13.03.2013

Nationwide Platforms goes regional

UK powered access market leader Nationwide Platforms is to group its hire desk/dispatching activities into seven regional customer service centres, while its 26 depots will continue to handle operations and service activities.

The regional centres are in addition to a national customer service centre at its Lutterworth headquarters. The eight centres will handle all sales and customer support functions, including rental orders, transport planning, and customer management services.

The company said that the decision to bring these functions together into regional hubs was made as part of long-term business plans to reach greater levels of operational and customer service excellence, following the results of a comprehensive Customer Survey in 2012.

The change has also been made possible by the company’s upgraded business IT system which provides staff with improved visibility of the entire Nationwide Platform fleet, as well as streamlining ordering and planning processes. The hubs will handle all products, including its truck, van and trailer mounted platforms and attachments from BlueSky Solutions.

The company’s 26 local depots will continue to handle all operational functions, including stocking and delivering machines and providing the local back up and service support.

Nationwide Platforms managing director Mike Potts said: “Our goal as a business is to provide truly world class products, services and support to aid safe and productive work at any height. Achieving that relies on continuous improvement throughout all of our areas of operation. We have listened to our customers and are responding to their demands for exceptional levels of customer service and support.”

“It’s our belief that our new regional Customer Service Centres will help us deliver outstanding levels of performance right across the UK, in turn helping our clients overcome every challenge they might face. Further to that, pooling our huge expertise will help us become more effective at every level, therefore leading to improvements in the areas that we know matter to our customers the most.”

The company adds that later in the year it plans to introduce a new ‘Customer Charter’ committing it to the highest levels of service in the areas of greatest importance to its customers.

Vertikal Comment

For those with long memories there is a sense of Deja-Vu in this announcement. Nationwide has done something similar to this before, following the implementation of its new IT system at the start of 2005. That attempt did not go at all well and the company set out on a UK acquisition spree to regain the local business that it had lost as a result.

With the decentralisation input from its newly ‘acquired directors’ the company reversed the centralisation process at the start of 2007, returning to a more traditional depot set up. See Nationwide announces new organisation

However the fact that the earlier attempt did not work out, does not mean that this one is also doomed. In fact much has changed since those days, and the upgraded IT system is said to add a large number of new possibilities aided by new tracking technology. The new centres are also not the same as the earlier attempt and as far as we understand it the changes at depot level are also not the same.

Additionally several key senior directors went through the last centralising process and will be very keen to avoid repeating the mistakes made back then. Nationwide today is a far more customer and people focused business than it was in 2004/5 and probably more open to input from those who will be responsible for making the changes work.

The key tests will be 1. The level of service that the local customer receives, if it is truly better, then he will quickly become a convert and 2. The process will have to also work for the operations staff who at the end of the day have to deliver the service. Get these two factors right and this move could take the company to a new level in terms of customer service.

Watch this space