or many years, the one complaint you heard about Shasta was that its customer service wasn’t as good as the quality of its pools. But that perception has been changing steadily.
In 1998, surveys indicated that approximately 50 percent of Shasta’s customers would refer the company. Those numbers have since shot up to 75 percent and are increasing every year. To keep the percentages rising, the company launched an accountability alarm system in April.
Similar to an airport switchboard that shows flight numbers, destinations and on-time/delayed status, the system is on display for all to see. Projected onto the wall, the large rectangular image scrolls through all the contracted new pools and prevents projects from slipping through the cracks.
This Integrated Customer Management Software, aka the ICMS alarm, lists the name of each project and the sales representative handling the account. If a project falls more than 10 days behind schedule, the text turns red and signals managers to a potential problem.
What’s more, in the words of Andy Blake, a manufacturing operations officer who has been with the company since 1974, “No one wants to see their name up there in red.”
