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Quality is Top Reason Customers Choose Interface

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In our latest customer feedback survey, we asked those that rely on Interface why they buy from us. The overwhelming top response was product quality. One of the trademarks of Interface is ensuring that our products meet not only the demand of what is needed in the market for measurement sensors, but that the precision, accuracy, and quality of everything we build is market leading. Best in class.

Our customers drive Interface innovation. We are continuously looking at trends, special requirements and future outlooks to determine what solutions can meet today’s requirements and those in the future. It was noted in the survey that customers depend on Interface for this expertise and experience. That is why it is central in our business strategy and key for Interface’s success to ask, listen and learn from those that rely on our force measurement solutions in their businesses.

A hallmark to our semi-annual survey is the Net Promoter Score (NPS) question that is designed to measure loyalty. We asked again in this latest Spring 2021 survey, “How likely is it that you would recommend Interface to a friend or colleague?” Respondents are then asked to rate their response by selecting 0-10 with 10 being extremely likely and 0 not at all likely. The percentage of those that select 9 or 10 are considered promoters of the Interface brand. Anyone that scores 6 or below is considered by NPS standards to be a detractor. The percentage of promoters minus the percentage of detractors are gives you an NPS score.

We are very excited to announce that Interface’s current Net Promoter Score is +73.

The founders of NPS note that outstanding companies in their class average between a +30 to +50. We are honored by the recognition coming directly from our customers.

“This is a great result! We appreciate the recognition of our team member’s hard work to generate such customer satisfaction and loyalty. Global brands recognized around the world and who are famous NPS power users rarely report scores as high as Interface. We are honored to have such loyal customers, as seen in an outstanding +73 NPS. Remarkably, this came during a period where the customers’ most recent experience likely was influenced by the pandemic strain.” Greg Adams, CEO

We learned from our customers when we asked, “What are the most important reasons why you choose to buy from Interface?”, that product quality matters most, followed next by calibration and repair services, accuracy specifications, experience working with Interface and brand reputation. We also looked at trends in future product demands and the ability to buy online through our QS48 online shopping service.

Our customers were very forthcoming in their preferences for technical support, with phone and email taking top positions. This was followed by using our technical library, video demonstrations and numerous product and technical manuals.

We also gained great insights from our customers when we asked, “How can we improve your overall experience working with Interface?”  All feedback matters to us. It’s what we gain through this transparent and open process that we know where we can look to improve. In fact, we are determined to look at every opportunity presented in the survey to make operational improvements that benefit our customers in all areas from design to shipments.

“Our team performance demonstrates the winning position we are all committed to at Interface. Customer experience is central to what we do and it’s our focus to continuously exceed expectations. As great as this score is today, the better news is that we have the opportunity to improve further and define our future as the market leader by delivering the best for our customers.” Greg Adams, CEO

Our last question in the survey, we asked, “How satisfied are you with Interface and your customer experience?” and we learned that 98% of our customers are satisfied and 83% are very or exceedingly satisfied. We appreciate all those that provided their candid responses in our Spring Customer Satisfaction and NPS Survey. Our work continues to make sure what we do goes above and beyond and delivers on our promise to exceed expectations.

 

Faces of Interface Featuring Elliot Speidell

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In today’s Faces of Interface post, we are featuring Interface National Sales Director Elliot Speidell. Amongst all the wonderful stories and backgrounds, we hear about from our amazing team, Elliot’s may be one of the most unique and interesting.  You see, Elliot didn’t start his career in or go to school for engineering like many of the Faces of Interface subjects we’ve highlighted in the past.

In fact, Elliot studied music education at Northern Arizona University. Music was Elliot’s first passion and he thought that he would go on to pursue a career in it. Although, as he explains it, he was a kid just trying to figure it out and wasn’t sure what to do. But he loved music, so he went for it.

His first job out of school was teaching music in elementary school, followed by teaching both middle and high school students. And while he did enjoy it for a time, he and his wife were expecting a daughter and he thought that it was time for a change.

Now, music isn’t Elliot’s only passion. He also loves to work with cars. He can often be found tinkering and improving cars that he eventually races in Sports Car Club of America Solo (SCCA) events. SCCA Solo is different from what you see on TV with NASCAR and Indy Car Racing. It involves precision driving through a designated course marked with cones. If you’ve kept up with the Faces of Interface series, you would know that SCCA Autocross is also a major hobby for our Global Sales Vice President, Brian Peters.

