Together News - December 2021

Together magazine &

December 2021

We’re part of a new family the Savaria family!

In this issue: Savaria Visit | Engage Customer Experience Conference | Meet The Finance Team

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Hello from your Senior Management team...

Richard Whitehouse, Ian Docherty, Paul Stockdill, Emma Bowker, Paul Sykes, Andy Williams and Lisa Nation.

What a year! We’re sure like us you all feel this has been a momentous year for Handicare for all sorts of reasons. We have continued to break records in terms of production and sales – contributing to days where our global business reached €1m order intake, where our Apps team delivered more drawings per day than ever before – in fact, where every single department has gone beyond the performance of previous years. And all this as our business, our sector, and our economy are recovering from the impact of the pandemic.

We are truly thankful and amazed by your awesome performance every day, sometimes in very difficult circumstances.

There’s plenty to celebrate about 2021, and also plenty for us all to be thinking about to ensure we reach our goal of being the Number 1 choice of stairlift provider by 2025. There have been some highlights and of course some challenges this year, but we hope the stories you read in this issue make you feel confident and excited about our future.

As we continue to work more closely with our international colleagues, especially since our acquisition by Savaria, we hope you are looking forward to making everyday life easier for even more people, changing more lives and bringing independence and dignity to more stairlift users around the world.

Wishing you all the merriest Christmas and happy New Year break! See you all in 2022!

UK SMT

Our #OneFamily album

Every issue we’ll be sharing photos and reviews received from happy dealers and customers around the world – if you’d like to see more follow us on Facebook, Twitter or Linkedin!

Here are a selection of our favourite recent installations!

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Savaria leaders make first visit to Handicare in Europe Following our acquisition by Savaria this year to become the global leader in accessibility, three of their senior leadership team travelled to Europe to meet our people and get to know the Handicare business in person.

Since the acquisition, covid restrictions have prevented any Savaria representatives from travelling to Europe. But in October, the Bourassa brothers Alex and Sebastien, and Senior Vice President Bill Richardson, visited our manufacturing sites in the UK and Netherlands, as well as our commercial offices in Leeds.

Sebastien Bourassa is Vice President Operations and Integrations at Savaria, responsible for operations in North America and China. Alex Bourassa is Sales VP, looking after sales and commercial activities in North America and Australia for Savaria and, following recent leadership changes, Handicare.

During the week they met various teams at the sites, as well as seeing our manufacturing process and exploring opportunities for working more closely together in the future. The visit brings us all another step closer, and coincided with the announcement of increased involvement of Handicare Group leadership with Savaria and Garaventa operations in Europe.

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Nominee: Mike Mears, Surveyor Nominated by: Phil Cooke Mike recently completed around a 400 mile round trip to visit a potential homelift customer in Swindon. But upon arrival, the customer was nowhere to be seen. A neighbour informed Mike that the previous night, the customer had received an emergency phone call to visit his wife in hospital, and was expected back by midday the following day.

Mike waited for the customer to return, and was then able to carry out the survey and leave a quote for them. The customer commented on how impressed he was by Mike’s empathy, understanding and attention to detail. So much so, that it was because of this, the customer decided to place the order with ourselves the very next day.

A big thank you to Mike Mears for demonstrating exceptional customer service!

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Leadership updates Members of the Handicare Group senior team have now taken on leadership of significant segments of the Savaria and Garaventa businesses in Europe to support integration across the accessibility division of Savaria.

Changes to key management roles and responsibilities have been announced, signalling the next phase in the development of our global business. These key management roles will accelerate Savaria’s future capabilities and unify us behind our common mission to make everyday life easier for people around the world.

Handicare VP Commercial Clare Brophy will now lead sales and commercial in Europe, Asia and South America for Handicare, Savaria and Garaventa Lift. Group Finance Director David Temple will take on responsibility for Savaria finance in Europe and Asia. VP Operations Peter Slack will be responsible for Operations in Europe, Garaventa Lift in Italy, and Handicare Xiamen in China.

