PROFEL

Between complaint and reassurance

Profel’s customer service team is fully committed every day to handling questions and complaints correctly. The experience for distributors — professionals in direct contact with end customers — did not always reflect those efforts.

Timely clarity and a predictable process were often lacking, despite a strong willingness to offer solutions. That uncertainty placed additional pressure on distributors, who had difficulties reassuring their customers without clear status updates or timelines.

It wasn’t just about getting a solution: trust also requires transparent communication and a process that shows Profel stands alongside the distributor, even when things go wrong.

Task-oriented work as the culprit

The complaint approach was strongly task-oriented, with cases passing through multiple steps and teams. Every link in the chain performed correctly, yet for distributors the process didn’t come together as one whole.

Information became fragmented, expectations were difficult to manage, and follow-up ended up with the distributor. What they needed was not speed for the sake of speed, but reliable answers: status, timing, and clarity.

By rethinking the process end-to-end with a focus on customer impact, Profel saw the opportunity to transform complaint handling from a necessity into a distinctive strength.

A renewed process and mutual understanding

We spent four days in a bootcamp with both senior management and colleagues who work close to the customer.
We involved: Production, Quality, Order Administration, Supply Chain, Service Center, Sales, Finance, and Marketing.

Focused discussions from the customer’s perspective led to a strong foundation for rapid rollout. Three core principles emerged:

1. When things go wrong, we are there.
2. We start from trust, not from distrust.
3. Our customers must be able to focus on their work.

The complaint process became the first proof point of these principles.

The right people together — making the impossible possible

Seven ‘sprints’. A team that worked together for the first time. Each person’s expertise, perspective, and ambition proved to be an added value.

“Reproduction and delivery within two weeks? Yes, we can!”

No more handover from administration to production, we jointly built one end-to-end flow. Tested and brought to life by members of both environments. After every sprint, we captured the distributor's feedback.

The key insight? Delivery reliability outweighs speed. That allowed us to control the impact on the regular order flow.

41% of distributors rated the new way of working a 9 or 10. Before the start of this project, no one achieved that score.

The new process first went live within PVC. Customers spontaneously asked when other departments would follow.

At events, the name Pro4You appeared more and more often — the project name for Profel’s initiatives around customer focus.

With a driven start-up team, support from senior management, and targeted guidance from Onestone, the approach was immediately scaled across all customers and departments.