The key is the bigger you get, the smaller you need to feel to the customer.
Tulsa, OK (PRWEB) October 18, 2013
Commercial aircraft parts distributor First Wave Aerospace believes the challenge in an industry rapidly consolidating is to be customer-centric and combine high-tech with “high-touch” customer service.
"The challenge is that the bigger you get the smaller you need to feel to the Customer,” Tony McAnly, President of First Wave Aerospace said. “Our goal is not to be the biggest in the aircraft spare parts distribution business, it’s to be the best at serving the Customer.”
Since a new ownership team took over the 21-year-old firm in May of 2013, they have tripled the size of the Sales Team by re-training and repositioning operations personnel into Customer Service and Sales roles on the inside Sales Team. As part of this effort, different staff have been tasked with being the administrators of the firm’s electronic sales quoting and the results of been “phenomenal,” according to the First Wave’s General Manager.
“We have our most experienced Sales Team member as the administrator of our Inventory Locator Service (ILS) account and he consistently stays current with well over 100 daily RFQ quotes on that aircraft parts search engine source. We appointed two of the re-positioned people to Aeroxchange.com, the search engine owned by some of the leading airlines and they stay current daily on that electronic source for RFQs and POs and they have proven the old adage is correct that ‘things you pay attention to, tend to improve’ because our sales have increased significantly in a short time by dedicating people to these electronic sources,” Glen Hyden, Vice President & GM of First Wave Aerospace, said.
Dedicated resources do not stop there, as another one of First Wave’s most experienced Sales Team Members with almost two decades of tenure is appointed to the Company's largest customer’s for personalized RFQs, status updates, and urgent requirements. Another Sales Team Member is dedicated to First Wave’s Independent Sales Representatives outside the US and a strategic account with a major parts manufacturer in the US.
Tim White, Vice President, Inventory Development, First Wave Aerospace, said the consolidation that is occurring in the commercial aircraft parts distribution business plays into First Wave’s “High Tech & High Touch” business model.
“Customers worldwide tell us that they get lost in the web sites and automated systems of the OEMs and large parts distributors and they can’t even get live people to answer their AOG after-hours calls. We’re high-tech for the Customers who want to transact business electronically, but were also high touch for the Customers that need a part immediately and want to talk to a live, experienced human being. That’s why our most experienced people answer our AOG parts on-demand line: (918) 740-0757 anytime, 24 x 7 x 365,” White said.
First Wave Aerospace has one of the largest inventories of commercial aerospace parts in the Americas with 280,000 line items of 6.8 million parts in warehouse facilities centrally-located in Tulsa.
