Friday Featured Client: De Anza Appliance

Once a month we feature a client on this blog. It's way of saying thank you for allowing us the opportunity to help with a companies success, also it is a way of showing positive community involvement from the appliance service industry. We have found that there are a lot of unsung heroes in the appliance business, we want the world to know that. If YOUR business has had more success due to our help, or if your company is doing great things in your community, we would love to know about and share it with the world. To be featured email me at rob.m@wlmay.com.

Roger Boucher of De Anza Appliance

Name?

Roger Boucher: Owner, President, and Service Manager

Company?
De Anza Appliance

Contact Info
Phone: (408) 996-9111
Website: deanzaappliance.com
Facebook: facebook.com/DeAnzaAppliance
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/de-anza-appliance
Twitter: twitter.com/DeAnzaAppliance
Google+: plus.google.com/113005988969738237574/posts

Where did you grow up?
I was born in Sunnyvale and had the fortune of raising my family close to where I grew up in Cupertino.  Since I've been in Santa Clara County and the greater San Jose metropolitan area my whole life I've gotten to know the neighborhoods and established strong partnerships with other local appliance servicers, retailers and other home services companies.  It's amazing to see all of the orchards of years past transform into what's today Apple, Facebook, Google, and a ton of other tech companies.  Glad we bought our house in the 80s!

How long in the trade?
My dad started teaching me the trade in 1976 part-time and over the years became a full-time technician, sales associate, and, service manager, Today I service as President and Service Manager and I'm proud to work alongside my brother David (Owner, Parts Manager & VP), wife Cindy (Owner & Bookkeeper), and sons Chris (Marketing) and Nick (Office Administration), plus a dispatcher and five great technicians (and growing) keeping the family tradition alive.

How long in your current company?
My father, Bill, started the company in 1972 out of his garage.  Over the years we've grown to include a parts counter and a Maytag showroom but since contracted to focus on what we do best, in-home service.

The Boucher Family

What do you enjoy doing when you're not at work?
When am I not at work?  Those rare moments I get out of the office I spend time bowling with my brother, nephews, and friends.  Play poker with my wife, brother, his family, and other appliance servicers I know.  I volunteer with time with my church, cooking for their men's ministry and several of their annual events.  I watch hockey with my family and enjoy seeing my younger son, Nick, in plays while he pursues his theater education degree.

To what do you credit your success?
Having good people working for you.  Put in place a customer-centric team, that's knowledgeable, and I can trust to get the job done.  Whenever I make decisions I always ask: 1) Does it make the customer happy? 2) Will these actions retain or recruit new customers? 3) Is it profitable? 4) Will this grow the business?  If the answer is no to each of those questions I don't so it.  If the answer is no to one of those questions I think about the impacts it has on the whole of my business.

What do you like about doing business with WL May?
WL May has been a great partner for us.  Wes is near flawless in order processing, the Portland branch staff can answer any parts related questions we throw at them, and the Sacramento branch gets product to us next business day.  Their no-hassles return policy allows us to pre-screen parts and come as prepared as possible to help a customer in the first visit.

Can you share one piece of advice for others in our industry?
Don't let the 1% of your customers dictate 99% your business.  Rules are in place for a reason.  Make sure to help the customer when you can but sometimes the best thing you can do for a bad customer is offer them all or part of their money back and part ways.  We certainly work to reward the good customers with timely service, fair prices, professional dispatchers and service technicians, interesting and relevant web content, and other value added services like DIY replacement parts through our website, home services referrals, general maintenance programs (especially for corporate partners and laundrymats), billing terms for our property managers.  Our programs can be duplicated (and we've copied some of our business practices with permission from colleagues across the country) but our people and customer service are truly our own.

Is there anything else you like to say?
We became great friends with Maytag's second Old Lonely Repairman, Gordon Jump.  When we opened our Maytag retail center he made several guest appearances and signed autographs for our team and customers.  My office staff framed a picture of our team and we signed and presented it to him as a thank-you for all of his promotional appearances when we were getting off the ground.  Every time we bumped into Gordon at conferences and mixers he always took the time to visit and catch-up and stopped by our store when visiting his daughter at the local university.

Gordon Jump with Roger

If you would like YOUR company profiled as a featured client send an email to rob.m@wlmay.com

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