Speaker 1 00:00:05 Welcome to the clear impact podcast brought to you by P G T I university. Thanks for joining us today. My name is Sherry Connor and I am your host
Speaker 2 00:00:20 Mike, like within a month, the field service cases will be in there as well. So right in ProConnect there's a place where dealer could see all the requests that they've sent into customer care and the status, as well as all of their field service tickets and the status of those field service tickets. So there's just one place to go to see everything
Speaker 1 00:00:35 Customer success extends far beyond the initial sales process. This new series kicks off today. As we highlight the extensive resources that P G T I provides to our dealer audience today, we meet those at the helm of our customer success teams, Benji, Hershberger, and Christie Meadows. They share the depth and expanse of their teams who work tirelessly both on the frontline and behind the scenes to ensure customer satisfaction. Well, good morning. We are here on the clear impact podcast and we are launching a brand new series today, and this is around customer success. And I am very excited about this series because we are featuring our customer care teams. And with us today in studio, we have Christie Meadows and Benji Hirschberger and this is your first time in, so welcome. Thank
Speaker 3 00:01:20 You.
Speaker 2 00:01:20 Yeah. Thanks for having us excited to be here.
Speaker 1 00:01:22 Yeah, this is gonna be a great series. I'm really looking forward to the information that we're gonna be able to share with our dealers. And so I would like for you to each take just a minute to introduce yourselves, your title and your areas of responsibility.
Speaker 3 00:01:36 I'm Christy Meadows. I'm the director of customer care. I oversee our customer care department, consumers, product specialists, and other experts within the customer care department.
Speaker 1 00:01:45 Okay. And so about how many people is that?
Speaker 3 00:01:47 Total? 76.
Speaker 1 00:01:49 Okay. So not a small batch of cats that you need to herd?
Speaker 3 00:01:52 No, not small. All right.
Speaker 2 00:01:53 And I'm Benji, I'm our vice president of customer care. So I work with Christie and the customer care area, but also, uh, the field service crew and, uh, Manny and his team of the technicians that are out there in the field.
Speaker 1 00:02:04 Wow. And so how long have you been in this position or in this space? Like each of you
Speaker 3 00:02:09 I've been in the manufacturing construction business for 28 years, but I've been with PGT for
Speaker 1 00:02:14 Six. Okay. So you've seen some changes
Speaker 3 00:02:16 I have. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:02:17 Yeah. Nice. Okay. And how about you Benji?
Speaker 2 00:02:19 Uh, I've been in windows and doors for man. It's been like 16 years now and, uh, last 10 in, in the customer care area of PGT.
Speaker 1 00:02:27 Nice. Well, I love that you guys are, you know, steady at the helm and there's a lot of consistency amongst your team. I know that you've got some people that have been tenured for 10, 20 plus years in those spaces. So I think that really lends itself to a really great experience for our dealer audience. They know that whoever they're talking to is gonna have some, some tenure behind them, they know what they're doing. This is just an overview episode. So we're gonna talk about the teams who you oversee and what does each team do.
Speaker 3 00:02:54 So, first of all, we have leadership that reports into me of six managers. Our average of their leadership experience is around 20 years. Wow. On average. So a lot of experience there to support our customers and make sure they're taken care of.
Speaker 1 00:03:06 That's wonderful.
Speaker 3 00:03:07 Okay. And then we have our product specialists. Our product specialists is a, a team of six. They work with Colia, they work with our, uh, it vendors. They work with our customers, all of our internal business to make sure that our customers experience when it comes to our systems and our product is, uh, what's needed.
Speaker 1 00:03:23 Awesome. And these guys know like every little tiny detail about every single component and part and piece, and their knowledge is deep on the products. They
Speaker 3 00:03:32 Do, they each specialized in a certain series or a certain product, but then they also have cross training where they're able to support each
Speaker 1 00:03:38 Other. Nice.
Speaker 2 00:03:39 Okay. And I think the cool thing about that group is it's not just the product that they understand, but they have an in-depth knowledge of the system and what we need to do to get certain outputs with that product. So they're like super experts when it comes to both the product and how to order it and how to make sure it comes outright. And what should it look like when it gets there and all that kind of stuff?
Speaker 1 00:03:59 Yeah. They're always impressive to me. Whenever I've had questions, I've sometimes gone to them around things and I'm like, wait, wait, wait, I didn't need to know all of that. <laugh> I just needed to know this one little thing, but okay, thank you. Yeah. So they definitely know their stuff.
Speaker 3 00:04:13 Yeah. And most of them have started actually in customer care. So they understand our customers what the needs of the customers are. And they're very good listeners.
Speaker 1 00:04:21 Yeah. Awesome.
