Over the years it has grown in size and stature – it was the first distributor to offer next day delivery and the first to produce fully illustrated printed brochures, says md Paul Persey. “But throughout all the changes one thing has remained constant – and that is that the whole operation has been built around good customer service,” he states.

The company was named after md Paul Persey’s wife (Caroline) and sister in law (Penny), who were with the company in the early days. And while it is now a major company carrying 46 different brands and 1,500 different products, the personality has remained “pink and fluffy”, just as it was when Penny and Caroline created it. With this in mind, “the phones are always answered by a person, never a machine, and the team has built up good relationships with the customers,” says Persey.

David Abrahams, marketing manager, explains: “Paul Persey will say ‘we are a logistics company’, while Andrea [Charteris, customer services manager] will say ‘we are a customer service distribution company’. I say we are a fulfilment company. It’s not rocket science, but it is difficult.”

Changes within the industry have increased the pressure of the distribution business, says Abrahams. “Ten years ago the average order value was higher. Today the individual order value tends to be lower, because next day delivery means you can order what you want when you need it. Typically, too, an order today is made up of lots of different lines, which is more labour intensive and difficult to pick. But if we do get it wrong, we don’t argue about it, we just put it right, which is probably why we have a high level of customer loyalty.”

Customers aren’t the only ones that are looked after at PenCarrie, the staff are too – for as any good manager or md will tell you, a happy workforce is a productive one. “We look after our staff and train them well,” says Abrahams. PenCarrie has tailored an NVQ training programme for its warehouse staff, one of whom is being trained to deliver that training.

It has also developed a system for new recruits to ensure they fully understand how the business works, based on a previous exercise. “To ensure everybody in the company appreciated the value of each others’ jobs, the warehouse staff and the customer service team swapped jobs and everybody gained a better understanding of what issues each other faced,” explains Abrahams. “Now, any new member in customer services has to do a couple of days working in the warehouse, which is crucial to their understanding.”

There are currently 13 members of the customer services team, who deal with all the orders using PenCarrie’s unique system, which was designed in-house.

“We have a very low staff turnover,” says Charteris, “about 80% of the customer services team have been here for five years or more.”

Orders are taken until 4pm and PenCarrie guarantees next day delivery. “We ship around 20-30,000 garments each day,” adds Abrahams. “Getting that volume right and getting it out of the door efficiently is the magic factor – and it’s what’s been created over the past 15 years.”

Undoubtedly one of the key figures in helping PenCarrie achieve this is warehouse manager Alun Morgan, who has been with the company from the start and runs his side of things with military precision.

Alun is responsible for around 40 staff that work in the 120m by 60m two-storey warehouse, which is run from “Mission control” – the central control point of the warehouse. “Whoever is on mission control organises all the orders coming in and the order in which they are picked,” says Morgan. “Around 50% of all orders are completed after the 4pm cut off, making the couple of hours after 4pm the busiest in the warehouse.”

Orders are picked by one person and then checked and packed by another to avoid errors. All the orders are scanned onto a computer and can be tracked at different stages, and once despatched, customers can track their orders with Parceline.

Between 120,000 and 150,000 garments are picked each week, which equates to around five miles walking per day for the picking teams, who have targets to meet and work hourly shifts.

Approximately 4,500 cartons are incoming each week, which are scanned and then PenCarrie’s own label is created and applied. “This is very important to us for our own checks and replenishment systems,” explains Morgan. All incoming stock is stored upstairs and about 500 boxes are sent down via the replenishment chutes each morning for a major stock replenishment. Last year the company installed a concourse system upstairs, which has saved a great deal of time, labour and manual handling, says Morgan. “The other day we unloaded 1,448 cartons and had the products stacked onto the shelves in one hour 48 minutes. It’s that productivity that we strive to maintain.”

Every sector of the warehouse has a sector IC, whose job it is to ensure the sector, both up and downstairs, is neat, tidy and in line with health and safety standards. Then every Friday Morgan makes an inspection of the warehouse to check everything is in order. All of this work equates to over 180,000 boxes being shipped annually.

It is forward thinking such as this that has led to PenCarrie’s marketing team developing a range of industry leading marketing tools, adds Abrahams. Customers can also customise PenCarrie’s website, which, hints Abrahams, will also soon be moving forward. “We are going to launch something on the website soon that will be unique to our industry and revolutionise the business.”

The company has also just employed a business development manager, tasked with finding out more about PenCarrie’s customers (80% of which are screen printers and embroiderers), their businesses and their customers.

“It gives us more information about the market and what our customers’ needs are. It’s working well for us,” says Abrahams. He adds: “We are constantly evolving – we want to purify what we do but still keep the essence of the company.”Watch this space…

Printer friendly version

Email this article to a friend

Bookmark this

---