Savaria President and CEO, Marcel Bourassa said of the change: “As we look to the coming months and plan for 2022, we will be listening to you. We look forward to the collaboration efforts you will make – including getting to know your colleagues in similar job functions around the world. Your suggestions and ideas for synergies are welcome.”

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Nominee: Laura Berrington, TPS Key Account Manager Nominated by: George Court, Technical Liaison Manager & Beth Venables, TPS Manager Laura has provided support to George, Beth and also the rest of her colleagues during a very busy period on the TPS team. Laura has taken on extra workload and responsibilities to ensure that the department is fully functioning, hitting its targets and not disappointing any of our valuable customers.

Thank you for all your commitment, dedication and hard work Laura!

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Project Orange In order to reduce delivery times on our Freecurve stairlifts, Project Orange will see production increased with a brand new manufacturing site in Brampton, Canada.

Our stairlifts are valued worldwide by our partners and end users, and delivery times on stairlifts are an important factor in the sales process. Producing the Freecurve locally will mean that the products can be delivered to our North American market with significant improvement on lead times.

At the beginning of this year, a third welding robot was modified in Heerhugowaard with the aim of testing it and then shipping it to Canada to start Freecurve production there. In September, the robot in Heerhugowaard was dismantled, packed and shipped in containers across the Atlantic Ocean to the Savaria production site in Brampton, Canada – a journey of four weeks!

The parts have now been installed in Brampton with the support of a robot expert and Savaria colleagues who recently visited Heerhugowaard to learn all the tricks. In the coming weeks, colleagues from the Heerhugowaard site will travel to Brampton to start up production together with the Savaria team. The aim is to get the first production parts and assembly parts out of the factory in December.

This project is a first example of how the Savaria Group is working internationally to serve customers all over the world quickly. Way to go, Team Project Orange, we are so proud!

During the week they met various teams at the sites, as well as seeing our manufacturing process and exploring opportunities for working more closely together in the future. The visit brings us all another step closer, and coincided with the announcement of increased involvement of Handicare Group leadership with Savaria and Garaventa operations in Europe.

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News from around the group Handicare Auto Division wins police car adaptation contract Handicare Auto is part of our group, providing vehicle accessibility for people with disabilities as well as vehicle conversions for the emergency services.

In Norway, following a successful bid in a demanding tender process, Volvo and Handicare have been selected to be the supplier of Small Patrol and Dog Patrol vehicles for the police service.

Volvo is already a contracting party to the police, and Handicare is the car conversion supplier to Volvo. In this tender, Handicare won the contract, worth NOK 1.2 billion, which will last up to seven years.

Handicare has developed a close collaboration with Volvo over the past four years, having developed a dog kennel for the Volvo V90/V90CC. The Auto team produced an advanced product for two dogs with separate ventilation, a special locking mechanism, and an emergency exit into the vehicle, all controlled by the vehicle original screen. This was sold to the Norwegian police in 2016, and began to be exported to Denmark earlier this year.

This collaboration with Volvo resulted in the new tender to the Norwegian Police in 2019. The contract has started this year, and the team is looking into new potential collaborations, including an opportunity with Volvo in the UK. The dog kennel was shown at an exhibition in UK in October.

Everyone loved it!

Handicare has won more contracts this year with the Norwegian Police and is now it’s largest direct or indirect supplier.

Congratulations to Vidar Andersen and the team on this success, they have done a fantastic job!

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Handicare Plus in North America Handicare Patient Handling division in North America offers products and solutions for all types of patient transfer in hospitals, acute care situations, care homes and in homes.

The division has recently announced a relaunch of Handicare Plus; the field and service programme provides regular inspection and maintenance of equipment throughout hospitals and long-term care homes. It aims to keep critical equipment in working order, making it easier for healthcare workers to focus on providing valuable care without disruption.

Handicare Plus plans offer different features and benefits tailored for a range of budgets.

This provides customers, large and small, every opportunity to be part of a programme fully supported by expertly trained staff and a dedicated support team.

