Just Say Yes
CUSTOMER SERVICE 4
Graniterock’s Bruce Woolpert shares insights on how to win business, build new markets, and keep customers satisfied.
Next to price and product quality, customer service is the key for contractors who purchase aggregates. Nearly
Just Say
Building in quality
During a 10-year tenure as an executive with Hewlett Packard (HP), Woolpert learned firsthand the importance of understanding and fulfilling customer needs. In its effort to build defect-free computer products, HP told the manufacturers of its integrated circuits that if they produced units with more than three defects per million, the company would discontinue doing business with them. One of the U.S. manufacturers was unable to meet that quality standard and lost all of its business with HP, which opted to buy Japanese integrated circuits for its products.
hree simple words underlie the success of Watsonville, Calif.-based Graniterock: Yes, we will. More than a slogan, ‘Yes, we will’ is the company’s commitment to do whatever say that it is very it takes to serve the needs of its customers. The philosophy was born in the ’80s after Bruce important in their Woolpert, grandson of the company founder, A.R. procurement decisions. Wilson, returned to the family business. “‘Yes, we will’ means that we listen to what a customer wants, we understand what they want, and we will figure out how to do it,” says Woolpert, who serves as by Therese Dunphy, Graniterock’s president and CEO. “It’s up to us. We Editor-in-Chief don’t make it our customer’s problem.”
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