Customer Service: Is Your Polyurethane Supplier Treating You Right?
When it comes to choosing the right material, design engineers tend to focus primarily on the material properties and cost. Does it meet the specifications you need while still staying under budget? However, another very important criteria to consider is the “quality” of the supplier. What is their track record for on-time delivery, responsiveness, and problem-solving? And are they ultimately invested in helping you achieve success with your project? Here are three ways our team at General Plastics strives to go above and beyond when it comes to customer service.
#1 First-Class Support
The secret behind our high-performance standards is focusing on client feedback. We pay close attention to post-project surveys that rate us on lead times, responsiveness, first-time corrections, and other key performance indicators. When it comes to addressing problems, our team rigorously looks for root causes to prevent recurrence. Everyone from the newest employee to the president contributes to process enhancements and continuous improvement so that the next project receives the best support we can offer.
#2 Willingness to Scale
General Plastics offers complete in-house production services, but there are times when a client has a unique request that we currently do not cover. We continually seek to enhance our specialized skills and are often willing to invest in new equipment and expand our capacity to meet customer needs. For example, our materials are highly applicable for the nuclear industry because of their impact absorption and thermal resistivity properties. A nuclear client required us to machine large blocks of our product into complex shapes. By increasing our manufacturing capacity, we were able to take on that project and deliver final, polished products to them without adding another vendor.
#3 Technical Advisement on Engineering Decisions
With more than 75 years of manufacturing experience, General Plastics has the technical expertise to help you make early design decisions that have an impact on long-term cost and performance. Customers come to us with engineering challenges, and we partner with them to offer practical solutions and the actual services that bring them to fruition. For instance, a telecommunications company approached us with a theoretical idea for 5G technology, and we worked together to develop a real-world product, formulate a brand-new material, and answer their manufacturing questions.
Ultimately, engineers want to work with a knowledgeable resource who can help them evaluate technical decisions as they push the boundaries of innovation. Buyers want to deal with a responsive, engaged supplier who understands both their products and other vendors’ components – and knows what it takes to bring them together. From selecting raw materials to delivering final products, General Plastics is here to make your life easier.
For more information on consolidating your composite and polyurethane supply chain, read our article Dealing with Supply Chain Inefficiencies for Composite and Polyurethane Materials.
