How Maroon gained a competitive advantage with three words:
“Creating Customer Success®”
We courted this customer, we wooed this customer, we pitched this customer, and each time we got … a rejection.
That customer – a company we’ll call ToughNut Inc. – didn’t even want to give us a shot. They were loyal and perfectly happy with their specialty chemical suppliers.
Until a couple of weeks ago.
That’s when one of our Account Managers, who had not given up, got a frantic call from a ToughNut Exec.
“We are going to literally shut down our plant tomorrow,” they said. “We can’t get our raw materials.”
They asked if we had a particular specialty chemical in stock, an offset material that would keep their plant up and running. We did, and our team immediately moved into action.
Within 24 hours of that initial conversation, our material was inside ToughNut’s plant, which never had to stop its production line. By that time, we’d also received orders from a second ToughNut facility.
The emails came too, with messages like: “Oh my God, I wish my other suppliers were half as good as you guys,” and “This is amazing.”
These kinds of stories happen all the time at Maroon Group.
We cracked ToughNut, not with slick presentations, fancy dinners or deep discounts. We did it with a sales team that persevered and service so extraordinary that it went beyond customer “service” to customer “success” — as in “Creating Customer Success®!”
Yes, we trademarked it.
Those three words are part of the “secret sauce” of Maroon’s competitive advantage, of our success and our strong reputation. Yet we decided to not keep it a secret at all. In fact, we love to share it.
I urge you to replicate Creating Customer Success®, copy it. You’ll get the same remarkable results we did.
So, how did we do it?
1. We created the right culture and environment. Since the late 1970’s when Maroon was born, we’ve woven customer service into every part of our business. It is literally everywhere, the relationships that our sales team maintains with customers, on the walls, on documents, in meetings, on every performance review. It’s in our mission and in our core values. It’s always on our minds.
2. We found out what customers wanted. A couple years ago, we hired a firm to research our market, both the companies we did business with and those – like ToughNut — that we didn’t work with. This was blind research, and we remained anonymous.
The firm interviewed plant workers, senior executives, tech and lab workers – anyone who might have a say in the decision about a supplier. We wanted to know exactly what they wanted and needed.
The results were clear: Customers wanted consistent products, consistent delivery and consistent supply.
3. We made those customer needs our “products.” We are not a manufacturer. But that doesn’t mean we can’t have a product.
We decided to take those customer desires — product consistency; on-time, in- full delivery; reliable inventory – and turn them into our widgets.
4. Using data, we set out to perfect them. The old adage “what’s measured is managed” cannot be overstated.
We began to gather all the quantifiable data we could on any of our operations and processes that might affect those three products — from order entry to shipping performance to customer complaints. We began measuring them all.
Using the data we gleaned, we launched a formalized program to spot and fix the problems and to find and expand what works well.
5. We share the results. Accountability is a great motivator. Visit our website right now and you’ll find, on the homepage, current statistics on our three “products.”
You’ll see that things are working:
- Returns or complaints on less than 0.1% of orders.
- On-time, in-full delivery on 96% of orders.
- An average of more than two months of inventory on hand. This stuff works.
6. Add a human touch. While data is powerful, business is done by people, like sales and support teams that have great relationships with customers.
Call Maroon and a human being will answer the phone. Chances are, it’ll be LePreece Thomas, who cherishes her role as “Director of First Impressions.”
We’ve empowered our sales team, our customer-service team – all employees – when it comes to helping customers. If someone calls with a problem, our team can forgo approvals and permissions, use their judgment and do something revolutionary: solve the problem.
Their answers are never “We can’t do that” or “Let me check with my boss on that.” Instead, they say things like: “Let’s make this happen!”
7. Never stop. Creating Customer Success® is a long game. There is no finish line. The clock never hits double zero. Your company, like Maroon, must make this a part of life. You can always find more goals, more service improvements, more customers to help …
And more ToughNuts to crack.
Mike McKenna
Chief Operating Officer
Maroon Group LLC
1390 Jaycox Road
Avon, Ohio 44011
440-937-1000
June 23, 2016. D.B. Becker, A Maroon Group LLC Company, a world-class supplier of specialty additives, resins, and pigments, continues to expand its U.S. reach with the addition of Josh Fink as an Account Manger to cover Southern NJ and Eastern PA.
AVON, OHIO, May 25, 2016. Maroon Group, 
AVON, OHIO, May 12, 2016. Maroon Group, a world-class supplier of specialty additives, resins, pigments, and packaging, continues to expand its U.S. reach with the addition of Michael Yarnelle as its newest Account Manger to cover Northern Indiana and the Chicago area.
Avon, OH. May 10, 2016. Daniel Canavan Sr., the President of D.B. Becker, a Maroon Group LLC Company, was presented with a 40 Years of Service Pin Award by the Sales Association of the Chemical Industry (SACI) on March 31, 2016. Founded in 1921 at the Chemists’ Club of New York, SACI is an organization designed to be a primary resource for business and networking opportunities for sales and marketing professionals in the chemical industries. Dan served as President of SACI from 1990-1991 and was SACI’s Sales Professional of the Year in 1998.
Maroon Group | Specialty Chemicals Supplier 