What Relentless Customer Focus Means to Our McKinney Inside Sales Team
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At Simpson Strong-Tie we’re proud to be known for our relentless customer focus. In fact, it’s literally one of our nine company values. We want to introduce you to some of the men and women who live that value daily. Today we’re taking you to our McKinney, Texas branch to meet members of our Inside Sales team who oversee customer service. We’re happy to share their stories on what “Relentless Customer Service” means and their individual journeys at Simpson Strong-Tie.
What happens in the Customer Service department?
In the Customer Service department, we take phone calls from customers, including engineers, and end users (individuals who install our products), and our outside sales reps. We also have a general email where customers can send us written questions, pricing requests and orders, as well as our personal inboxes where we receive emails from customers and our Outside Sales team. Whether it’s by phone or email, we are here to help our customers by entering orders, solving problems, and answering questions. We work closely with our Warehouse staff, Outside Sales, Engineering department, and Inventory Control team to make sure we’re doing everything we can to help our customers and give them the best experience possible. The Simpson Strong-Tie number one company value is “Relentless Customer Focus,” and our Customer Service department takes pride in doing all we can to make our customers’ jobs and lives easier.
Why do we get gold stars, and what do they represent?
Gold stars are awarded to us by management when we get an outstanding compliment from a customer saying we went above and beyond for them.
Following are a few of our employees’ customer-service stories.
Employee: Logan Robinson
Job Title: Strategic Account Representative
Started: 2014
Gold Stars: 11
Career Journey: I started with Simpson Strong-Tie as a part-time file clerk. I was here for a month or two when I had to leave due to some personal issues in my life. A few months later, I decided to move back. I emailed Matt Anderson, the Inside Sales Manager, and asked if there happened to be any positions open. Lucky for me, a full-time Customer Service position had just opened up. I scheduled an interview and got the job. On the day of my seven-year anniversary with Simpson Strong-Tie, I got promoted to Strategic Account Representative. This year will mark eight years for me with the company.
What Gold Stars Mean to Me: I currently have 11 gold stars. For me, earning customer-service stars relates directly to company value no. 1 — Relentless Customer Focus. This shows me that the customer is taking time out of their day to express how much they appreciate me and what I do for them. It shows me that what I do on a daily basis of listening to what customers say they need, really does matter and doesn’t go unnoticed. It drives me to keep wanting to do better and give my all to our customers.
Employee: Korey Hicks
Job Title: Senior Strategic Account Representative
Started: 2014
Gold Stars: Eight
Career Journey: My journey with Simpson Strong-Tie started in April of 2014. After staying home for many years raising kids and working retail part-time, I knew I wanted to get back into the workforce full time but didn’t want to work just anywhere. My neighbor, who is an engineer here in McKinney, told me that his company was hiring a customer service representative and that I should apply. I never heard of, and knew nothing about Simpson Strong-Tie, but knew immediately after reading the history of the company and Barc’s Values and Nine Principles of Business that this was a place where I’d be happy to hang my hat. As Barc would say, this place isn’t meant as just a bus stop in your career.
What Gold Stars Mean to Me: I currently have eight stars. Being in customer service in one capacity or another my entire work history, it’s always been a motivator to me when I’m recognized for going above and beyond. The gold stars represent hard work and dedication and do incentivize a person to provide “relentless customer focus.”
Employee: Jose Fernandez
Job Title: Senior Inside Sales Representative
Started: 2004
Gold Stars: Seven
Career Journey: I started in the shipping department. At that time, we were a small group, and everyone in that department shared all the responsibilities, which included shipping orders and transfer trucks, receiving, returns, putting up stock and specials, will calls, and training new hires. I moved to the customer service center in 2013. I thought the Customer Service team would give me a view of all departments. I know it sounds cliché, but I like the people I work with. People here have supported me professionally and personally.
What Gold Stars Mean to Me: I have seven stars. The stars remind me that great customer service is noticed and appreciated. What I thought was “normal Simpson Strong-Tie customer service” motivated seven customers to call in and tell my managers how much they appreciated my help. This motivates me to give every call and email the same quality of service.
Employee: Cara Fraser
Job Title: Strategic Account Representative
Started: 2016
Gold Stars: 11
Career Journey: My journey with Simpson Strong-Tie began in May of 2016, when I was hired as a part-time data entry clerk processing customers’ fax orders. In October 2016, I was offered a full-time position in Customer Service. As I improved, I began assisting with the Order Desk’s Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) — these are orders sent over mostly by our Home Centers (Home Depot and Lowe’s) where we can transmit many orders at one time — and managing returns from several of the warehouses. I also worked with our National Retail team by working on reports and getting orders processed. In 2020, I traveled with a team to our Stockton, California, branch to assist with their SAP Go-Live and was the recipient of our ECSS (Excellence in Customer Service Support Award) award for the first half of 2020. In December 2021, I was hired as part of a new team as a Strategic Account Representative.
What Gold Stars Mean to Me: I currently have 11 stars. I strive to help our customers at all times. For me, the stars are validation that I was able to assist a customer with a higher level of service than they expected, enough so the customer wanted to let others know by reaching out to my supervisor or Dealer Sales Representative on the account.
As you can see, our customer service representatives take relentless customer focus seriously and find inspiration in hearing feedback from their customers.
Simpson Strong-Tie Company Values
- Relentless Customer Focus
- Long-Range View
- High-Quality Products
- Be The Leader
- Everybody Matters
- Enable Growth
- Risk-Taking Innovation
- Give Back
- Have Fun, Be Humble
Hear from Inside Sales Manager, Matt Anderson about his career journey with Simpson Strong-Tie and his vision for the team’s future
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