Delivering service quality with a swing
When mechanical engineer Karsten Sondheim first started making golf clubs in his garage in Phoenix, Arizona back in 1959, little did he know that his hobby would grow to become one of the world’s leading golf brands. It was Karsten’s frustration with putting which first inspired him to create a putter which made a ‘pinging’ sound when it struck a golf ball. Today, the PING brand is familiar to golfers everywhere as a name for innovation, quality and service – and is the No. 1 in Europe.
PSU Technology Group (PSU) has been supporting the European Headquarters of PING in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire since 2005, where the 210-strong production, administration and customer service team is based.
‘Play your best’
Day to day, the PING customer service team looks after the needs of golf pros at golf clubs and approved retailers who custom fit each golf club to every player’s individual swing. The company’s ethos is centred on being the very best, so that, in turn, golfers ‘play their best’ too. It is therefore vital that their telecoms supplier matched their exceptionally high service standards.
PSU’s partnership with PING began with providing support and maintenance for the company’s Inter-Tel Axxess telephone system, as their previous maintainer did not share their passion for service.
Andrew Lee, Systems Support Analyst at PING, said; “We moved to PSU because the support we were receiving at the time wasn’t very good. Unfortunately, problems weren’t being fixed and our supplier didn’t respond when we offered them the opportunity to expand their relationship with us. Since PSU took over, service quality has never been an issue.”
‘Dramatically improved’ call response times
In 2008, PING asked PSU to carry out a major system software upgrade, including their Callview package. This provided a substantial amount of additional functionality for the business, including access to detailed call reports for individual agents. Staff were also delighted to discover that the company’s call response times had improved dramatically – by 100%!
Andrew said; “Before the upgrade, only 45% of our calls were answered within 10 seconds. As a result of the upgrade, we were able to analyse our call statistics and now 90% of our sales office calls are answered within 10 seconds.”
Shortly afterwards, PING was voted ‘Supplier of the Year’ by both the TGI and Foremost golf groups – consisting of almost 1,500 green grass professionals throughout the UK, Ireland and Holland – and it is a title they’ve continued to hold for the past 3 years in a row.
Cost savings of £4,000 a year
A year on, in 2009, PING was in a position to change its Lines & Calls supplier, but Andrew admits that they initially had reservations.
“You hear stories about poor service with discounted business call providers, so we were nervous to move. Also, because we mostly receive inbound calls, our drive was never to dramatically reduce costs over quality of service. It was simply a case of why pay more, when we could be paying less?
“Since moving our Lines & Calls over to PSU, there’s been no degradation in service at all and we’re saving £4,000 a year.”
Expanding the business
PING continues to buck the trend with its ongoing success and this is reflected in the major expansion taking place at the Gainsborough site, due for completion around March 2012. The new office development will include 50% more space for all areas of the business, as well as improved facilities for staff. Of course, the increased capacity will also allow PING to increase its workforce, placing further demands on their telephone system – but with PSU on board, Andrew isn’t worried about the future.
“We will be looking to take on more staff, but our current Inter-Tel Axxess system has reached its user capacity. With that in mind, we’re already talking to PSU about upgrading to the latest technology when the time comes.”
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