Going back to Elliot and his desire to move into a new field, both Brian and Elliot became friends during SCCA competition, and Elliot had mentioned to Brian that he was looking for something new. Knowing Elliot well, Brian thought that he would make a great application engineer. Thus, the unique story of how Elliot moved from music to a career in technology and engineering by joining the team at Interface.

As an Application Engineer at Interface, Elliot provided frontline support to customers across the east coast, later moving to serve the west coast. He worked across industries providing force measurement solutions to customers for a wide variety of applications. After a few years, he moved on to the newly introduced technical services department where he served as the technical services manager. In this role, Elliot and his team helped manage the recalibration of customer’s products as well provided technical support to customers for load cells, torque transducers, and related instrumentation. He was also instrumental in selling these services to customers and growing the technical services business.

Elliot was promoted to regional sales director starting on the west coast and eventually taking over support for the region that is along the US east coast, as well as a few regions in the south including Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. The  role is more strategic in nature in that he’s out working directly with customers providing Interface force solutions, while also working directly with Interface’s teams of outside sales reps in those regions.

Today, he is the national sales director for Interface. He is responsible for all the regional sales directors and application engineers covering the United States.  He works directly with our sales network and supports key accounts. His promotion is based on years of experience and dedication to helping customers find the right solutions for all their test and measurement needs.

The thing that Elliot loves most about working at Interface is the diversity of applications he gets to work on. One day he could be helping provide a solution for measuring the tension on a guitar string and another day he’s helping a customer that’s working on a test stand for a rocket engine. Every day is unique and the technology he gets to see, and help solve challenges for, is always getting cooler!

When he’s not solving customer challenges, Elliot can be found with his wife of 14 years and their daughter, riding his mountain bike, or in the garage slowly working on LS swapping his car’s engine for SCCA autocross. Pre-pandemic, he also still indulged his love of music by playing trumpet in a Soul and Funk band at various Phoenix area venues.

We hope you enjoyed learning about Elliot as much as we enjoyed sharing this feature. Stay tuned for more Faces of Interface in 2021, and from everyone here at Interface, we wish you a very happy New Year!

Interface Customer Satisfaction Survey Results for October 2020

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Two times a year, Interface conducts our formal Interface Customer Satisfaction Survey. The survey is sent to valued customers and partners to listen and learn. The results allows us to prioritize feedback on how we can continuously improve.

It is paramount to Interface that as we engineer and build the world’s leading force measurement solutions, we earn our customer’s confidence by providing high quality products and an exceptional customer experience. To sustain that focus, we have committed to engaging with and learning from all those that depend on us.

Our Fall 2020 Interface Customer Satisfaction Survey concluded in October. It consisted of four questions to gather customer insights, and one question to measure our execution by a Net Promoter® Score (NPS).

The NPS rating is drawn from responses to the question, “How likely is it that you would recommend Interface to a friend or colleague?” Fred Reichheld, the creator of NPS, developed this methodology that uses a single question to drive customer-centric focus within organizations. According to global benchmark data, using NPS data and compiled by SurveyMonkey from more than 150,000 organizations, the average score is +32.

Interface’s NPS score in the Fall 2020 Customer Satisfaction Survey is +62, qualifying us as a top performing company based on the survey responses. Though this gives us great confidence, it does mean we have room to improve. Our average score from this recent survey is 8.9, with most respondents indicating they are extremely likely to recommend Interface products and services to a friend or colleague.

We also asked, “How are we doing?” Of those that participated in the survey, 90% said excellent or better than average. We were also able to gather ideas and suggestions on areas where we can exceed expectations.

It was important for us to learn what types of value-added services are important to our customers. We asked, “What types of extended services can interface offer to improve your experience?” Expedited calibration services and technical product information ranked first and second in all responses, followed by live and real-time technical support services. As is expected with the growing use of the internet, online ordering, product availability and shipment tracking were top requests.  This customer intelligence helps Interface prioritize current and future service offerings.

Living in our new normal, we also wanted to know, “Have you changed your testing, design, or development plans for 2020-2021 due to the pandemic?” We learned that only 15% said it had changed their plans.

All feedback is important to us. Thank you to all those that shared their experience and provided valuable feedback. If you would like to share information with us about your buying experience, you can always contact us directly at 480-948-5555, or through our website at https://www.interfaceforce.com.

