New FLTA award highlights customer service

A brand new category has been added to the Fork Lift Truck Association Awards for Excellence 2013 - with the help of a brand new sponsor.

Combilift has agreed to sponsor the inaugural Customer Focus Award, which will be presented to the fork truck dealership deemed to have provided the most innovative or appropriate solution to a customer's particular materials handling requirements.

The Award, which is open to companies from throughout the UK and Ireland, will recognise the dealership that has best demonstrated a commitment to service; putting the customer at the heart of its business, and embodying the FLTA's core principles of productivity, integrity and safety.

As Combilift's Managing Director Martin McVicar explains, the company is keen to acknowledge dealers who actually focus on the customer's needs - rather than just offering standard equipment that they happen to have available.

“Ongoing product development by manufacturers is a key to progress in the sector and is recognised at the FLTA Awards. Combilift has initiated the Customer Focus Award in appreciation of the invaluable contribution made by the industry's dealerships. Their groundwork in the field with customers, analysis of specific requirements and problem solving that they offer is a crucial link in the chain when it comes to getting new solution products into the marketplace.”

Entry to the Customer Focus Award category is open to all dealers, whether or not they are FLTA members. Nominations should be made by dealers or customers, via the Awards section of the FLTA website at www.fork-truck.org.uk/awards, and should include a summary in fewer than 100 words.

The closing date for entries is 31st December 2012.

To be eligible, the solution must have been finalised during the calendar year of the nomination. Nominations will be vetted by the Chief Executive of the FLTA. The winner will be determined through a public vote by those attending the Awards event. Should there be a large number of entries, regional finals will be used to select the top entries.

Thanking Combilift for its involvement, FLTA Chairman Martyn Fletcher says: “We are delighted to have Combilift on board as a sponsor. Without the help of our sponsors and supporters the FLTA Awards would simply not be possible. We are doubly delighted that Combilift's sponsorship has allowed us to shine a light on another very important aspect of our industry's activities.”

No stranger to the FLTA Awards, Combilift's own collection includes the 'Victor Ludorum' prize from Awards 2012. This unique accolade, presented in an Olympic-themed ceremony, honoured the Combi-CB model as the ultimate winner of winners in the Awards' history to date.

Combilift join a list of Sponsors and Supporters that reads like a 'who's who' of the industry's biggest players. With this latest addition, the Awards is Sponsored by four of the UK's top ten lift truck manufacturers: Doosan Industrial Vehicle UK, Mitsubishi Forklift Trucks UK and Yale Europe. The UK's leading providers of ancillary equipment and service are equally well-represented among this year's Award Sponsors: Aldermore Bank plc, B&B Attachments, BNP Paribas Leasing Solutions, Interfit Ltd, Powercell. Returning to show their commitment to Awards 2013 are three long-term Event Supporters: Bibby Leasing Ltd, Curtis Instruments (UK) Ltd and The Oval Group.