Speaker 3 00:04:23 Um, we also have our consumer affairs department. Okay. So they're the ones that support our homeowners. So a lot of times homeowners, they know the PPG T brand, but they don't necessarily know where to go or where to get support. So they link them with dealers to be able to support them. Uh, they also may have warranty. Questions are just product questions. And they're usually that first line of information to get to our homeowners.
Speaker 1 00:04:45 Nice. Okay. Yeah, because people call us all the time. Like they might be somebody that just bought a house that already has PPG T products. So they have no idea who the dealer was that they were purchased through or how to get service or anything like that. So it's good that we offer that channel of support. Mm-hmm
Speaker 2 00:05:00 <affirmative> we could probably talk a little bit more about customer care and what that core team actually does.
Speaker 1 00:05:04 Yeah. So customer care, that's a big title. What do they actually do?
Speaker 3 00:05:09 So the customer care team actually supports our dealers out there supporting the homeowners. So we have each one of them, uh, that are, they're assigned to a certain area or certain customer, depending on their skill sets and the needs of that customer. So we try to match their skillsets to the type of customer that's out there and how they go to business. So that they're best supported.
Speaker 1 00:05:29 Okay. So it's very common for them to have like a dedicated person that they always talk to when they call in or when they have a question about something,
Speaker 3 00:05:37 Normally that's the case, or they have a team depending on the type of dealer that they
Speaker 1 00:05:41 Are. Okay. So that's nice because then you build those relationships. You don't have to reexplain your scenario or who you are, where you are. Everybody kind of already knows one another.
Speaker 3 00:05:51 Yes. They have long standing relationships. For
Speaker 1 00:05:53 Sure. Yeah. That's awesome. I know I've, uh, done a couple of tours where dealers have come in and they want to meet their customer care person because it's always just been a phone call relationship. Mm-hmm <affirmative> so it's so funny when they actually see each other's faces, it's kind of like this big reveal. It's kind of fun.
Speaker 3 00:06:07 Yeah. We've had some that has been invited to, you know, people's birthday parties and retirement parties and those kind of things. So it's really nice relationship that they build.
Speaker 1 00:06:15 Oh, that's awesome. Anything else about the customer care team as far as their function?
Speaker 2 00:06:20 The only thing I'd add is those customer care reps we glanced on 'em real quick, but they just have a huge breadth of responsibility. Right.
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Speaker 2 00:06:46 They're the person that when one of our customers has a question and they call us, they're expected to know the answer to just about everything. And they know most of the answers. It's amazing, the amount of knowledge that those reps have, but if they don't know the answer, they have, you know, 74 other people who, who they can go to. And so it's cool to see how they work together to take care of our customers.
Speaker 1 00:07:06 Yeah, no, it's awesome. I see some of the emails, so yeah, I do see a lot of, thank you. You're the best rock on, you know yep. Lots of comradery there. So also the field services team, right?
Speaker 2 00:07:16 Yeah. So we got the field services team and that's under Manny de LA Rosa. He's our director of field service. I think he'll be joining you. Well, he, he's got a team of a, of about 60 technicians spread across the state of Florida. Wow. What those guys do is they're all PGT employees. Um, we have, 'em in a PG T van and, and they go out whenever there's an issue with a PPG T product that one of our dealer partners would like help solving those guys will go out and take care of the issue. Uh, so they order the parts they go out and they do the replacement.
Speaker 1 00:07:44 Cool. And so is it just for PGT or do they also help with CGI and echo and WinDor and
Speaker 2 00:07:51 Yeah. Yes, they do all of that. Yeah. Echo PPG T CGI, CGI commercial. Um, most of our Florida brands,
Speaker 1 00:07:58 Florida brands, not just PGT. Correct. Gotcha. Okay. Wow. So your teams get lots of emails and phone calls. Is there a best way for our customers to interact with us when they have a question? Yes,
Speaker 3 00:08:12 Actually, I mean, you're correct. We have lots of calls and lots of emails and that goes on every day, but the best way to communicate would be through our dealer portal. Okay. We actually have a dealer portal called ProConnect mm-hmm <affirmative> and they have a sign on, they can see exactly the status of their case. They can tag their person in those cases. They can ask questions there and they can see the status of every request that they have outstanding.
Speaker 1 00:08:33 Okay. And so that information is basically what we look at when they call anyway. Right. So we're just opening the portal for them and reading what's already accessible to them. Yep.
Speaker 3 00:08:45 Actually that way they'll be able to see the request and see exactly what status it is. Mm-hmm <affirmative> but also that way each one can back each other up. So let's say for instance, I'm working on a certain case, but you get that call when a customer calls in you would be able to pull it up in that portal and actually see that case and see exactly what's going on. Mm. So if they use the portal, they would actually be able to see that for themselves.
