Hot Topics-June 2000

If you are like a lot of people this time of year, you’ve probably spent some time recently planting seeds or watering your garden. But have you ever stopped to think about how much your customer base is like a garden? In your customer base, you have a variety of different types of customers. Some are old, and some are new. But they all have one thing in common: If you don’t take care of them, you stand a good chance of losing them.

Most people know how to care for a garden. If you water it, provide enough light and fertilizer, and keep the weeds down, it will grow. But how should you care for your customers? Like plants, customers don’t like neglect. You need to regularly tend your “customer garden” to make it grow. Here are some ways to “water” your customers:

· Ask your customers to evaluate your performance. Use a mailed questionnaire or a phone call for feedback on how well they like your services. Be sure to ask for any suggestions for improvement.

· Surprise and delight your customers in unexpected ways. Run promotions for prizes, or send them an article of interest. Send a thank-you note after a purchase.

· Start a newsletter to send regularly to your customer base. Include real information, not just promotional articles. Your customers will look to you as a source of authoritative knowledge and will regularly be reminded of you. If you don’t have time to prepare it yourself, outsource it or buy a pre-written newsletter that you can put your name on.

· Put your catalog on CD-Rom, or on your website. The more easily your customers can find information about your products, the more likely they are to buy from you.

· Start building a “knowledge base” around your products, and make it available to your customers. For example, in the temperature industry, it’s difficult to find good articles about the use of thermocouples, RTDs, and transmitters. Try distilling your own knowledge into articles, and encourage your staff to do the same. Then make these articles available to your customers, either as reprints or on your website.

· Take a new look at your training program. It is a natural tendency to assume that other people have the same knowledge base that we do. But in fact, your customers may not understand how to install or use your products. Consider beefing up your training with a CD-Rom or a video that demonstrates the use of your products.

· Take your customer’s point of view. Imagine that you are a customer placing an order for your own products. How would you want the process to go? What would frustrate you about it? Think of problems you’ve had in the past when ordering products. Do any of your customers experience the same frustrations, such as a delayed shipment, a partially filled order, or having goods damaged in shipment?

There are lots of ways to satisfy your customers, and just as many ways to dissatisfy them. If you neglect your customers, they will look elsewhere for business. If instead you work to satisfy your customers, chances are they will stay with you for the long term.

How Satisfied Are Your Customers?

In the end-user survey for The Market for Temperature Sensors and Transmitters in the Americas, we asked temperature end-users how satisfied they are with their suppliers. The questions centered on training guides, personal training, and service. The results are shown in Figure 1. A 5 indicates the highest level of satisfaction, while a 1 indicates the lowest level.

Average Rating (on a 1 to 5 scale)
Training guides and manuals from temp. sensors supplier	Mean	3.28
	Minimum	1
	Maximum	5
Responses		80
Personal training from your temp. sensors supplier	Mean	2.79
	Minimum	1
	Maximum	5
Responses		68
Service support from your temp. sensors supplier	Mean	3.41
	Minimum	1
	Maximum	5
Responses		76

What can we learn from Figure 1? It is interesting that end-users rank service support highest and personal training lowest. Training guides are in between. According to these responses, customers rank service after the sale higher than the support they receive in getting up and running with a product. In this era of computerization and the Internet, personal training is apt to take a back seat to prepackaged instruction manuals. Yet customers still value personal training. The survey results suggest that you take a look at your training program, including personal training and training guides, to make sure you are meeting your customers’ needs.

Offer a Broad Range of Temperature Sensor Types

Most customers prefer to buy from a single vendor. Suppliers that offer only one or two types of sensors will find that they lose bids to other suppliers that have more variety. For this reason, it is important for temperature sensor suppliers to offer a range of temperature sensor types, relative to their target markets.

Any thermocouple supplier is well advised to also offer RTDs, and vice versa. It is also advisable to carry thermistors for companies that deal with industries where they are used. Carrying infrared thermometers also strengthens a product line. However, suppliers who sell into industries where infrared thermometers are not widely used need not necessarily carry them. Infrared thermometers, which measure temperature at a distance, are widely used for applications involving motion and high-temperature.

