This Company Has Been Around for 135 Years. The Key to Its Success? Customer Service.

How far are you willing to go to offer great customer service? Andy Spearing of Portland’s Pike Awning says he’d rather lose money than make a customer unhappy.

Franchise Your Business

Schedule a FREE one-on-one session with one of our Franchise Advisors today and we’ll help you start building your franchise organization.



May
25, 2021

3 min read


This special content series is made possible by The HISTORY Channel®. Watch the incredible stories behind iconic brands, entrepreneurs, and rivalries that drove groundbreaking . Don’t miss the Memorial Day premieres of the documentary series, The Food That Built America at 8/7c followed by The Titans That Built America at 9/8c.

Andy Spearing’s company is 135 years old, and he knows exactly what’s kept it alive that long.

It’s .

“We’d rather lose on a job than the customer be unhappy,” Spearing says. “Unhappy customers pretty quickly will ruin your . It’s hard to get to 135 years of history with unhappy customers.”

Spearing and his team now have a big job ahead of them: As the owners of Pike Awning in , Oregon, they must reinvent their legacy business — drawing in new customers while keeping the old ones just as happy as before.

Spearing is part of a new generation of leaders at Pike Awning. When the company opened in 1891, it sold a wider range of products — but over time, it zeroed in on custom awnings that it serves to customers who are mostly local or regional. Now the company faces a pivotal moment, with new leaders, many of its longtime employees retiring, and the realization that to truly grow the business, Pike Awning will need to expand the products it creates and the customers it serves.


For more content like this, don’t miss The HISTORY Channel® Memorial Day documentary series event beginning at 8/7c! Watch The Food That Built America, chronicling the origin stories of rivalries behind some of food’s most iconic brands, and The Titans That Built America, that tells the fascinating history of brilliant and sometimes ruthless visionaries behind notable innovations

Spearing says that he, his siblings, and his cousin — who have taken over from the family’s previous generation of leaders — are excited for the challenge. But they’re taking it slow and steady. 

“We definitely want to and need to ensure that we’re being stable,” Spearing says. “We’re not changing things too much for right now, because there’s already so much change in the business between people, personnel, and everything.” So instead, he says, he’s speaking to his employees about incremental improvements. “Let’s look towards the future,” he tells them, “and let’s think about what else we can do that we haven’t.”

To hear more about how Spearing and his team are managing change at such an old institution, watch the video above.

No Comments Yet

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

 

The Abundance Pub (TAP) is a media source dedicated to all things positive in the world. Focusing on Health, Wealth and Happiness. The Abundance Pub serves as repository of positive news articles, blogs, Podcasts, Masterclasses and tips to help people live their best life!

FOLLOW US ON

Message From Founder