Together Through Thick and Thin: What Real Customer Success Looks Like with Bill Keating, General Manager at G&H Moorpark
Client relationship management (CRM) represents one of the toughest jobs within any business sector because of its delicate and ever-changing nature. So much can be at stake, in particular when dealing with difficult scenarios for the involved parties. Aside from understanding potential concerns, the team working on client success needs to first and foremost make sure expectations are being met. We’ve sat down with Bill Keating, General Manager at G&H Moorpark, who has recently been involved in a partnership transformation with one of G&H’s most critical clients: Honeywell. In this discussion, Bill explains more about the initial status quo with our partners on a specific project, what strategies have been employed to create a positive outcome and what formed the key to success for both G&H and our client. Discover the real path to client success in the conversation below:
Q: Bill, tell us a bit about yourself and your background as a professional.
BK: Certainly. I’m Bill Keating, General Manager at G&H Moorpark, a design and manufacturing facility for precision optics, particularly known for its super-polished optics and photonics engineering within the larger G&H Group. My role is to make sure the site runs smoothly and that everyone, from employee to customer, is satisfied with their experience at Gooch and Housego.
My career is coming close to a 30-year benchmark. I studied Electronics at the Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston, Massachusetts and, later, followed an MBA program at the University of Rhode Island in the United States. Right after my studies, I went into work, especially in roles that covered strategy and process optimization. If I look back, the essence of my roles within companies has always revolved around fixing things – changing the status quo into something better. I'd typically go into a business that would not be performing…at least not to the standards it envisioned for itself, and I'd fix it through all sorts of strategic tweaks. And then, I'd take on another business and fix that. Of course, each process took its respective time. I don't jump around very much in terms of businesses. In fact, this role with G&H is only my fourth job in my entire career.
I usually look for companies that are underperforming in a certain aspect, that I believe should be able to achieve better results within the engineering realm. Many of the companies where I’ve been are based on built-to-order OEM relationships. That’s how I fit in so well with G&H in my current role.
You know, I've done some pretty significant distribution work with multi-site companies that were operating internationally – a resemblance with the current G&H ecosystem. That is how I ended up maintaining a lot of customer relations in different countries and have been able to grow the businesses I was involved with to a significant degree together with the teams I was responsible for. I pretty much started on a production floor and worked my way all the way up into general management and discovered that full profit-and-loss (P&L) responsibility is kind of where I like to sit mostly.
Q: Internally, you are known for receiving stellar feedback from our customers in terms of relationship management, even informally. There was even one important project that you were assigned to with tech giant Honeywell, one of our most important partners, which needed a general, refreshed outlook. How did you start working on this specific customer partnership?
BK: I started working on this project on November 3rd of last year. So, when I was assigned to handle this partnership, we were quite a bit behind on a commitment to ramp up about a 50% increase in the amount of product that we would ship to Honeywell. So, we had to go back and really rework the ramp-up plan, trying to make sure that we had enough capacity in each of the areas that would contribute to the overall goal. What was essential for this partnership was its communication element – something to which both parties actively contributed. We started off with a thorough plan of what we needed to do, and then we included a standardized communication process to make sure that everyone was aware of what was going on, of what was happening at every single checkpoint. If something didn't work out according to plan, we made sure that the counterparts from Honeywell were aware of the situation, so that they could readjust their schedules accordingly.
We started with high-end questions at G&H such as understanding whether we had enough equipment to fulfil the requirement. And then, of course, if we maximized the equipment aspect, what types of shift profiles would we need to operate? That is how we decided to expand our second shift and then also work into getting coverage on weekends as well.
We had plenty of raw stock, which was a great starting point. But then, we discovered our infrastructure needed a boost. So, we had to make pretty significant capital investments in that area. I think right now we're probably close to a $2.5 million investment in state-of-the-art manufacturing equipment over the last 2 years. That decision defined an important moment of trust between our team and those from Honeywell, as they saw concrete improvements being made for their high-tech project. We have also expanded our workforce with about a 15% increase in staffing in order to cover the specific project needs.
In a nutshell, through such leadership decisions, our partners could see that we were serious. And we are serious about every order we commit to. We also let our Honeywell clients know every decision that was being taken and got them involved in the entire manufacturing process. As such, they felt seen and involved, which made a big difference down the line.
Q: And which was the most challenging aspect of this partnership refresh?
BK: Honestly, that would be its beginnings. My first meeting with the Honeywell team was a little tense because I had presented them the fact that we were behind where we said we would be by that point in time. The whole point of that meeting was really to reset expectations in a way that would be advantageous for both sides. That’s how we got a team from their side to come in and work together quite collaboratively in order to help each other be successful with this project.
You know, as an example, we loaned them a piece of our capital equipment, to help them out on another project they were working on. We actually shipped that piece of equipment to their facility for their convenience. What we are now trying to do at G&H regarding customer delight is to go beyond what is expected. Anyone can do basics, but a partnership goes beyond that. We aim to provide an exceptional customer experience and together with my team, we’re in the business of looking at what else we can do to maximize performance and profits for everyone involved.
Q: What was the key to making this process a success story?
BK: I cannot understate how important teamwork is, when it’s honest and focused. At the end of the day, the only reason we ended up fixing what could have become a broken client relationship are the people involved.
We are an OEM supplier to our customers. What is very critical is that our components go in a very early stage in our clients’ manufacturing process. So, we need to make sure that we're delivering when we say we are or that we are notifying them if something goes wrong, so that they're aware. I think that's really fundamental as an OEM supplier: you have to make sure you take care of all these points. I mean product quality is very, very important in our line of business, which at G&H, it can almost be taken for granted. It shouldn’t be, but the truth is that our teams are top-notch experts in their fields. And because of our organizational culture, we pay attention to what makes a product work above and beyond. But if you look at the ratings and even at the feedback coming from customers, on-time delivery usually comes up a little higher above product quality.
To be able to pull all of this off, you need committed people who don’t give up when the going gets tougher. I am lucky to have Susana Contreras, our Customer Account Relationship Specialist, and Rod Schuster, Regional Sales Manager, who were 2 fundamental people for our customers.
Like I told Charlie Peppiatt, our CEO, I believe that this is a niche that we should be able to convert into a profitable line of growing business for the Group if we can get our act together. And that’s what we’ve been working on really hard over the past year. As a result, I believe we are going to see some great results in 2025, aside from the thriving atmosphere in our current partnership with Honeywell. I want to thank everyone involved for helping turn this into what will become a true success story and I am looking forward to even better, more fruitful times ahead.