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Partnering May/June, 2012 PCB Prototyping: Building a Relationship
based PCB manufacturers have shrunk by 74 percent since 2000. The widely- held belief is that the small, local-mar- ket PCB manufacturers were often the first to go. While the shrinking supply of local-market PCB shops may not have a profound impact on US PCB pro- duction capacity, it did change how PCB designers build their prototypes. Combine this loss of manufacturing expertise with the talent drain in PCB design overall, and the challenges to the PCB prototyping supply chain become much more serious. Simultaneously, the rise of eCom -
I
merce transformed some manufactur- ers into multi-national provi ders. Just as the local-market shops were consoli- dating, production runs were moving overseas, and design teams were find- ing themselves without a source for pro- totype work, some manufacturing firms — Sunstone Circuits among them — emerged on the internet. When local shops closed, it was
as if the local bookstore had shut down. Sure, one could shop an online bookseller any time, and have books delivered right to their front door, but there was no “relationship” there, no tactile connection to the service, no one to collaborate with if problems arose. This has been part of a larger trend; that local shop was a great place to build the first batch of proto- type boards. The designers often knew the shop owner, and might visit to ver- ify initial builds. That was the pinna- cle of attentive customer service: designer and PCB shop owner work- ing together, building products as a team. That trust-based relationship was a major factor in design success during prototype.
n a 2010 report, “Manufacturing Insecurity,” High Road Strategies, a Virginia consultant, cites that US-
By Nolan Johnson, CAD/EDA Manager, Sunstone Circuits, Mulino, OR l Live Chat. l Forums.
The distance of eCommerce meant
designers had an even harder time cre- ating that close working relationship. And, for PCB designers new to the industry, that lack of access could be stifling. Those PCB companies who stepped up to create real value in their customer service organizations gained the competitive edge in the market- place. At Sunstone, many customers found us originally because their local board shop closed down. Not surprisingly then, the dynam-
ic in prototype PCB manufacturing has played out similarly to eCommerce book stores. The trust relationship has been hard to maintain. In the prototype PCB manufacturing segment specifical- ly, eCommerce-based providers have a reputation for being difficult to reach, with telephones staffed according to local business hours. They may be inconsistent about responses via email or online chat. How do design teams develop
trust-based relationships with an eCommerce PCB manufacturer for pro- totyping? Design teams must evaluate their relationship with their PCB sup- plier, looking for a technically-savvy but high-touch personal service to a global customer base. Here are some ideas on how to complete that evaluation.
Physical Proximity Find out if the call center is in
the manufacturing facility. This en - courages direct interaction be tween the Customer Service Reps (CSRs) and the Manufacturing ex perts who are building your product. Multiple Channels of Commu nication When a call center serves techni-
cal customers worldwide, it must be prepared to communicate with a cus- tomer in whatever medium works best
for the customer. l
Telephone. l Email.
When using the telephone, rate the call center on these criteria:
l Average call answer time. l
l l
24 hour staffed phone support — are they available every day of the year?
First Call Resolution Rate — does the customer issue get resolved in one call?
Overall professionalism and expertise.
Next to phone calls, email is the
predominant support method used. Check how quickly your email is acknowledged with a response. The typical response time to an inbound customer support email should be less than 15 minutes. If your provider offers live chat, make sure it’s a serv- ice they staff regularly. Forums allow for community-wide discussion of top- ics, news and issues. Check to see if your PCB manufacturer hosts forums, or participates in industry-specific forums. In fact, use the forum to talk openly with other customers about their experiences with your provider.
Training and Support CSRs are the key to developing
that consultative relationship once enjoyed with the cross-town board shop. CSRs must be able to hold their own during technical discussions. If help is inconsistent or un -
know ledgeable, one root cause will be the call center’s training program. Furthermore, when a first-line CSR cannot adequately handle a sticky customer issue, what happens next is a test of the senior technical staff. If an issue requiring Tier 2 help results in the call center taking a message, or
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putting you into a Tier 2 voicemail queue, then senior staffing is light. But if the call center resolves escalat- ed issues during the same phone call (a technique called Transparent Escalation), then that’s a good sign of a high level of customer service.
Routing Phone Calls How a company routes inbound
support calls indicates the company’s commitment to service. Two methods are common — voicemail routing where customers are assigned a dedicated rep- resentative; if a customer calls and the agent is busy, the call goes to voicemail. Efficiency studies show this routing approach can be a resource drain; call- ing from voicemail uses seven minutes, on average, per return call. If a support call takes an average of 8 minutes, then voicemail callbacks cut staff efficiencies by almost 50 percent. If pool-based routing is used, the phone PBX routes calls to any available agent. Customer Service agents use customer relation- ship management (CRM) tools to access customer information. When any agent can handle any customer call, call cen- ter capacities increase, and customers get a real agent, not voicemail. This change increases customer
satisfaction and builds trust, and a rep- utable company would employ this practice. “Investing in a CRM and phone system that allows both for sophisticated rules-based call center features, and for transparent communi- cations between departments, gives every customer service agent the ability to provide an immediate answer to a customer,” says Brian Rehm, Sunstone Customer Service Team Leader.
The Customer Benefits The proof is in the metrics.
Sunstone employs these techniques to maintain a 99+ percent on-time deliv- ery rate, a 99+ percent correct order rate, and a return customer rate of 80+ percent. The high level of expert- ise and decision-making authority available to Customer Service Reps, coupled with Transpar ent Escalation and direct, personal access to the manufacturing floor is how Sunstone achieves effectively 0 percent call abandonment; almost 0 percent call escalation; and a 99+ percent rate of resolution on the first call. As a result, Sunstone has become
a consultative resource for design engineers. Sunstone Customer Service provides value by helping minimize design revisions, saving days of proj- ect time, and saving the design team multiple hours of labor costs associat- ed with re-spins. If a design team of four engineers must wait an addition- al five business days for a re-spin, that costs an estimated $10,000 in labor costs. Using a prototype manufacturer with expert, consultative customer service will more than pay for itself by drastically reducing unnecessary rebuilds; as the numbers show, it is the secondary cost savers — wages and project time — that add up to the
largest savings for designers. Contact: Sunstone Circuits,
TECH-ETCH, INC., Download EMI/RFI Shielding Product Catalog at
www.tech-etch.com/shield See us at Atlantic Design Booth 541
ISO 9001:2008 REGISTERED
13626 S. Freeman Road, Mulino, OR 97042 % 800-228-8198 or 503-829- 9109 fax: 503-829-6657 E-mail:
support@sunstone.com Web:
www.sunstone.com r
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