TVC Leisure vs National Companies
What’s the difference between being supplied by a family run business or a national company?
TVC Leisure is one of the few remaining independent family owned and family run businesses that operate regionally in our industry, which over the past decade has become dominated by national companies and conglomerates.
In recent years many of the family run businesses that operated regionally have been acquired by national companies, or have merged with multiple family run businesses to create a much larger corporate entity, in a bid to compete for the supply contracts with the national pub chains.
So what does this mean for the industry?
Many of the independent pubs and social clubs who chose to work with a family run business will inherit a national company through the acquisition. Unfortunately in most cases the service levels will decline and the customer will receive service levels typical of a national company, instead of the personal service they would of come to expect from the family run business.
What is the difference in service levels?
Its universally accepted that family run businesses are able to provide more of a personal service to their customers than larger corporate companies, and our industry is no exception. Family run businesses are generally focused on building relationships with their customers, and are able to offer a level of flexibility to tailor their services to the individual requirements of their customers. Within our industry this could be rescheduling the time and date of a collection, arranging a machine change at short notice, providing required spares promptly or having a pool table re-clothed swiftly to avoid upsetting the venues pool league, all of which has proven difficult for a national company with thousands of customers and staff shortages to arrange at short notice.
Since returning from Covid-19 lockdowns staff shortages has been a serious issue for many of the larger corporate and national companies in our industry, which has led to an inability to fulfil their service obligations to their customers. In the past 6 months we have taken on a number of new customers who had previously been supplied by a national company who all reported similar issues. Fortnightly cash collections are now being completed at random every 4-6 weeks, and in some cases venues are being told they have to empty the machines themselves due to staff shortages. Machines are being left out of order for 3-4 days while waiting for assistance, and machine rotations and upgrades have grinded to a halt.
Communication
In addition to the operational challenges, another big difference between working with a family run business or a national company is communication. National companies have a reputation for having poor lines of communication with their customers, who often complain how difficult it can be to speak to someone. For example if a customer is having an issue with a machine or calling for advice, the national companies service number will direct you to a switch board where you are expected to leave a message. TVC customers who have previously been supplied by a national company have regularly complained how their messages were never returned, and were often left unsure if the message had been delivered and when to expect assistance.
TVC Leisure’s Gold Standard Service
What separates TVC Leisure from the national companies is the gold standard service we provide to our customers, TVC Leisure’s gold standard service is the foundation of our company and at the core of everything we do. How we make decisions, how we train our staff, how we communicate with our customers and how we deliver our services are all aligned with our company mission, to provide our customers with a standard that is unrivalled by national companies.
All of our staff complete a thorough 90-day training programme before they are offered a full-time position and are required to complete refresher training every year. This is to ensure that every member of staff knows our business, knows our customers and are highly trained to follow our companies systems and procedures to deliver our gold standard service at every customer touchpoint.
Unlike national companies we build relationships with our customers, provide a personal service and offer friendly and helpful advice. We are easily accessible throughout the day through a variety of communication lines to ensure our customers can always speak to a member of our team and issues are dealt with promptly.
Examples of our ‘Gold Standard Service’ include a 2 hour response to technical issues 7 days a week, easily accessible at all times of the day, regular machine rotations and upgrades, routine collection services, regular site visits for servicing and maintenance, ongoing support and regular communication through text messages, weekly emails and monthly newsletters.
If you run a pub or social club within London & The Home Counties and are unhappy with the service you receive from your current supplier, click the link below to book a free site survey.
We are currently offering 1 month free trial on all equipment.
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