A spotlight on Customer Experience
As our world evolves at a rapid pace with new technologies emerging, our unwavering dedication and passion for supporting our customers remains unchanged.
Our engineering solutions support our customers’ most complex problems. Understanding our customers and providing world-class customer service alongside our diverse sector knowledge and knowhow is crucial to ensuring we continue to deliver Breakthrough Engineering for a better world.
“Our teams are tireless when it comes to doing what's right for our customers. Time and time again, customers tell us they value our deep expertise, our ability to help them think critically and differently about how to approach and solve their problems. They know that when they come to IMI, they're working with experts that care for their project and value them as a partner for the long-term, not just the one project or product purchase.”
Lacy Surber
Vice President, Customer Experience
Recently, we asked three members of our global expert Customer Experience teams about their experience of Customer Experience at IMI, how we are creating impact for our customers, and what new trends are on the horizon for the future of Customer Experience.
Lacy Surber joined IMI in 2022 as Vice President of Customer Experience for Life Technology. With over 15 years’ experience in brand, strategy, marketing, and customer experience, Lacy is passionate about customer experience and describes it as being “at the heart of everything we do”.
Martin Geobey joined IMI as an Apprentice in 1986, progressing through technical support, technical management and project management before specialising in sales. Martin currently works as a Distribution Channel Director for EMEA and says that “our people” are what helps make our customer service stand out.
After joining IMI in 2005 as a Customer Service and Quality Assistant, Louise has over 18 years’ experience in Customer Service at IMI. Louise currently works as as a Global Customer Experience Director and summarises excellent customer service using three words: passion, commitment, and empathy.
Can you tell us a bit about what inspired you to pursue a career in Customer Experience?
Louise: My very first jobs were working in coffee shops and call centres where I was constantly interacting with people, and it is here that I discovered my passion for helping others. I observed how exceptional service and genuine empathy can transform a problem into a memorable and lasting positive experience. As my career progressed, I realised how much delighting our customers not only gives me a huge sense of personal satisfaction, but also has a direct impact on fostering loyalty and ensuring future growth.
Why is Customer Experience so important to IMI as a whole?
Lacy: Our customers' experience really is at the heart of everything we do. From the teams who design our products, who manage the stock, build our products, who check the quality of them, to packing and shipping teams, our sales teams, our legal counsel who engage in agreements, finance teams who collect payment and our customer service teams who support our customers and help retain them; each of us have an impact to making our customer experience best-in-class. Customer Experience really is the heart of IMI.
In your opinion, what are the key elements that make our Customer Experience stand out? How do we prioritise customer satisfaction and engagement?
Martin: It’s our people. We are passionate about going the extra mile and solving the customer problem. For our Customer Service teams and our support staff, NPS survey feedback is reviewed daily to ensure that we never lose sight of how we are meeting our customer’s needs.
With Customer Service Week taking place in October, what should we keep in mind to provide the best customer experience possible?
Louise: Empower your teams with the right skills, tools, knowledge, and decision authority to exceed your customer’s expectations, recognising and celebrating those efforts. Engage and delight your customers by anticipating their needs before they do, personalise as many interactions as possible and deliver on your promises.
Can you share a bit of insight into a project or a Customer Experience success story from your time at IMI?
Lacy: Something that stands out to me recently and I think about this a lot, was this past June I was meeting with a distribution customer in Chicago who looked at me and said, "our success is your success, and we have a lot of success together over the last 20+ years and that will continue because you all care."
Martin: One of our key distributors was becoming frustrated that they were not able to self-serve as much as they would like, and this was primarily because they were selling a high mix of specialist products where online information is more limited. By listening to the distributor and really understanding the issue, we were able to design a daily automated report which significantly improved the situation. We have a great relationship with this partner and sales are growing strongly.
What trends or innovations do you see on the horizon that could further enhance our ability to meet and exceed customer expectations and problem solving in the future?
Martin: Being able to offer ever more services online using AI is definitely something that could provide further service options and of course, these services are available around the clock which offers even greater access to support for our customers.
Lacy: We are seeing ways in which AI could be used as a support tool to help bring faster resolutions to those inquiries from our customers that are what would be considered "routine", things like "where's my order?" or "do you sell this size valve?". Also, we are exploring new technology around configuration of products to use new 3-D digital imaging tools which could give the customer a better understanding of what our products can help them solve, potentially enabling them to get them 80% of the way complete when it comes to their design and quotation. Additionally, there are Digital Customer Communities being tested in Climate Control, that provide over 400 knowledge articles at customers’ fingertips, as well as a place for customers to engage with one another - this is something that's so common in B2C that is expanding in B2B, and we are really excited to see the community continue to grow and where this could take us.
