No matter how much we plan, the unexpected always seems to pop-up, usually at the most inopportune times. This happened with one of our customers recently, and our team worked tirelessly to solve a problem that could have had a huge, negative impact on their business. Here’s what happened.
After pursuing a large company in the food and beverage industry for nearly a year, we were fortunate enough to land them as a customer. We serviced their needs for about three months with great success. We solved several internal problems for them and prepared to reduce costs on one of their lines by upgrading one of their packaging machines.
Discussions between our engineering team and the customer showed that we could customize this off-the-shelf machine to better meet their needs and help increase production. The machine was purchased and sent to our warehouse for customization. It was scheduled to be crated and picked up via the customer’s preferred shipping company late the following week. Everything was on schedule and going as planned at Korpack. Unfortunately, everything wasn’t going as planned for our customer.
We were a week away from shipping when they called and frantically told one of our customer service representatives that they needed our immediate help. It happened that the machine we were going to replace had gone down during a run for an order from one of their most important customers. They were quickly falling behind schedule. A large order was in jeopardy, as well as their relationship with one of their best customers.
Team Korpack sprang into action when they asked us to ship them their new machine immediately to avert a disaster.
We immediately recognized two big challenges with getting the machine out the door to them. First, as this was a custom machine, a custom crate was needed and wasn’t scheduled to be built by the crating company until the following week. Second, the shipping company could not pick up and deliver the machine until the following Monday. Our customer couldn’t be down that long.
We solved the first problem by building the crate ourselves. Several of our team members hurried off to the lumber yard to get what we needed for the crate, while others started organizing tools and clearing an area so we could begin the project when the lumber arrived.
The customer service representative who took the initial call from the customer let them know that we were getting the machine ready for shipment and that we would coordinate delivery with the shipping company. Needless to say, the customer was thrilled.
We solved the second problem by delivering the machine ourselves. At 11 pm, our truck left the Korpack warehouse to make the trek to the client’s site, which was nearly 200 miles away. A little over four hours later, our customer had their new machine up and running by the beginning of the first shift, churning out product to fulfill their commitment to their customer.
This is just one of many stories we have at Korpack about how we’ve moved mountains for our customers. Our people make the difference, and teamwork is one of our core values. Put us to the test – we won’t let you down,