“We are excited about Handicare Plus and how it will help our customers reduce equipment downtime, ensure timely routine repairs, improve safety and reduce overall cost of ownership,” said Philip Marmina, Senior Vice-President for Handicare North America. “Our programme has been designed to help our customers focus on care for their clients and our highly knowledgeable team is ready to support them throughout the life of their equipment.”

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Nominee: Ewan Collins and Scott Langmuir Nominated by: Lyndsey Jackson-Smith After a significant issue with an installation in Scotland, Ewan and Scott went above and beyond to help our partners. The situation was extremely difficult and emotional for the customers, as the lift facilitated a hospital discharge which was due to take place the same day. The partners reached out for guidance and assistance from Handicare in Baillieston on Friday evening, and received support from our team on Saturday. The partners reported that the engineers were outstanding, diagnosed the issue and helped to resolve it. This was a great example of working in true partnership as #OneFamily with our dealers.

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OUR FREECURVE GOES UP A GEAR – AND THE RESPONSE IS FANTASTIC! Life-changing home adaptations are now possible for even more people with the introduction of a new two-way powered swivel option on our Freecurve stairlifts. In October we introduced this highly desirable feature, developed by our R&D team in response to feedback from partners.

Customers with narrow staircases and tricky layouts in halls and landings will now be able to ride in comfort with the Freecurve in a swivelled position and benefit from the enhanced safety of a 90-degree swivel at the top of the stairs. This means increased comfort and safety for our end users, as well as a more flexible variety of products for our dealers.

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Now that Handicare products can be fitted on an even wider range of staircases, we will be one step closer to becoming a one-stop-shop for every stairlift product our dealers need. This makes us the clear choice of supplier for accessibility businesses around the world!

Sales since the launch have been strong, out-pacing previous demand for our similar solution, the Freecurve Turn and Go. Congratulations to all the teams who have been working hard to get this new feature out to our customers!

COMING UP...

Keep an eye out for news about the Handicare 2000 update in the next issue of Together!

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Dutch team fly into Kingswinford Members of the Netherlands manufacturing team lent a hand to their international colleagues in September by travelling to the UK to support rail production in the machine shop. This freed up the Kingswinford team to cope with extra demand at their production site.

during the day to move to night shifts.

The three associates, Tommy, Jim and Rachid, were set to work operating the rack to tube welding robot, the Pryor LASER mark and drill machine, and supporting with linishing operations during night shifts. This allowed the Kingswinford team to train

UK Operations Director Richard Whitehouse commented: “They were a great bunch of lads, always willing and always smiling. Great assets to the company. I would be happy to steal them from Jan Hopman again if I get the chance!”

This was a great opportunity to get to know colleagues around the business better. As a global business, all our teams work hard to support colleagues around the world in everything we do.

Workplace health & safety achieves Gold award Handicare UK has been awarded Gold accreditation

by Alcumus SafeContractor for achieving excellence in workplace health and safety. The award recognises all the hard work that goes into making sure Handicare is delivering the highest possible standard of work to our customers.

The accreditation, which will predominantly interest our Local Authority clients, confirms that Handicare is a safe contractor, and complies with all relevant health and safety standards across our business.

Alcumus SafeContractor is a nationally recognised third-party accreditation scheme, so this award will enhance our ability to win new local authority contracts.

Handicare’s Health, Safety & Environmental Advisor David Thorneycroft and the team have put a huge amount of work into submitting the application.

This involved gathering all our risk assessments, insurance documents, liability and environment checks and submitting them into one central system which will be externally available for potential clients and customers to view. The award also covers

making sure that health and safety training and assessment of our workforce is up to date.

Gemma Archibald, Director of Alcumus SafeContractor said: “Major organisations simply cannot afford to run the risk of employing contractors who are not able to prove that they have sound health and safety policies in place.”

“Handicare’s high standard has set an example which hopefully will be followed by other companies in the sector.”

Huge congratulations to David and the team on securing this award!

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A brand new strategy for Handicare’s marketing Country leaders, BDMs, and the Marketing team got together in Manchester, both in person and joining virtually, to look at the bigger picture of Handicare’s brand strategy and approach to B2B marketing.

