware of any supplier issues etc . This is critical for our day going forward as customers might need to be contacted , we might have turn around a door very fast and so it will be all hands to the deck . Dealing technical and IT issues , and general office needs and staffing levels . We have a great team which really helps . I also enjoy collating the data and looking at strategies and structure with the Senior Team .
30 FEBRUARY 2023 CLEARVIEW-UK . COM