In addition to offering a broad range of types of temperature sensors, it is important to offer a broad range of types within a particular sensor line. For a thermocouple supplier, it is important to offer at least the four standard types: K, J, T, and E. Most thermocouple suppliers offer a range of other types, including N, S, and B. Suppliers who carry many different types will get the business of customers who mainly buy Ks and Js but who occasionally have a special application that requires a different type.

For RTD suppliers, it is important to have both the thin-film and wirewound varieties. Even though there is an industry trend towards thin-film RTDs, wirewound RTDs are still used very widely. Having both types is important, and both types will continue to be popular for the foreseeable future.

Other Temperature Measurement Technologies

Many temperature sensor suppliers offer both thermocouples and RTDs. Many also offer thermistors and infrared thermometers. But there are other methods of temperature measurement. Four of the most common ones are described here. If you are seeking to broaden your product line, you may wish to look at some of these types as well.

Fluid expansion devices. The term ‘fluid expansion device’ is a fancy name for the familiar household mercury thermometer and similar devices. Fluid expansion devices depend on the fact that fluids expand when heated. Instead of using a separate device to interpret the liquid height and display the temperature, thermometers contain a scale that allows the temperature to be read off directly from the height of the liquid. These thermometers do not require electric power, are not explosive, and remain stable after repeated uses. However, they must be read manually and do not generate data that is easy to record or transmit. In addition to mercury, versions using gas rather than liquid are available.

Change of state temperature sensors. Change of state temperature sensors include labels, crayons, lacquers or liquid crystals, and pellets. What these devices have in common is that they change in appearance when a certain temperature is reached. In many cases, this change of state is irreversible. These types of sensors are used in the food industry, and are also used with steam traps.

Bimetallic devices. Bimetallic devices take advantage of differences in the thermal expansion rates of certain metals. Two metal strips are bonded together. When the strips are heated, one side expands more than the other side. As a result, a bending occurs in the strips. A mechanical linkage to a pointer interprets this bending as a temperature reading. Bimetallic devices do not require a power supply, and are portable, but are less accurate than thermocouples and RTDs. Bimetallic devices also are not easily used for recording temperature changes.

Integrated circuit temperature sensors. Integrated circuit (IC) temperature sensors have the advantage that they are naturally linear devices that generate an output that is proportional to absolute temperature. Typically, IC sensor output is stated in microamps per degree Kelvin. IC sensors are made from silicon and germanium transistors, and they rely on the electrical properties of these sensors to produce their proportional voltage output. Voltage is converted to current using a low-temperature-coefficient thin-film resistor.

Temperature Sensor and Transmitter Study Now Available

The end-user survey data on page two was taken from our new study, The Market for Temperature Sensors and Transmitters in the Americas. This study represents a year of research by Flow Research and Ducker Research. In conducting the study, we interviewed over 250 temperature suppliers and 132 end-users of temperature products. If you are in the temperature business, then you must have this study. For more information, contact Flow Research at 781-224-7550 or visit our website at http://www.flowresearch.com/. To order the study, call Ducker Research at 800-929-0086, and ask for Nick Limb.

Flow Research is following up with a study of the worldwide infrared thermometer and thermal imaging systems market. Like the temperature study, it includes an extensive end-user survey. This study will be available in July. Contact Flow Research for more information.

How Are We Doing?

Hot Topics is distributed by fax and email to members of the temperature industry. The purpose of Hot Topics is to keep you up-to-date on developments in the industry, and to provide a forum for discussion of important issues. How are we doing? Are there subjects you would like to see included in Hot Topics? Do you have any comments on articles in this issue or any preceding issue? Please let us know! You can call us at 781-224-7550, or fax your comments to 781-224-7552. Or, send an email to the editor at jesse@flowresearch.com.

Be sure to visit our website at http://www.flowresearch.com/. You can read a new article called “Taking the Mystery Out of Infrared” if you go to Flow/Temperature Articles. Several other temperature articles are available, and more will be added in the near future.

Hot Topics is published by Flow Research, 27 Water Street, Wakefield, MA 01880.

Have You Watered Your Customers Lately?

How Satisfied Are Your Customers?

Offer a Broad Range of Temperature Sensor Types

Other Temperature Measurement Technologies

Temperature Sensor and Transmitter Study Now Available

How Are We Doing?