The two-day event covered brand strategy about how our messaging can stand out from the competition and the markers of a good marketing campaign, exploring what our dealers want, and how we can best reach them. The Marketing team will use the conversations from the event to create our 2022 brand strategy.

Thanks to everyone who attended and contributed your ideas!

The D365 Programme The IT team is making major updates to the application platform supporting our core business processes in supply chain, sales and field service.

Over time, these systems have become outdated, and upgrading current versions is becoming more and more urgent. We are currently running on unsupported software that day by day increases the risk of business interruptions. Taking ownership and maintaining accurate data within our systems is a vital area of improvement within our business.

The D365 programme is not just a technical upgrade – it is a business transformation journey

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moving Handicare towards an improved customer facing experience. The process has been strategic, looking at how we want to work and finding the most efficient solutions, then working with Atos to decide on a target model for how we want to work and what tools we want to use.

The next step on this journey is to implement D365 in UK as the first country. We are excited to finally get the solutions up and running, and are looking forward to realising our ambitions with a launch in the UK during spring next year. After the UK will come launches in the Netherlands and China before we turn our focus on Auto and, finally, North America. The current plan is for the programme to be fully delivered before the end of 2023.

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Say hi to Emma – our new “Editor”

Emma Temple has joined the marketing team as Content Creator and has spent her first few months getting to know each department. She has been visiting customers with engineers in the UK, listening to customer calls in Leeds, and getting to grips with everything that our R&D and production teams do in Kingswinford.

Many of you will have already met Emma, who introduced us to some of our buyer personas at

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the recent Engage conference. She will continue to develop these to help us make sure our marketing is reaching the right audiences with the right messages.

Emma will also be the “Editor” of our internal newsletters, so if you have a story to share, please get in touch with her!

Nominee: Carl Dunn-Barlett Nominated by: Trudy Chrimes Carl lent a hand recently with the creation of a new breakout area in the Kingswinford office by taking time out of his busy schedule to move furniture and build new tables and chairs.

The new area provides a much-needed space to take time out of our days, and I think we can all agree it looks fantastic.

Thanks Carl for all your hard work going above and beyond to help out with the transformation!

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Customer service survey As a member of the Institute of Customer Service in the UK, Handicare has recently commissioned and completed an internal employee survey to assess what we do well, and what improvements we need to make, from a Service Associate point of view.

The anonymous questionnaire went out to all our UK customer facing colleagues to ask about aspects of our work such as communication, development, and organisation of people and processes. We achieved a rating of 63 out of 100 across the board, as well as written feedback which we can use going forward to drive progress across our customer service teams.

We conducted an external customer survey earlier in the year to gauge how our teams are delivering on service. This showed that we scored an above average rating of 77 from our customers on our friendly, professional service.

This second, internal survey allowed us to close the whole circle and identify what areas we need to work

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on in terms of our structures and support. We know that our teams work incredibly hard to provide the excellent service that they do, but it’s important also to listen to our colleagues and hear what they need from Handicare to continue building on this success.

Having used these preliminary surveys to assess where we are, we can use feedback received to work towards a ServCheck accreditation from ICS, which is awarded to organisations who achieve a rating of 70 on both internal and external surveys.

Global Customer Experience Director David Harrison commented: “There is a lot to celebrate in terms of how our teams are working and the support they receive.

“There are equally areas that we need to work on, such as communicating strategy and providing further training. Now that we have identified what those are, the UK Field & Customer Service Management team can drive forward with implementing the new strategies to support our people and deliver a truly world-class customer experience.”

Nominee: Malcolm Campbell, Production Supervisor Nominated by: Dejan Kedves, Operations Manager Dejan wanted to thank Malcolm for going the extra mile recently to help him deal with numerous machine breakdowns and provide extra support whilst there have been staffing issues in the department. Dejan wanted to ensure that Malcolm received the recognition for all of his hard work during this time. Thank you for all your commitment, dedication and hard work Malcolm - it truly is appreciated!

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Age Co Homelifts success following launch Congratulations to our UK teams on the successful launch of Age Co Homelifts!

