A construction equipment company with several offices across two states has used a call center solution developed by AVOXI to improve customer experience and allow the different offices to function as if they were one.
Columbia, S.C.-based Hills Machinery (HM) deals in heavy equipment like backhoes, graders and excavators. It sells new or used equipment and also provides a rental service. Parts, service and maintenance are also available. HM has two offices in South Carolina and three in North Carolina.
Atlanta-based AVOXI offers products like international toll-free numbers, a cloud PBX system and SIP trunking. To minimize customer wait time, HM started using AVOXI’s Smart Queue, which routes a call to the next available office location after the customer has been on hold for more than 20 seconds.
One of the most important elements of any construction project is time and keeping equipment operational is critical for projects to meet their deadlines. Anyone who relies on a company like HM to provide construction equipment and support must get superior customer service in the event of a breakdown to minimize delays. This means the equipment supplier has availability by phone, emergency service and parts support available 24/7.
An infographic from Entrepreneur Magazine illustrates how costly poor customer service can be. American businesses lose $83 billion each year from unhappy customers in the form of defections and abandoned purchases. Eight out of nine customers who experience poor service leave for a competitor; 63 percent favored service over price when choosing a vendor and only 37 percent of brands were rated excellent or good when it comes to customer service.
Offering an excellent customer experience may be the best way for a company to differentiate itself in a commoditized market. In the case of HM, the reality is that lots of places offer equipment rental, sales and support, so those things alone don’t compel anyone to become a customer. When a construction company knows that if it has a serious problem, it can rely on a supplier like HM to provide parts or service in an emergency when other companies give the run-around, that’s a customer for life and the best word-of-mouth advertising that anyone can have.