Superlative Service
International business Mate Precision Tooling exceeds expectations for customer service and design expertise
BY SUZY FRISCH
In the frightening days after it tragically lost two airplanes in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, American Airlines scrambled to protect its cockpits with reinforced doors. The company called on Anoka-based Mate Precision Tooling to manufacture specialized punches that would bore holes in the doors’ sheet metal, enabling the airline to reinforce them with locking bars.
“We made it a super-priority,” says Becky Millard Lysdahl, manager of customer service at Mate. “Everybody wanted to do what they could to help the customer and get that order out the door.”
Mate pulled out all the stops to design, manufacture and ship American Airlines the tooling it needed that very same day—a process that might normally take three days.
Though the airline request produced a memorable project for Mate, the level of customer service was not particularly unusual. The company has made nimble and attentive service its foundation, as one of the world’s largest manufacturers of original and replacement tooling for computer-numerical-control (CNC) punch press machines.
During the last 47 years, Mate has earned its stripes as an international powerhouse with customers in more than 80 countries. It’s a second- generation family-owned business that has finessed the art of listening to customers’ needs, designing products from scratch, manufacturing them with precision and shipping them quickly. And, if things don’t go right, Mate backs up its work with a 100 percent customer satisfaction guarantee, no questions asked.
Mate has differentiated itself from the competition with customer service programs that are nearly as old as the company. It started offering 100 percent customer satisfaction guarantees back in the 1960s, long before it was standard practice. Other groundbreaking customer service initiatives Mate instituted decades ago include set delivery dates, a standard catalog and price list, and a toll-free number for customers to call.
“Mate is truly a customer-focused organization,” says company president Kevin Nicholson. “It’s in our DNA as a company. It’s also one way we separate ourselves from the competition; it’s something we truly do better.”
They Know Tooling
Launched in Minneapolis in 1962 by Nils “Sonny” Sundquist, Mate quickly made a name for itself as a customer service and custom tooling innovator. It has consistently been known as an adept designer of precision tooling for punch press machines that stands solidly behind its work with premium customer service. It remains a family business, as Mate’s current chairman and CEO, Dean Sundquist, is Nils Sundquist’s son.
Today Mate is a $70 million company that employs more than 350 people worldwide. Its market niche is selling the tooling for punch presses, which range in price from $250,000 to $1 million. In fact, manufacturers typically spend $25,000 to $40,000 to outfit a machine with tooling. Mate works with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and end users on their tooling needs for new machines as well as replacement tooling for worn-out parts.
“Customers like to order tooling from us instead of OEMs because we can be more tooling focused and knowledgeable,” Nicholson says. “Sometimes OEMs are more focused on the machine and not so much the tooling. We provide a sheet metal design consultancy, as well as an established relationship for the ongoing needs for the life of the equipment.”
In essence, Mate makes the parts for machines that manufacturers use to punch a variety of holes into sheet metal, from washing machines and furnaces to computers and cell phones. That might mean making punch holders, die holders, cartridges, tools for rotating stations or tooling for special shapes—devices used to bore through metal as thick as a quarter inch, down to a tenth of an inch.
Mate specializes in working closely with customers to design the tooling they need, whether that involves bringing a simple napkin sketch to life or finessing an existing punch and die to meet a client’s changing requirements. “We are experts in the hole-making process, any application where holes are needed,” Nicholson says. “We built the company so that we can provide our customers the entire technical solution—a sheet metal design consultancy— not just tooling.”
In addition, the company sells components for machines that use lasers for cutting metal. The lenses, nozzles, mirrors and other items that Mate started offering in 2001 are just another way the company provides one-stop shopping and convenience for its customers.
Experts in Their Field
Part of Mate’s ability to tackle technical solutions stems from its hiring practices. In addition to a regular cadre of well-trained machinists and engineers, Mate staffs much of its sales force and customer service team with people who have hands-on experience from the shop floor. On this front line of customer interaction, 15 employees are standard customer service representatives and seven are application reps who utilize their direct industry experience to assist customers with custom tooling.
When a customer calls to place an order for specialized tooling, the client will typically speak with both the customer service representative who ultimately places the order and an application specialist who helps answer any design or technical questions. Sometimes a sales engineer from their area will get involved, too. “We really encourage communication among the whole group,” Lysdahl says. “It demonstrates to our customers that we really work together as a team.”
Mate’s sales engineers aren’t your typical salespeople, either. Mate often recruits its sales engineers directly from customers’ shops and then trains them in the art of selling. They have strong technical skills and can offer detailed advice to customers based on their experience as machinists, designers and foremen. Armed with deep knowledge of Mate’s products and abilities, these sales engineers regularly visit customers to demonstrate products, do installations and help employees troubleshoot their machines.