Since the launch of the new website in September, we have sold over 70 lifts to customers in the UK. The launch was accompanied by press adverts in national newspapers, The Times and The Telegraph which helped to raise awareness of this new product in the Age Co range of independent living solutions. The sales team has been working tirelessly to achieve the success we’ve seen since.

You can help us continue to spread the word about Homelifts – any leads sent to the sales team that result in a Homelift purchase will be rewarded with a £50 Love2Shop voucher, so make sure you pass on any contacts who might be interested.

The UK direct sales team has formed a longstanding partnership with Age UK’s commercial division to sell stairlifts and bathing solutions.

This is our first product launch under the Age Co brand, a new name for the commercial division of the charity Age UK. Stairlifts and bathing will also be moved under the new Age Co branding for 2022.

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Creating a buzz in the Midlands Our UK Local Authority team has been creating a buzz about the Handicare brand by exhibiting at OTAC Midlands (Occupational Therapy Adaptation Conference and Exhibition) in Tamworth.

Occupational therapists from across the region visited the event to keep up with the latest industry insights and accessibility developments.

Jim Hawkley, one of Handicare’s Local Authority surveyors, gave a talk titled ‘Assessing for a Stairlift’. The session covered everything Occupational Therapists need to bear in mind when carrying out assessments and ordering stairlifts.

The talk attracted lots of attention, and contributed to CPD for attendees, showcasing Handicare as industry experts in this field.

Throughout the year the team has been attending various shows aimed at Local Authority clients and decision makers to demonstrate the benefits of Handicare products. Our stand includes a demo unit with a working 1100 lift, allowing OT’s to experience its features and functionality for themselves.

It’s been brilliant for the team to be attending in-person events again, making the most of opportunities to network face-to-face with fellow industry professionals which had been sorely missed while covid restrictions were in place.

Going the extra mile in Gateshead The Handicare Local Authority team have gone the extra mile recently to demonstrate our commitment to the Gateshead local community, where we were recently awarded the contract to supply and maintain stairlifts for residents. They have arranged for local dance group Nuvo Wellbeing to run fitness classes for care home residents in the area.

A total of 25 residents of Aspen Court and St Mark’s Court care homes took part in the workshops.

They aimed to keep participants fit and healthy, as well as keeping minds active and providing an opportunity to socialise.

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VP Commercial Clare Brophy praised the initiative, saying: “At Handicare, we pride ourselves on keeping our end users at the heart of everything we do. Our products are all aimed at enabling people to live better in later life, but we want to go beyond our products to improve the lives of older people, and workshops like these help us to achieve that.

“Thank you to Nuvo Wellbeing and everyone on the Local Authority team who worked together to make this fantastic scheme happen!”

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NEW Global Vision for TECH SUPPORT

As part of our strategy to provide a consistently excellent customer experience, Ricard Delgado has taken on the new role of Technical Dealer Support & Service Director.

In the new role, Ricard will set the strategic direction for Technical Support throughout our markets, while the teams will continue to be locally managed. This will ensure alignment for our dealer facing service channels.

Having strategic oversight in place for technical support across our territories will mean we can benefit from successes in one region across the board, allowing accelerated improvements in technical support for all our partners. Our technical support is highly praised by Handicare partners, and so putting global oversight in place will allow us to build on this existing success and continue to deliver for our partners.

FIELD SERVICE IN THE UK In the UK, the push to keep end users at the heart of our business by levelling up our technical support for direct customers and trade partners has seen Andy Williams move to his new role as Field Service Director.

Andy moved to this position from his previous work as Quality Manager with goals to enhance customer experience by recognising and rewarding the incredible quality of the service our field service teams provide. By implementing performance-based pay for engineers and introducing Senior Engineer roles, he has made a huge difference in the short time he has been in post.

NEW VOICE OF THE CONSUMER PANEL We want to listen to consumers and experts to inform our business. So we’re putting together a Voice of the Consumer panel to provide insights into the needs of our end users and widen our reach as a global leader in accessibility.

