BSIF Service Excellence Awards

The recipients were asked to score their supplier in five areas:

1. Response: Does the entrant respond effectively and in a timely manner to calls, e-mails, etc? Do they call back when they say they will? Do they listen well?
2. Accuracy: Do they meet order needs accurately? Do they meet promised lead times?
3. Support: Do they make the supply process easy, offering innovative services such as electronic ordering, stock management, automated payments, etc?
4. Overall, has the service received improved or deteriorated over the last year?
5. How does the customer rate them in comparison to their other suppliers?

When all the questionnaires were returned, the scores were added up to determine who had the highest ratings and the top five were presented with either a Commended, Highly Commended or Winner award.

Commended

Turner & Townsend

Peter McGettrick, director, SHQ, said: “The award is voted for by each entrants’ own customers so it is a privilege to be so well regarded and supported by our Clients.”

Portwest

Portwest has 113 years of experience and a heritage of quality, value and service. Firmly established as a world leader in the design and manufacture of innovative safety clothing, footwear, gloves and PPE, Portwest has distribution centres and sales support offices throughout six global locations including; UK, USA, Australia, Sharjah, Poland and Ireland ensure unrivalled customer service.

"We are committed to continually improving the Portwest customer experience," a spokesperson said. "As part of that strategy the BSIF Safety Service Award is an excellent way of gaining valuable insights into how our customers view our offering.

"Portwest are delighted to be awarded the BSIF service excellence award which recognises the exceptional and innovative service solutions we offer our customers. We put our customers at the centre of everything we do and have over 100 multi-language customer support staff worldwide. Every critical business decision made within the organisation, starts with: “How can we make our customers life easier?” or: ”How does that impact our customers?” This commitment and customer centred culture is inherent throughout the Portwest organisation and we know ensures our customers get the very best customer service every time."

Highly Commended

Procter Machine Guarding

Procter Machine Guarding is part of family-owned Procter Bros, which has been delivering product and service excellence since 1740. Its Machine Guarding business has been in operation for close to 100 years and is managed by John Procter (fifth generation of the Procter family). The company designs, manufactures and installs a comprehensive range of high quality machine guards from its sites in South Wales and Leeds, and is one of the UK’s leading machine safety specialists.

John Procter, director of Procter Machine Guarding told HSM: "Despite being in operation for close to 100 years and priding ourselves on putting our customers first, we have not entered a service award before. We thought it was high time we put our customer service to the test so entered the BSIF Safety Award Customer Service category to benchmark the quality of our customer service against other safety product/service providers. Having this external acknowledgement of the quality of our service is a fantastic achievement and all the more meaningful because this is a direct result of customer feedback.

“I feel so very proud of our team and the level of service we deliver as a business. So to our hard-working team and our loyal and supportive clients, thank you very much. You’ve made a huge contribution to our achievements and we are thrilled to be recipients of this BSIF Service Award.”

Procter Machine Guarding prides itself on putting its customers first and works hard to deliver quality designs and products that help make its customers’ businesses safe. "The relationships we develop with our customers work exceptionally well for both parties," John concluded. "We forge very productive partnerships as illustrated by the customers who supported us with feedback in our bid for this award."

Effective Software

Effective Software is recognised as the largest health & safety software provider in the UK & Ireland with clients across all five continents and industry sectors. The company helps organisations with their health and safety processes to minimise risk, promote positive safety culture and prove duty of care. Its hands-on health and safety experience enables Effective Software to clearly understand customers' specific needs and configure its system to their specific requirements.

Simple and intuitive to use, flexible user configuration, complete paperless auditing and inspection solutions, and powerful reporting capabilities ensure the company's software is the perfect solution to improve organisations' health and safety management needs.

"The area that Effective prides itself on and stands out from the rest is customer success," said a spokesperson. "Our 97% retention rate is a clear result of the hard work and dedication of the team. This is why it was an easy decision to enter the BSiF Safety Awards and put our team to the test.

"This award means a huge amount to us at Effective Software and is a great endorsement of the people we have working in the company at all levels and not just those with a Customer Success title. When we set up the company and before we hired our first employee our number one goal was to be customer-centric and ensure we looked after all our customers to the very best of our abilities. This is still very much our number one goal and something we look for in every person that joins our team.

"How we grow as a company is down to our customers and without them we do not have a business. So, from the first time someone sees our web site and makes a call to us, we want to ensure that they get the very best experience - not only using our software but in every engagement with us. We invest significantly in ways to improve our customers journey with us and look at each customer as a partner rather than just a revenue stream. Money is important to us as a company to grow but we recognised that unless customers have the best possible experience with every engagement with us they will not be customers for very long."