Going the extra mile for customers

Jacek Mainka leads the account management team responsible for all existing client accounts. He ensures that all customers are satisfied with Radial’s services and support. Additionally, he supports internal and external stakeholders in achieving their goals and business objectives. Read the interview with Jacek to learn about Radial’s approach to customer care.

What do you do in the account management department?

We manage existing client contracts and ensure the execution of obligations in a timely and satisfactory manner. Each person in a team serves as a direct point of contact for each type of query. It means they need adequate education and experience in all key areas, such as operations, transportation, reporting, invoicing and many more. The account management team also helps to enable the growth of our customers by offering improvements and alternative services. That makes the role cross-functional, as they need to keep a helicopter view and cooperate closely with all departments at Radial.

The key elements in building strong partnerships with customers, according to you, are…

To build a strong partnership, we need to remain a trustworthy partner and uphold our commitments. Open communication is key, whether we are discussing positive or negative matters.

When things go well, everyone is happy. However, the best partnerships are forged by navigating extraordinary situations and issues hand-in-hand with our customers. We are constantly challenged to go the extra mile, and we love it. It triggers our ambitions and hunger for development.

Do you remember a particular situation when you went above and beyond to meet a customer’s needs?

For instance, we have encountered countless occasions where we needed to arrange extra deliveries for direct selling conventions, events that typically attract thousands of people. We understand the importance of these events and know that we cannot fail to meet our customers’ expectations. Delivering whatever our customers need, even on Saturdays or Sundays, is crucial. We often dispatch our own people to assist with the setup on-site. I remember a colleague who decided to hop on a plane in Warsaw to personally deliver urgent goods to Portugal.

Your biggest challenges are …

Most of the challenges are related to the unprecedented development of Radial in the last years. We are growing the business and yet we are growing our facilities and teams as well. The key to success is to ensure that culture and service standards are scaled up accordingly.

How do you define and achieve the highest standards in customer care?

To me, delivering the highest standards in customer care means being available whenever your customer needs you. One day, it might involve responding to inquiries within 24 hours, and on another, it could require immediate reaction to unexpected issues. We strive to stay on top of things and anticipate the next steps in advance.

The account management team, which maintains daily contact with our most valuable asset, the customers, is a critical department within Radial. This team is uniquely positioned to understand what our clients really want and what would make them happy.

Please, describe your approach to maintaining daily customer relationships.

We maintain daily contact with our customers through account managers and other key people in the organization. They take part in regular operations meetings, quarterly business reviews, peak planning meetings and so on. Our customers have live overview 24/7 of the inbound, outbound and SLA metrics through our web-based dashboards, which shows that we have absolutely nothing to hide and we are confident of the quality that we provide. We want our outstanding quality to speak for ourselves and enable confidence in the Radial brand.

What strategies do you employ to understand and meet the unique needs of each customer?

First of all, we believe that our customer is always right. Additionally, we believe there is always room for improvement. That’s why we implemented a continuous improvement initiative at Radial. Through this initiative, we share Radial’s growth plans with our customers and ask them how they want us to develop and what we could do better. This is a highly effective way to understand each other’s expectations and enable suitable long-term strategies.

Do you measure customer satisfaction to check if your approach works?

We measure customer satisfaction using Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys, which is a simple yet effective metric. Respondents can give a rating between 0 and 10. Typically, we see at least 85% of our customers scoring 7 or higher. According to recent results, 53% of our customers have scored 9 or 10, which is a great testament to our quality and relationship with our customers.