As a small business, we often rely on referrals to meet new customers. During a site survey for a large graphics project that we completed at Phillips Arena in downtown Atlanta, Stephen had the opportunity to meet Chris Argano of the Atlanta Hawks organization and part of the Phillips Arena staff. At the time, Chris was helping our installation team get the lay of the land for the graphics project we had through Dimensional Design.
Shortly after the job was completed, Stephen received a call from Chris who needed help with an emergency sign installation that he had to get taken care of in four short hours. They had just received replacement flexible faces for the sign cabinets that surround the “bowl” within the arena. They needed them to be installed before the doors opened for the opening night game that evening.
When You Have a Tight Installation Schedule, Customer Service is Key.
Prior to getting to the job site, the installation team was not completely sure what to expect since they hadn’t surveyed the job prior to being asked to complete it. It turned out that the “bowl” had six signs. Each sign was made of three cabinets covered with a single “flex face” sign face. However, the job for that day only required that only two of the sign faces be replaced.
“Flex faces” are often used for very large sign faces as a replacement for rigid materials such as acrylic and polycarbonate. If a sign face is larger than ten feet by ten feet, using the rigid materials would create the need for a seam in the sign-face, often an unattractive option. With a flex face, however, the material is primarily fabric coated with PVC. This allows the face to be quite large before requiring a seam using the wide format printers on the market today.
By the time our team got down to the job site, there was only three hours before the doors would open so that fans could get to their seats. They quickly assessed the situation and came up with a plan for removing the old graphic and installing the new graphic. The graphic used a hammer and chisel method to stretch the faces across the cabinet faces.
Unfortunately, due to the time constraints, they were only able to replace one of the two requested sign faces. They were literally putting in the final screw when the announcer came over the loudspeaker announcing, “The doors are now open.”
Three weeks later, we were contacted by Chris and Todd Bynum, who also works for the Hawks and Phillips Arena.
This time, they wanted us to replace four of the six flex face sign system around the arena. Armed with the experience of the earlier job, our entire installation team was able to knock out the entire job before the Hawks’ first nationally televised game.
Our team was able to truly demonstrate the value of customer service by providing this customer the installation they needed within their very tight time constraints.
