Manufacturing Solutions for Customer Success

This pulls excerpts from our podcast, Inspiring Innovation: Leaders in Manufacturing featuring Lyn Lemke. To watch our podcast episode, please visit Inspiring Innovation: Episode 1 or subscribe to our channel on your favorite podcast platform.

Here at Polo, our customers have confidence that we will find solutions to their problems. During uncertain times, during supply chain issues, our teams work diligently to ensure our customers’ success. We have been in this business for over 75 years now, and our longevity can be attributed to our people and our desire to put our customers’ needs first.

Early Bad News is Good News

The pandemic created some crazy times, and a new phrase arose in the manufacturing circles and networks of “Early Bad News is Good News.” With large projects and large volumes, supply chain constraints and different problems that come up, our team always meets the call of our customers when these issues arise. Our job is to ensure that when bad news arises, we can flip that into a good news situation.

No one likes bad news and it’s not easy to deliver. But it is critically important to one, be able to receive the news and process it for the information that you do have at hand, because bad news often comes in waves. You may not have all the information all at once. So manage with the information that you do have and analyze it to make sure you aren’t “crying wolf” when talking to your customers. You want to make sure to get them the information right away, but you need to ensure you have as much accurate information as possible.

One way we can combat bad news is by recognizing the importance of connecting the right people to the right situation. We have to understand what our customers need and then use that information to find the appropriate person, the expert, within our team. To turn that information into something “good,” we work to get all the right people together and troubleshoot. We look at what has happened, and then determine what we are going to do. We analyze, we brainstorm, and we build options that can be presented to our customers. We don’t just approach them with bad news, we come with solutions. This opens the door to collaboration with our customers, where they can suggest options as well since they know their business best. But by collaborating, we can work to turn that bad news into good news.

Sitting Across the Table from Big Ideas

Our teams at Polo get the amazing opportunity to sit across the table of people that are inventing the products that go int our hospitals, that go to our first responders, or that might save the life of someone we know. To be a part of these experiences is humbling, it’s very fulfilling, and rewarding to be a small part of the amazing products that we produce. These products save lives, they improve the quality of life, they make lives more enjoyable. It makes you feel like what you are doing every day makes a difference.

Every project is so different which leads to every day being different. This allows us to always be learning. Each new product presents an opportunity to learn something new. It allows us to expand our own knowledge and build upon our capabilities even more. There are critical products that we make that truly save lives. So we don’t just sit across the table and listen to these amazing ideas, we partner with our customers, we take on the needs of our customers because we know what they are striving to achieve and how important it is. We want to be a part of that vision and contribute to their success.

Building Long-Lasting Partnerships

At Polo, we bring value to our customers through our partnerships. Our partnerships begin by ensuring that we know our customers and that we understand their needs so that we can meet and exceed their expectations. At the beginning of a brand-new project, we learn about the missions, values, and goals of our customers. We work through the project meeting to the approval going into production. But the partnership doesn’t end there, it’s a continuous partnership. We continue to keep in contact to make sure things are running smoothly and that the customers are getting everything they need. This continues into post-production and transitions to downstream product lines.

Our customers know they can reach out to us about anything. If there’s a design change or a potential quality concern. We are their liaisons. We help them through anything that should come up in the future. We work to minimize pain points for them at all costs so that they can do their job and focus on what they need to do.

Our customers come to us and know that we will solve any issues that arise. They have that comfort that comes from building that relationship, so they trust us. Not only in the confidence that we exude from 75 years in business, which is a proud achievement, but that we prove it every day. Our customers are truly partners and that doesn’t stop once we go to order. Our customers seek responsiveness, and we want to provide them with that. We may not have the answers right out the gate, but they know we will work on it and find them a resolution.

Want to hear Lyn’s funniest trade show story? Be sure to watch our video podcast at Inspiring Innovation: Episode 1 or listen in on your favorite podcast platform!