All things to all people – The Fernco way
" We’re not known as a brand that sits still. Whether we’re talking about product innovation, people development and apprenticeships or merchant training, we’ve always got something on the go to improve the experience for everybody that ‘touches’ the Fernco brand,” explains Ryan Lockwood. “This time last year we went through a massive rebrand which came straight on the back of the pandemic – two significant opportunities to really delve deep into our business and ask some tough questions about what we need to be to our customers both now and in the future. Arguably this is a question every business is constantly reviewing, but for us transitioning to Fernco, was a time when we really needed the trust, support and loyalty of our customers – and we got it in spades. But we also made a promise, that by becoming Fernco, customers would see a recognisable improvement in the way we operate, validating our decision to rebrand.”
In the last 12 months Fernco has made significant investments in its UK operation based in Barnsley, transforming the way it produces its product ranges and fulfils customer orders. As a result, the business has 3 brand new products coming to market in 2023, kicked off in April with the launch of Storm-T, a universal pushfit saddle for the surface water market. Ryan picks up the story: “Storm-T is a great product and the feedback we’ve received from the market is extremely positive. In its own right it’s a fantastic innovation because it makes life easier on site for civils and drainage contractors, but this is just half the story. It’s successful adoption rests in the fact that it’s a universal fitting. Arguably replacing a number of products from our own range – so what’s the sense in that? It was a bold move, without question. But it goes straight to the heart of our values – make life easier for everybody. From the civil engineers creating specifications, to the merchant partner selling it with a defined shelf space, to the contractor fitting the product in the ground. Everyone in the supply chain wins.”
For the marketing and commercial team, the opportunity to reinforce the Fernco difference is an ongoing campaign which Ryan is keen to address: “We can’t just be great product manufacturers, it only gets you so far. We’ve got to support our products with first-class training both in person and remotely and critically, we’ve got to give contractors a reason to visit the merchant to experience our product and build knowledge with the merchant teams. We’ve got to constantly evolve our digital footprint and social media presence to ensure that any time of the day, in any location, through any platform, both merchant customers and installers can learn, interact and share content about our products. And we’re doing it all.”
Training is an important part of the Fernco offer and this year we’re on track to train a record number of Fernco partners. This alone, coupled with the addition of new customer support team members at Fernco’s HQ in Yorkshire, will deliver a pretty robust experience for merchants, installers, contractors and specifiers.
But it doesn’t stop there, Ryan heads a team of expert marketeers dedicated to supporting installers on site, he explains why this is such an important part of the overall Fernco experience: “We’ve built a business in the UK based on massive loyalty from our customers and we learnt a lot through the rebrand about why people use our products – in a nutshell, because they know our products will be buried for decades and will keep performing for the rest of time – so we want to capture that important part of the Fernco story. We also want to make it incredibly simple to choose the correct product.
Our merchant partners play a key role in supporting the Fernco brand at the point of sale, but for an installer on site, being able to simply and easily use the Fernco App as a product selector is dead simple and just makes sense. Building a community of followers through our social media is an important part of our product development journey, it’s great to see our reach increase, but with every new interaction comes a unique insight opportunity about how our products are being used. We’re constantly learning, constantly improving and without question, committed to a Fernco future that is entirely focused around the merchant customer and the installer. If we stick to that, we’ll continue to be first choice.