Speaker 1 00:09:06 Right. So it would save a little bit of time. I would. Nice. That's excellent. And so ProConnect how do they get to ProConnect they
Speaker 3 00:09:12 Actually have a separate login. Okay. We do have about 20 of our dealers that use the portal itself today, and then anybody who would like to use the portal, they could just reach out to their customer care and we would set them up and they would be able to go through the training remotely, uh, log in and they'll be able to see all their cases from there.
Speaker 1 00:09:29 Nice.
Speaker 2 00:09:29 Yeah. And the exciting thing about that is it is it puts all of their cases in one place. Mm-hmm <affirmative> so all of their customer care interactions and in the very near future, like within that month, the field service cases will be in there as well. So right in ProConnect there's a place where dealer could see all of the requests that they've sent into customer care and the status, as well as all of their field service tickets and the status of those field service tickets. So there's just one place to go to see everything mm-hmm
Speaker 1 00:09:52 <affirmative> so that will actually be happening by the time this episode airs. So that's pretty exciting.
Speaker 2 00:09:58 Yeah. Very cool.
Speaker 1 00:09:59 Yeah. Divine timing. Yeah. It was almost like we planned this, uh, just a couple of other questions. So how do these teams bring value to our dealers?
Speaker 2 00:10:08 I think the biggest way, and talking to dealers, uh, I've heard this a lot is, you know, we're, we're in the window door space, we're in the home construction, the construction industry. Like we try our best to send out good quality product and for things to be perfect. And if that was the case, you wouldn't need customer service or field service mm-hmm <affirmative>. Um, but things happen. Right. And so what our team does is to make sure that we get to a resolution and we wanna get there as fast as we can, but we're gonna follow it through. And we're gonna make sure that our dealers are able to take care of their customers the way and finish a job with the outcome that we wanted it to have from the beginning.
Speaker 1 00:10:42 Right. Okay. I would imagine that close connection really drives some brand loyalty and like they know when they sell PGT products that it's not just a one and done, and they're never gonna hear from us, or we're not gonna answer the phone or we're not gonna respond. They know that we're gonna stand behind the product.
Speaker 2 00:10:59 Yeah. And, and so we have these long standing relationships, you know, you're talking about adding value, these long standing relationships that Christie talked about with the customer care reps. You know, our dealers know that they can just send an email or pick up the phone and call or, you know, soon log into the portal when they have their login and know that there's gonna be someone on the other end of that request. That's gonna answer, 'em take the time to figure out what they need and bring that all the way around, back to resolution.
Speaker 1 00:11:22 Mm, nice. And so what would be the big benefit to a homeowner knowing that we have this kind of support?
Speaker 2 00:11:30 I think the, the benefit to, to the homeowner would be that we are there to support the dealer, right? Mm-hmm <affirmative> and our dealer network is amazing. We have an amazing set of dealers and they need a manufacturer who will support them, who will stand behind them when something does go wrong. Mm-hmm, <affirmative> something doesn't always go wrong. But if it does, you wanna know that the manufacturer is gonna back up the contractor, who's doing the work mm-hmm <affirmative> and you know, the PGT brands, whether it's PGT CGI or WinDor, we're gonna be there. And the customer care up is gonna be there to partner with the dealer to make sure that any kind of issue that comes up is brought through to resolution. And knowing that you have some of the industry best warranties back there behind the product. So you have industry best customer care team and industry best warranty to back up the dealer to make sure that resolution is always just right around the corner.
Speaker 1 00:12:12 Nice. Yeah. We've actually got an episode in this series lined up just around warranty and, uh, Nina Smith is gonna be coming back in to talk about that Manny's coming in as well. And then we've got some others that are gonna be jumping in, uh, we're doing one specific episode around ProConnect so that if people have questions about that, they can tune into that when that gets posted. And so I think this is gonna be a great series. I'm excited about highlighting this team. Um, a lot of them are working from home and working remotely, so I don't even know a lot of the people. And so I'm just gonna be excited even just for myself to learn a little bit more about what they do and, and how that adds value to what we are doing here. So thank you for your time today. It's great to have you in studio and, uh, have a fabulous Wednesday. Thanks
Speaker 2 00:12:54 For having us.
Speaker 1 00:12:55 Yeah. Thanks. P G T I university is the customer education team for an entire family of brands. We began with the original, easy breeze porch and closure line then became P G T America's leading brand of impact resistant windows and doors. We then added CGI C G I C windows, Western windows, new south windows, echo windows and doors, and our latest acquisition and Lynn windows and doors. We create products built to withstand major storms, keeping people safe, secure, and prepared. Our exceptional brands give you the protection you need without compromising design or functionality. P G T I university is here to educate you our listener so that you can be more informed about window and door products.
