2024 marked Flō’s 25th anniversary of being in business. While we’ve done plenty of celebrating, we’ve also used it as a time to reflect on the past, present and future of Flō. For the past 25 years, we’ve consistently operated on the philosophy that there is always A Better Way™.
Remember, we are a company of problem solvers and make-the-box better innovators — which applies to servicing our customers, whom we view as trusted partners. While we are incredibly proud of 25 years of hard work, dedication and innovation, we acknowledge areas that need improvement, where we missed the mark, and where a reset is needed.
In September, we hired our new Vice President of Operations, Richard “RT” Maldaner. RT immediately grasped Flō’s A Better Way mindset, and with the operations team’s help, he started to implement changes to Flō’s operations systems and processes — all centered around creating A Better Way to to create a significantly better experience for customers and team members.
So, what does this look like?
LISTENING & ASKING QUESTIONS
In order to evaluate how there could be A Better Way in all that we do, we’ve spent a lot of time gathering feedback from our customers and our team. While thinking about the customer and employee experience, we constantly asked How can we actually do it better? How can we do it more efficiently? and we encouraged our team members to ask the same questions about their roles and responsibilities, the systems they use, and how they interact with customers and other team members. Our goal was to instill a mindset for all of us at Flō. We dialogued through pain points, collaborated on innovative solutions, and started to apply what we learned.
ENHANCING THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
This includes a commitment in focus on our customer’s experience from start to finish. What is it like to work with us on projects? What is the quality of our support? Of our delivered product? Warranties? We evaluated all of it.
We place the highest value on our customers, and we want our customers to always FEEL valued. To do this, we know the Flō team must feel valued as well. We’ve always valued our dynamic and ready-to-serve operations team, but we’ve implemented intentional practices and processes to ensure they consistently know how much and how well we regard them. We’ve empowered them to make decisions based on a long-term relationship approach and remove any bottlenecks to ensure the job gets accomplished. The team can make decisions to have a bigger impact for our customers and the company.
IMPROVING COMMUNICATION
We’ve also made improvements in our communication processes with our customers. We want our customers to be informed and up-to-speed with the services we are providing to them, and we want our customers to have confidence that we’ll do what we say we are going to do — we follow through. We’ve implemented and enhanced our communication internally, too — improving how our team communicates with one another. This has had an amazing effect on company culture and team experience. Our team is thriving!
EXCEPTIONAL CUSTOMER SUPPORT
The size of the operations team has increased by 40% this year, and it continues to grow. We ensure each team member has a clear understanding of his/her roles and responsibilities, which allows them to do what they love and love what they do. This is in the fiber of the Flō culture. We’ve instilled greater employee confidence that their say and do ratio is one hundred percent or as close to it as possible. We deliver on our deliverables, achieved through a great employee experience that empowers them to care for our customers’ needs and what they have asked of us. We do it because we’re thinking about our customers one hundred percent of the way — not at the expense of our team, but because of them.
BUILDING SOMETHING LASTING
Eliminating any type of bottleneck in our systems has been a priority at Flō. By evaluating and listening to feedback, we’ve pinpointed what systems and processes need improving. Some have been immediate fixes and others have taken time, but all have been well worth accomplishing, creating A Better Way for everyone, which includes casting a vision for Flō’s future and how we set up the customer experience for the next generation of team members and customers.
If you’d like to hear RT Maldaner introducing our commitment to empowering our operations team to deliver a customer experience worthy of life-long relationships, here’s a 5 minute video for you to enjoy.
At Flō, we exist to make food retail environments better for the food they carry, the people they serve, and the planet we share. We achieve this by focusing on people, products, the planet, and profit. With a long-term perspective and a passion for strong relationships, we are working towards the most innovative and impactful solutions to get the work done, and be the trusted partner for our customers. Thank you for 25 great years, and here’s to 25 more.