The Voice of the Consumer Panel will launch in January 2022. The panel will be formed of stairlift users, their carers, occupational therapists, product designers and industry experts from a range of backgrounds.

As a thank you for taking part, members of the panel will receive rewards for contributing to regular discussions. All data will be handled confidentially.

If you know someone who might be interested in taking part, please get in touch with Helen Kitchen or Emma Temple for a Panel Registration form.

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Engage: Putting stairlift users at the heart of everything we do “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

Maya Angelou

their stairlift through a dealer, local authority, or our direct sales channels, every one of us is responsible for providing them with an excellent customer experience.

In November Handicare hosted its first global customer experience and marketing conference, Engage.

David Harrison, Global Director of Customer Experience, outlined how we can implement the Six Pillars of Customer Experience Excellence in our interactions with customers. These pillars, developed by experts, include integrity, empathy, personalisation, resolution, time and effort, and managing expectations to ensure they are met and exceeded every time.

The virtual event was held over two days to allow every member of our service and marketing teams from around the world to come together to hear how Handicare is putting stairlift users at the heart of everything we do.

Hosted by VP Commercial Clare Brophy, the day outlined how service and marketing can work together to make sure that every customer has a world-class experience at every point of their journey with Handicare. Whether an end-user buys

We also heard from Global PR and Communications Director Helen Kitchen and the marketing team about the customer touchpoints they manage, and how we can build our brand by remembering our values and purpose in everything we do for our end users.

The event included the launch of the Engage Awards, which recognise and reward individuals who deliver outstanding customer experience and marketing at Handicare. The winners of these awards, one for service and one for marketing, will be announced at the Engage virtual awards ceremony in February next year.

HAVE YOU SUBMITTED YOUR ENTRIES? CLOSING DATE IS 31 DECEMBER 2021 – YOU HAVE TO BE IN IT TO BE IN WITH A CHANCE OF WINNING HOLIDAY VOUCHERS

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Introduction to the Six Pillars of Customer Experience Excellence Key Metrics

Minimising customer effort and creating frictionless processes

Empathy

Resolution

Being trustworthy and engendering trust

Time and Effort

Expectations Integrity

Using individualised attention to drive an emotional connection

Personalisation

Managing, meeting and exceeding customer expectations

Turning a poor experience into a great one Achieving an understanding of the customer’s circumstances to drive deep rapport

G SOON

COM IN

Get ready for our next Ignite event!

SAVE THE DATE: 15 December 2021

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Meet the team:

Finance

Following the department’s move to the UK, we’ve welcomed some new faces to the Group Finance team. Being based in the Kingswinford office with the Shared Service Centre, responsible for processing invoices and managing payments, will enable better collaboration and close working between the two departments.

Commenting on the change, Group Finance VP David Temple said: “The fact that Group Finance and SSC are now all located in one place, in the UK, is a significant benefit. We can share resources

and ideas for improvement, utilise the knowledge and skills in the team to a wider degree, and drive towards common goals.

“With the D365 project coming up, we can ensure that the principles and objectives of this project are clearly understood, and the project resourced effectively towards a common objective across all business units.”

Here’s a little introduction to the team...

Name: David Temple Tell us a bit about your role.

I have recently taken overall responsibility for Finance within Handicare. This has required building a group finance team as we decided after the sale to Savaria that we would move this function from Sweden to the UK. We also have great finance teams in Netherlands, North America, Norway and China. I have recently taken on additional responsibility for the IT function and the Auto division in Norway.

What do you enjoy about working at Handicare?

I work very closely with Clare Brophy and Peter Slack in ensuring they have all the information they need to deliver the results we do in stairlifts. This means I get a very holistic view of where we are, the daily pressures, and also rewards. We work in an industry where we all make a tremendous difference to our consumers, making their everyday lives easier by working together as #OneFamily. I am also enjoying working with the Savaria management team, they are very dynamic and easy to get along with. We will go great places together.

Name: Nigel Underwood Tell us a bit about your role.