Faces of Interface Featuring Albert Luna

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Albert Luna was a born engineer. From a young age, he was always interested in how things worked. One of his favorite childhood hobbies was to take things apart to see what was inside them. He took apart appliances, TVs, radios and more and always looked forward to going to his cousin’s house to play with his drafting tools that furthered his mechanical inquisitiveness. Because of his childhood experiences, his parents encouraged him to pursue a formal career in advanced engineering.

Albert took his parents’ advice and enrolled at California State University, Los Angeles, where he graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering. With his professional credentials in-hand, he launched his career as a design engineer. Throughout his profession, he’s worked with a variety of organizations, including Snap-on, where he was paid to play with tools and became an expert at designing solutions with strain gages. While Albert’s skills are abundant, his desire to learn didn’t stop there. He’s currently studying for his professional engineering (PE) exam.

Although Albert gained a lot of experience in his discipline, one thing he hadn’t gotten a chance to do in his previous positions was to design with sensors. Prior to joining Interface, Albert was just always handed a sensor and asked to build a tool around it. When he saw the opportunity to expand his skill set and work extensively with sensors, he eagerly applied to Interface and became a design engineer for the company that is the leader in force measurement solutions. Albert currently works on Interface’s Gold Standard® LowProfile® load cell product line.

“The thing I enjoy most about working at Interface is how hands-on my job is and how I get to use tools, work with equipment and help with troubleshooting. I work on a product from the design stage all the way through calibration.” Albert Luna, Design Engineer, Interface

Not only is Albert an expert design engineer, but he also goes above and beyond for Interface’s customers in any way he can. His work philosophy is to make sure that all customers are satisfied and that everything they want in their application has been incorporated. With Albert, nothing is ever compromised.

Albert is also known in Interface for his wall of fame.  His office is papered with credentials and awards from Toastmasters International in recognition of his passions and commitment to always be learning.  It is one of the many things that make a valued member of the Interface family.

Albert’s love of working with his hands translates into his personal life as well. When he’s not at Interface, he loves to fix things around his house and spend time on his car. In fact, he even earned a two-year degree in auto mechanics.

Although he loves hands-on building projects, cycling is another one of Albert’s passions, and 70-mile bike rides are among his many accomplishments in his favorite hobby.

 

 

Interface Goes Above and Beyond with Custom Solutions

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For clients in need of customized force measurement solutions, look no further than Interface. We excel in providing customers with specialized load cells and torque transducers that can’t be purchased off the shelf—and we have a robust solutions design team to back it up.

Our dedicated engineers and measurement experts, company resources, and advanced engineering lab give Interface the competitive advantage to make any force measurement application work.

Starting the Customization Process

To create these specialized force measurement solutions, we start by assessing our customers’ fundamental requirements.

  1. Does the solution need to be customized from the ground-up?
  2. Does the solution already exist, and it needs to include some custom features?

From there, we determine what the load cell needs to mount to and what specifications it needs to perform in its intended environment. Interface also can transmit load cells wirelessly to our customers’ networks.

“We can customize the load cell, the torque transducer, or we can provide a total system solution. Essentially, if we can make it, we can customize it!” – Ken Bishop, Sales Engineering Director at Interface

Building Custom Solutions: Food Industry Sensors

To best understand how we approach a custom solution, consider this real-world example. A meat processing plant needs a custom load cell solution to weigh its product during processing. With this scenario, there were 225 sides of beef that needed to be accounted for on each trolley. Keeping track of all that meat is no easy task. That is until Interface deployed an intuitive wireless sensor network to make monitoring simple.

Interface addressed this task by engineering a wireless base station to talk to the customer’s network. The base station transmitted a signal that was converted to Ethernet. In this case, the solution also needed to be water resistant to withstand the intense water pressures for cleaning. By using a custom wireless network, the sensors could easily communicate with staff members to alert them of critical information without failure or disturbances.  Read more about our custom solution case studies here.

Engineers at the Ready

What allows [user_id] Even prototyping at Interface is faster on average than any other provider in the market. We also have access to a host of strategic partners that give us breadth and depth in all components and technologies. If a technological requirement extends outside of Interface’s capabilities, we have the partners in place to fully optimize the solution to meet the exact custom requirements.

Going back to the start, if you have a need with specific requirements that fall outside our standard products, contact us and let our specialized engineers identify the possibilities. You can also detail your requirements in our easy to use request for custom solutions. Don’t hesitate to contact us about developing a custom force measurement solution. We’re excited to hear about your unique challenges!

Contributor: Ken Bishop, Sales Engineering Director, Interface