Big enough to have clout, small enough to offer a personal and friendly service

It might seem obvious that the best plant suppliers are those that can provide quality equipment when you need it. However, in our industry the reality is that there are few that do this with any degree of reliability. Few have the scale, processes and organisational discipline that allows them to deliver a consistent service time after time. For many users this makes the hiring of plant a haphazard and stressful activity. Consequently, many customers prefer to hire their plant at a local level and build relationships locally as well. There’s nothing wrong with this, however, many soon realise that quality is variable, innovation is largely absent and availability is a lottery. Conversely, some see national companies like Ardent as impersonal, indifferent and unable to cater for smaller, regional customers.

This couldn’t be further from the truth.

If customers want quality equipment, reliable, quick service, availability when they need, and above all, flexibility to accommodate shifting schedules, then they need a professional supplier that has a certain level of scale. They need to know that the supplier is investing in new fleet. They need to know that the supplier is not shortcutting its legal obligations to maintain and service equipment. And most importantly they need to know that the supplier is safe, not only in how it goes about running its business but how it operates on customer sites. Innovation is nice as well – making machines safer and more productive and increasingly administering everything online is convenient, saves time and creates transparency.

Ardent is such a supplier.

Yet at the same time, providing a personal, friendly service is something that we are acutely aware that customers want. That’s why we organise our Customer Care Centre into small closely-knit teams that work with customers on first name terms. We think it’s important that we get to know our customers and vice versa. We also have a team of business development managers that are in regular contact with customers, again, on first name terms. We realise that on occasions we need to pull rabbits out of hats and help customers when they’re in a jam. Having those relationships along with a good understanding of how our customers operate helps to smooth things over and keep the wheels turning. And we encourage relationships at several levels, so there’s a level of robustness and dependability. For example, many of our customers build relationships at Customer Care Centre, BDM, SHEQ and Senior Management Team level. We like to do this. It’s a great way to collaborate and provide the very best value that any plant supplier can provide in our industry.

Being big enough to have clout but small enough to provide a personal, friendly service is key to how we operate at Ardent. Everything we do has this in mind. And that’s one of the reasons why our NPS is market leading and consistently above 70.