By Gary Haynes, Smith’s MD
With New Year celebrations mostly forgotten, like most heating companies, here at Smith’s, we’re looking at the different opportunities for 2017 and planning accordingly. The sales team is expanding and the breadth of our product offering is developing at such a pace that our five-day product training week only managed to cover four new heating products; with more to come.
When I joined Smith’s in May 2016, I spent lots of time understanding the different types of heating solution Smith’s currently provided, and what our customers thought of us. One thing was abundantly clear: where we’re known, people think we’re fantastic. Our product quality is superb, and certainly raises a few eyebrows when it comes to our commercial Caspian range. We offer warranties that few can beat. Our delivery times are market-leading and the fact that we can deliver next day or within five working days on most of our range really does put us head and shoulders above the competition. Our attitude and customer service is refreshing, with our people genuinely going above and beyond the expected to make sure that our consultants, specifier contractors, installers and merchant customers get exactly and precisely what they need and in good time.
The challenge for me is to bring all of that to the people who really need to hear this: to demonstrate that we can deliver whole-heating solutions for new build or refurb projects, and develop a world-class set of fan convector and allied products that are flexible and robust enough to make us first choice for those we work with, and beyond. It means we’re living in exciting times as we push to develop and build even better-performing products and partner with other like-minded manufactures who share our values and aspire to the same innovative approach to heating projects as we do.
Take for example our recent partnership with MINIB. This business, started in the Czech Republic in 1999, is now internationally renowned for its trench heating and decorative convector heaters. Our partnership will enable us to make further inroads into the commercial sector and open other doors along the way. We just can’t rest on our laurels of being in this market for 25 years plus or of being part of a global family, The Swan Group; we have to continually innovate, continually move forward and make sure we’re bringing the right kind of heating products to market – and other associated products – to give our customers precisely what they want, adding value, being cost-effective, and above all making them think Smith’s.