Our very first client was an established family-owned shredding business in the southeastern US. As shredding companies go, they had been around a long time and were experienced in the industry. They were regularly running between 4 and 5 shred trucks – always for long days. Though they experienced some success, improvements were sorely needed.
They knew that they were busy but inefficient. Information was kept in a mix of spreadsheets, binders, a CRM database, QuickBooks, and a white board that took up a whole wall. There was a full-time scheduler who was assisted by other office staff. Their system worked but the workflow was ponderous and it was too easy for mistakes to be made.
Our first challenge was that there was not a single master consolidated customer list, which is not at all uncommon when there are several different places information is saved. We started by helping them figure out what they had. Line by line we helped them build a master customer list, then figured out who was a customer and who was a service location of a customer (big difference). Next we populated their Q-Shred tables and started training.
The first test came dramatically on the second day of training when everyone realized that the scheduler had not come in to work and instead emailed a letter of resignation. Had this occurred the week prior to implementation of Q-Shred it would have been a disabling event because of how much this individual knew but had not recorded, relying on memory and scribbled post-it notes. Instead, the departure was never noticed by the customers and work was split among other administrative staff without stress.
As the systems stabilized, overtime dropped both for the drivers and in the office. Missed stops went from commonplace to a rarity, and during the Covid-19 crisis the office staff was able to seamlessly transition to remote operations.
The owner now says:
“I cannot express adequately how blessed we have been by your ingenuity and continual service to us over the years.
We are so excited by the progress we see in our company’s ability to operate at a higher level due to the triage provided by the ShredMetrics team. Not only did you help stabilize many uncertainties of our operations, you patiently escorted us to a “new life” in our business by improving processes in all aspects of our firm.
We have developed great confidence in our ability to provide consistently excellent service and look forward to future long term growth. Our team members are so much better equipped to be customer service superstars. Now instead of being behind the curve, we are chasing ways to be at the front. That is quite a feat!”
