“We Are What We Repeatedly Do. Excellence, then, is not an Act, But a Habit”
In my twitter feed I often see the aforementioned quote that is attributed to Aristotle. As this blog points out, the quote should really be attributed to Will Durant author of The Story of Philosophy, because it is his interpretation of what Aristotle would have said if he spoke English. While writing this blog I found out Aristotle didn’t really write the quote. In retrospect, clearly he didn’t write, if he did it might look something like this “Είμαστε Τι επανειλημμένα Do. Αριστείας, τότε, δεν είναι μια πράξη, αλλά μια συνήθεια”, but I digress.
Working with customers, resellers and catalog houses, I’m amazed at the different company cultures. Some customers will come to me six months before a project comes up to talk about the applications. They ask us for drawings, specifications, and certifications for the products that we recommend for their applications. They want to analyze all possible scenarios and plan for every eventuality. These customers greatly appreciate our fully loaded knowledge base and availability of technical information.
Other customers call me for a quote and confirmation. They spent some time online, downloaded a CAD model and created a working plan, but before they pull the trigger, they want to run it by someone else. These customer greatly appreciate the fact that the phones are answered by human beings and we have a fully staffed Application Engineering department with engineers who are always eager to discuss applications and possibilities.
Finally, we have the customers, who I never spoke to before that need a product NOW and are willing to do anything to get. Shipping companies love these customers, because we have our products on the shelves ready to ship, but it will cost you air freight and a flux capacitor to get it there yesterday.
At EXAIR, our culture expects excellence. And no matter the kind of customer who contacts us, we know you are all trying to achieve it too – we are just trying to help. When our customer calls in to ask for something yesterday, we will already have it on the shelf ready to go. Unless it is a custom product, our production staff has already machined, built, and tested our product to our excellent standard. I’m constantly amazed at the effort and continued excellence put out by customer service, engineering, marketing, and production. When the customer calls in to ask for product yesterday, 99.98% of the time I’m able to say that the shipment will be at the dock waiting for the shipping truck by 3:00 PM EST. We can typically do that without an extraordinary effort, because we practice excellent customer service everyday. It’s a habit we are not trying to quit.
Dave Woerner
Application Engineer
DaveWoerner@EXAIR.com
@EXAIR_DW