Total Hardware, a leading supplier of quality window and door hardware to the industry know how important it is for fabricators to have choices when selecting their products. Nevertheless they do not just pile their warehouse high with every product they can get their hands on. Instead they carefully select from leading industry brands, ensuring that every product they deliver to customers are to the highest standards. However as a distributor they have to deliver more than just quality products to win over customers.
The core of Total Hardware’s culture has always been to build and grow strong relationships with their customers. Understanding their customer’s needs enables them to determine the changes in market trends, allowing them to adapt quickly and effectively. This is vital for a distributor to get right, as they do not want to disrupt a fabricator’s production flow. To help them achieve this, Total have also built strong partnerships with all of their major suppliers, therefore allowing them to keep close control over stock, deliveries and new products. This control meant that Total were able to deliver over 99% of lines on time in full every month in the second half of 2016, which is no mean feat when they offer a nationwide, next day delivery service. Total pride themselves on having over 1,000,000 units of stock readily available for their customers, making sure they’re not let down. Daily operations have had to advance in order to handle this volume of stock.
To continue to achieve the highest levels of service Total have had to revamp their internal operations to meet the growing needs of their customers. Throughout 2016 many changes were made to both warehouse and office operations to guarantee continued customer satisfaction. As part of these changes all staff and departments were informed of their day to day performances and these are evaluated one to one on a weekly basis. This simple change has vastly improved performance and contributed to increasing both productivity and precision. Streamlining order processing, and warehouse operations has also had a huge impact on these performance indicators, freeing employee’s time to deal with other customer needs. Another change was a renewed drive towards recycling, a growing concern in the industry. As well as recycling packaging, Total has begun using a local company that donates to Leeds Children’s Hospital to recycle their printer ink cartridges.
In 2016 Total even introduced a couple of new departments to offer further support to customers. One of these new departments was technical support, which was made available to their customers in early 2016. The department is run by Steve Walker, who has over 30 years experience in the window and door industry, along with an extensive knowledge of both hardware and profile. Though Total is primarily a distributor of branded goods, and therefore relies heavily on their suppliers quality controls, this department has been a welcome addition to the company. Customers experiencing technical issues with products have utilised this department for support and demonstrations. They also introduced a marketing department to further support customers. Total is now able to offer customers bespoke marketing packages, such as product specification sheets and information designed with the customers logo and company colours.
These additional services have all been created to support customers, and develop a stress free customer experience. The final and most important part of that experience is the products. Using a distributor like Total Hardware gives the customer the variety they need, with a comprehensive range of quality products to choose from. As this range includes products suitable for PVCu, composite and aluminium systems, Total has developed a one stop shop for every fabricators needs. Having such an extensive range of brands not only gives customers choice, but also gives them access to some of the latest innovations from leading hardware manufacturers. Recent examples of new innovations are the Athena Hinge from Trojan, the GU Secury range and the Yale Autosecure lock, all of which offer unique solutions to give fabricators a competitive advantage.
Total constantly review new products in the market and add them to their portfolio when they feel their customers will benefit from them. 2017 will see continued efforts to improve the customer experience, as well as even more reasons to choose Total Hardware as your supplier.
Get in touch for more info – 0113 243 2255.