“One of our favorite things our guys say to customers is, ‘When I used to run a machine, I had a similar application, and this is what we did,’ ” Lysdahl says. “There is such a huge advantage, because that really means something. It’s not someone who read something out of a book; they actually used the machine and did the same work.”
Recently, one of Mate’s sales engineers helped orchestrate a unique transaction. One customer was looking to expand its product line and needed new machinery. Another customer wanted to sell two of its machines. Mate’s sales engineer put the customers in contact with each other, and they completed the transaction. Then the sales engineer helped the customer with the new machine and communicated its needs for specialized tooling to Mate’s customer service department. Together, the sales engineer and the customer service reps enlisted Mate’s custom engineering department to design the tooling and worked with manufacturing to complete the project. It was teamwork in action.
‘A’ for Accuracy
Another way that Mate differentiates itself through customer service is by honing in on processing speed and accuracy. Customers’ orders are completed in an average of two days, from order placement to shipping. And 30 percent of the time, customers’ orders are taken, manufactured and shipped on the same day.
To achieve that speed, Mate uses lean and continuous improvement programs to structure its systems for maximum efficiency. The company takes a holistic perspective on all of its systems, from customer service and order entry to engineering and manufacturing, focusing closely on how each function interacts with and affects the other. “That’s been our strategy from day one,” Nicholson says.
In fact, the company received the second highest Minnesota Quality Award in 2005 from the Minnesota Council for Quality for its focus on performance excellence, and it participates in the Malcolm Baldrige quality process for continuous improvement. This year Mate won Manufacturers Alliance Mid-Sized Company Manufacturer of the Year honors.
This attention to speed and accuracy begins when Mate starts working with a customer. First the sales engineer makes detailed notes of a client’s machines, uses and special needs, and then enters them into the customer’s file. When customer service representatives handle an order, they have all the necessary information in front of them. This eliminates many miscommunications and errors.
In addition, Mate created a password-protected Web site so customers can look up historical drawings of tooling that Mate manufactured for them. This allows customers to easily find parts they don’t order frequently and have Mate manufacture them again as needed. “We try to focus on the ease of doing business with us while providing the highest quality, easiest-to-use tooling in the market,” Nicholson says.
Accuracy is another tenet of Mate’s customer satisfaction programs. The company has specific accuracy goals each month and recognizes people and departments for monthly accuracy achievements. Mate achieves strong accuracy rates by standardizing many of its processes, which is one aspect of the company’s focus on lean practices, Lysdahl says. For example, every customer service representative has a work inbox labeled and sitting in the same place on his or her desk. If someone in the department has to take an unexpected day off, another member of the customer service team can look in that employee’s inbox to take care of any waiting customer contact.
The company also invests in an average of 40 hours of training per year for each employee, so the staff knows Mate’s products and systems inside and out. After all, they are contending with 14 product lines that have practically limitless combinations of sizes, shapes and specifications, as well as custom tooling.
“Accuracy is key,” Lysdahl says. “It doesn’t matter how nice we are on the phone if we’re shipping the wrong product. Excellent service and accuracy are what make us outstanding at what we do.”
To prevent errors, customer service reps review orders with customers before sending them to manufacturing to make sure the right items are going to be made. They also immediately e-mail a copy of orders to customers for confirmation. But if there is a mistake—whether Mate or the customer caused it—the company remakes the tooling with no questions asked as part of its 100 percent satisfaction guarantee.
Global Greatness
Mate has successfully taken its model of customization, speed and excellent service worldwide, entering international waters under the direction of Dean Sundquist in the 1980s. Mate’s first overseas location was in Rugby, England, which it opened in 1989. Sales took off across Europe before long, and the company soon operated from multiple outposts on the continent. Today, about half of the company’s sales come from outside the United States and Canada, with Europe serving as Mate’s second-largest sales region.
This spring, Mate consolidated its European operations by opening a nearly 5,000-square-foot facility in Frankfurt, Germany—triple the size of its previous location. The company also made deep investments in equipment and employees to staff this European headquarters. “The vision there is to serve more of Europe from Europe out of that facility,” Nicholson says.
The company has additional sales offices in Belgium, Poland and Malaysia, which serve as home bases for its 80 dealers located around the world, including Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America and the South Pacific.
Mate strives to maintain the same levels of speed, efficiency and customer service that it’s known for in the United States. It exports its brand promise globally by staffing its customer service department with native speakers of four languages—Spanish, Portuguese, German and French—creating Web sites in many different languages, and hiring local dealers for each country.
“We have done a great job of developing a worldwide brand,” Nicholson says. “Whether our customers are in California, Canada or Croatia, they will have the same consistent service and quality.”
At a groundbreaking manufacturing company, that’s the secret to success.