Any successful product-based company understands the value of customer service before and after a sale. The way a customer service team handles assistance calls, delivering timely, attentive and thorough advice, reflects the entire company. Quality service builds a loyal following willing to share their experiences, often becoming a significant sales asset.
Ron Long, Alula’s vice president of operations and customer experience, and his 20-member team recognize the importance of their work. And they’ve set a high bar for themselves, aiming to settle all requests for service with a single contact.
“We’re pretty proud of the service we provide in the marketplace,” says Ron. “We take every piece of feedback and use it to coach our teams to make the overall service experience better and better for our customers,” says Ron. “Our target for resolving issues in one customer contact is 95% and we’ve surpassed that target every quarter going back to 2019’s Q2.”
He said Alula’s technical support team members handle about 170 calls a day in their Customer Solutions Center. At any given moment, there may be as many as 40 active product and service calls underway. A typical call has the team on the phone assisting a service professional with an on location with a homeowner.
“We have a lot of support material available across our website and Partner Training Portal that is always available,” says Ron. “But we’re still there to lend a hand if and when a problem arises during an installation.”
Although virtually all calls received at the Customer Solutions Center come from dealer partners, Ron remembers one standout call from an end user of an Alula system. The person had trouble getting the Alula mobile app to arm and disarm the home’s system successfully. It took a while to figure out why it wasn’t working.
“It turns out they had somehow managed to launch the app in our demo mode and it’s very realistic,” he says. “It will show you all the capabilities and features of the app, but in that mode, it will never interact with a home system.”
Ron joined the company 5 ½ years ago as part of the original leadership team that merged two companies to form Alula. He credits much of his success to his team, including Emilio Estevez, who leads the Customer Solutions Team; the Order Management and Regional Account Management team headed by Eric Finkler; and Customer Success Managers Keli Falls, Ryan Matznick, Kyle Fosburgh and Chris Bartholomew.