I am Finance Director based with the group function in Kingswinford. I am responsible for all internal and external reporting and my aim is to produce useful financial information to help support the Handicare leadership team. I also lead the excellent Shared Service accounting team in Kingswinford, and I work closely with Savaria group finance in Canada.

What do you enjoy about working at Handicare?

I joined Handicare at the start of August and have been really impressed with the commitment and passion our people show for the business. Everyone has been so friendly and welcoming.

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Name: Amelia Flavell

Tell us a bit about your role.

My role is Group Finance Manager. This role ensures the overall management of all activities relating to financial controls and process controls. I’ll be supporting the consistent uploading of information into the group financial reporting & consolidation system, as well as supporting the D365 implementation.

What do you enjoy about working at Handicare?

Everyone has been really welcoming, it has a friendly atmosphere, and the role is very varied. I’m really enjoying working with the different stakeholders in Handicare, and for a company that provides products which increase people’s independence.

Name: Dans Hofrats Tell us a bit about your role.

FP&A Group Analyst is a new role so it will actually be whatever I can make out of it.

Taking Handicare’s reporting and analytics to the next level is the main goal. I want to move towards more data driven decision making and create transparency of the data for everyone in a user-friendly format. This should in turn drive commerciality and more effective decision making.

What do you enjoy about working at Handicare?

The culture is nice. I like being back in the office as previously I was 100% working from home. Also, I like the internationality of Handicare. There are people who I don’t have to explain what floorball is!

Name: Richard Armond Tell us a bit about your role.

My role is Interim Head of Shared Service Centre, covering for Rosie Gall whilst she is on maternity leave. The Shared Service Centre Team process and manage most of the transactions for the Handicare Group, so we are in regular contact and collaborate with teams from across the whole of the business. Apart from managing the Team, one of my key responsibilities is to lead the D365 Project for the SSC. What do you enjoy about working at Handicare?

So far, I have met some lovely people, who seem very passionate about what they do. I am still trying to learn the Handicare ways of working and am looking forward to meeting those of you that I haven’t met yet.

Shared Service Centre team

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New academy for hands-on training

Handicare has long been the industry benchmark for training and supporting stairlift partners, and this facility opens up new possibilities for allowing engineers to have hands-on experience installing our stairlifts. Fully equipped with eight demo stations and desks for workshop sessions, the Academy has been designed to provide a dedicated space to welcome Handicare partners.

Making sure engineers are trained and certified to install our stairlifts is crucial for providing excellent customer experiences. Senior Technical and Training Engineer Rob Wood said: “Providing the training and support which means partners and local authority teams can install our stairlifts confidently is an absolute must for us. We believe it can make all the difference to the teams who are helping customers.

“Our approach is very much focused on creating a good outcome for end-users and that means

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This year as part of our new Partner Programme we opened a new Academy facility at our UK Kingswinford site.

making sure our partners know our products inside out so they’re confident they’re fitting exactly what their customer needs and maintaining them to the highest safety standards.”

The training we offer provides benefits for our partners as well as end users. Proper training means time is saved for engineers carrying out installations and solving technical issues, making our partners’ businesses more efficient. Our training certification also adds credibility in the eyes of customers seeking assurances about retailers’ credentials.

Training facilities have also been developed in Germany and France. These are all steps in the direction of providing a consistent global standard of partner and customer service to make Handicare the number one choice of stairlift supplier around the world.

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OneFamily “reunions” in Germany & France Our teams across Europe have been building up our #OneFamily community of dedicated partners by welcoming Handicare Partners to in-person events over the past few months.

These events offer dealers the opportunity to network and learn more about Handicare and our products.

In October the Handicare team in Germany held their latest annual ‘Selling Stars’ event to celebrate our dealers and present sales awards.

The day started with presentations, and included workshops for dealers. The event then ended with the glamourous Selling Star Ceremony involving a special guest appearance from VP Commercial Clare Brophy, joining remotely from the UK. Finally, German partner Rehabitat presented every Handicare employee an ‘Oscar’ award for best support and best teamwork. This is a real testimony

to our dedicated and hard-working teams who support our Handicare partners.

