Like foo fighters – My pride in our Technical Customer Service team

I choose the name “foo fighters” for these colaborators in analogy to what this term originaly meant. Actually that was how Allied aircraft pilots in World War II, which reported encounters with unidentified flying objects, had been collectively called. And this compares a lot to our own situation in many cases, when customers, sometimes very far away from our factory in Itatiba, ask us for support for getting problems in their installations solved, which nobody can really understand at the first moment but which need a quick fix in order to allow our customers to continue with their operations. 

We behave like a fire brigade when such calls arrive. Ednei Leite (ednei.leite@vulkan.com, +55 11 98387 9985), our Technical Customer Service Manager, and Francisco Monção (francisco.moncao@vulkan.com, +55 11 99527 4259), our Quality Manager, and their teams colleagues are available during 24 hours on 364 days, means non-stop, whenever one of our customers needs support from us in emergency situations. Our whole management team is connected by different communication means. Whenever a customer call arrives at one of us, all other Vulkan do Brasil management team members are beeing informed and involved immediately, no matter at which hour and during which day this happens. Immediate and highly qualified customer attendance is one of the distinctive factors, with which we explain our reconfirmed high attractivity for our customers and which makes one of the many differences between ourselfes and our competitors. 

This picture shows some of our technical customer service team`s activities for customers in Mexico, Malaysia, Moçambique, Chile, Ghana and Peru.

When a customer contacts us because of an emergency situation, we call immediately an internal “war council” of all our own specialists for exactly the particular subjects, with which our customer approached us. We do these “”war council” meetings as physical meetings within our factory or – like nowadays during the Covid-19 crises – online. Ednei Leite, in his function and responsability as our Technical Customer Service Manager, together with – depending on the concrete subjects – Francisco Monção, our Quality Manager, Josial Leal (josias.leal@vulkan.com, +55 11 98571 2107), our Development & Engineering Director, Ferdinand Senske (ferdinand.senske@vulkan.com, +55 1197461 4712), our Vice President Operations, make an initial quick analysis of the information received from the customer. First problem solving ideas are then normally already beeing discussed between our specialists. If necessary, further investigations are beeing carried out in direct contact with the customer. Availability of all materials, tools and the best technicians and/or engineers for the execution of all technical problem solving measures at our factory, our suppliers, our external service providers and at the customer`s facility are beeing carefully checked and discussed with the customer. 

If it finally comes out, that immediately or after a certain preparation time one or more of our specialists need to go to the customer, all travel activities are beeing started in close coordination and cooperation with the customer. Our Technical Customer Service and Application Engineering team members are experienced travellers. As we sell our products (all types of couplings, brakes and backstops for industrial and marine mechanical power transmission applications) for installation at customers (marine, power generation, mining, steel, sugar, paper, oil & gas, bulk solids handling and transport in general, cranes,….) allover the world, we are very much used to provide our international – the same as our national brazilian – customers with all types of technical support like installation supervision, commissioning, start-up participation, product and maintenance training, verification and optimisation and – for sure – problem solving. Just a detail, but very often extremely important. We supply our complete technical product documentation incl. drawings and operation and maintenance manuals either in english, spanish or portuguese language, exactly as each of the customers needs it. And in the case of customers, who need other than these languages, we can supply this as well. 

In some cases the missions of our technicians and engineers are really “foo fighter” missions, when at the first glance unexplicable technical situations appear. We do not always find immediate explications and we do not always have appropriate solutions right on hand. But even in such complicated situations we almost always – together with our customers and fully and strongly supported by our factory – finally find the right solutions for our customers. This is actually one of the many reasons, why we have been able to gain such a strong and trustful relationship with so many of our customers, wherever in the world they are. In fact this is our business model – we don´t want to be cosidered just as suppliers. Our desired role is, to become fully recognized by our customers as their business partners and friends. Our approach is successful colaboration and cooperation with them on the long term, not just spot business and sales from the shelf, as many of our competitors do.

Ednei Leite and his complete Technical Customer Service team know the globe already very well. Our specialists are actively supporting our customers in Australia, in many African countries, allover Latin America and also at many places in Asia and Europe since years successfully. We go to where our customers need us. The only limiting factor for us at the moment are the temporary travel restrictions imposed by several countries because of Covid-19. But in many countries worldwide we can call support from our colleagues of our Vulkan sister companies and also from our worldwide network of authorized, qualified distributors and service providers, whenever needed and helpful. There can hardly be found a problem when it comes to couplings, brakes and backstops for all kinds of marine and industrial mechanical power transmission applications without a propper Vulkan solution. 

I am extremely proud, that we have accomplished this strong and efficient Technical Customer Service set up with availability for all our worldwide customers from out of our Engineering & Technical Service Center and our factory in Itatiba, Sao Paulo, Brazil, during the last 5 years. Just to demonstrate my personal unlimited identification and commitment as President of Vulkan do Brasil, I would like to mention to You, that I am always personally beeing informed immediately – the same as my colleagues Ednei, Ferdinand, Francisco and Josias – whenever a customer calls us for support because of an emergency situation at his installation. From the first moment of such cases on, all involved team members at our company communicate, share all information and take all decisions by means of special whatsapp groups, which we open for each such case immediately and which we only close again, when all activities have concluded successfully and after all our employees have arrived back home safely again. This has become a question of honor and pride for all of us. Nothing and nobody gets lost at Vulkan do Brasil !

Here my music recommendation – fitting nicely to this post and subject – for this weekend:

I hope You found this interesting. Please do not hesitate, to address all Your remaining doubts or questions with respect to our Technical Customer Service portfolio and capabilities to me (klaus.hepp@vulkan.com, +55 11 97503 9323).  

See You back here again tomorrow morning for my 3rd sunday post since I started this blog.