In France, the ‘DistribuTour’ events welcomed partners to the Handicare office to get a sneak peek behind the scenes and get to know the teams that support them. As well as making the most of being together in person again, this was an opportunity for dealers to see our new Garaventa products in action. The three-day event was a huge success, and will be followed by a virtual event this December.

The UK and Italian teams are busy planning virtual events to welcome partners and give them an insight into the exciting projects we’ve got lined up for 2022.

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Outstanding feedback from our trade partners We have achieved an ‘excellent’ NPS rating of +52 from our global partner network in our latest survey, conducted during Q3 this year.

Scores in some regions reached as high as +81, showing that we’re already achieving a world class customer experience for our trade partners in some regions, and are well on the way to achieving our goal of +70 worldwide. Anecdotal feedback praised us for our high quality products, our reliability, and excellent partner service.

Handicare to other businesses. NPS is measured on a scale from -100 to +100, so +52 is a really positive result. This marks an improvement of 10 points from our Q2 score, showing that we have taken significant steps towards delivering more of what our dealers want.

We will continue to send out quarterly surveys to monitor our partners’ feedback and work towards our goal of achieving a world class rating across our global business.

NPS, or Net Promoter Score, tells us how likely our dealers would be to recommend working with

Training to help us get it right first time, every time New training for UK direct bathroom sales surveyors will help to ensure our customers get clear explanations about the bathing products in our range, as well as a safe and compliant installation that will help to make their everyday life easier.

The training, provided by BIKBBI – British Institute of Kitchen, Bedroom and Bathroom Installation - will give every member of our surveyor team expert knowledge to offer effective and compliant solutions, as well as personal development opportunities and access to industry best practices.

The bespoke one-day programme can be attended

Together Magazine

online or face to face, and will be followed by a knowledge test to achieve certification for everyone who attends.

The bathing team has been working closely with BIKBBI to ensure all our subcontracted bathroom fitters are up to date with accreditations and certification. This gives us confidence that the fitters carrying out work for our customers are of the highest calibre, and will install a safe and compliant bathroom solution.

Handicare has been a member of BiKBBI since 2018.

23 CONGRATULATIONS to all our associates celebrating a...

LONG SERVICE AWARD! Gary Barnett Field Service North West 25 years in September

Murray McDougall Field Service Scotland 5 years in September

Allistair Mason Field Service Scotland 5 years in September

Paul Stockdill Stairlift Sales 5 years in September

Stephen Quinn Field Service Cordia 5 years in September

Kenneth Ashton Field Service North 5 years in September

Dean Connon Field Service Manager 20 years in October

Simon Whitehurst Production 15 years in October

Ian Docherty Accessibility Finance 10 years in October

Marco Marangoni Group Accounting 5 years in November

Nigel Jones Quality 15 years in November

Welcome to the world... to Orla Rose Aitken, born on the 8th of October.

Congratulations to Martin Aitken and Marianne McHenry on her safe arrival!

Together Magazine

Escape challenge marks return to in person socials As lockdown restrictions ease and our teams have been getting back to the office, they’ve been celebrating with some long anticipated in-person socials!

In the UK, the Companion office tested their teamwork at an escape room in Leeds. After a particularly busy time for UK sales, the team loved taking on a fun new challenge together.

In Germany, the team enjoyed a scenic a boat tour along the Mittelland Canal, which runs through Minden, the town where they are based. After the two-hour tour, they went for dinner together at a local restaurant.

The staff magazine needs you!

To share news as one family, we want all Handicare colleagues to help come up with a new name for our new worldwide magazine!

We currently have Handicare Nieuws in the Netherlands and Together Magazine in the UK. From June, we will also launch our new “global magazine” in North America, China and Europe, so that all colleagues receive our news.

If you have an idea for a name, send it to this e-mail address: news@handicare.com

Receiv vouchere a your cho of ice if you win

£50!

You can make up as many names as you want!

Can you come up with the best name? Then you will receive £50 in a voucher of your choice!

The next issue of Together Magazine will be published in March. If you’d like to send us a story idea or photo please send an email to emma.temple@handicare.com.