As sales go up, MAGUIRE CANADA doubles down on service

A new Novatec NPD model dryer being installed for one of Maguire Canada’s Southern Ontario customers. Photo Credit: M.T. Innovations

As the determining factor in the sale price of a house, location, location, location is the mantra of realtors worldwide. Auxiliary equipment supplier Maguire Products Canada Inc. has gone a slightly different route – you could call it service, service, service – and it’s paying off.

“Any machinery and equipment sales firm ultimately owes its success to good service – the sales staff make the first sale, but good service sells everything after that,” said Brian Davis, general manager of the Vaughan, Ont.-based company. “We had a record sales year in 2016 – up 18 per cent over 2015 – and our sales in 2017 were up by 23 per cent over 2016, and I attribute a lot of this growth to good service. Some of our sales and service staff were processors in their past lives, so they understand how important service is. And if our own team isn’t available, we use a service provider called M.T. Innovations to back us up.”

A Waterloo, Ont.-based millwright company founded in 1988 by Mark Steeb, M.T. Innovations specializes in assembly and installation of injection molding equipment and vacuum and conveying systems, as well as welding, machine repair, and machine maintenance. Davis first began using M.T. Innovations 30 years ago, when he was working with a different auxiliary equipment company; and the relationship became solid enough that when Davis and other industry veterans Robert Hodge and Wayne Travell founded Maguire Canada in 2007, they took M.T. Innovations with them as their independent service provider. “Mark knows Maguire equipment inside-out, and also understands Novatec – which we also represent – as well as competing equipment and off-brands from China,” Davis said. “We can trust Mark and his team to handle any service situation.”

COMFORT ZONE  

After all this time, Steeb and his staff of five feel comfortable handling just about any service call for Maguire Canada unassisted. “Maguire introduces new products regularly, but most of the processes are very familiar to us so we’re comfortable doing the service work,” Steeb said. “The control technology is what really changes, and this is our biggest challenge. I’ve had to call Maguire Canada’s service manager Wayne Travell for help in the middle of the night because we don’t know the sequencing code for a new control system. And he always takes the call immediately.”

Maguire Canada’s recent success points to the value of good service in the highly competitive auxiliary equipment sector, Davis said, and to how rare good service is becoming. “Sales companies are so short-staffed these days that plastics processors almost expect not to get efficient service; so when they actually get good service, they remember it,” Davis said. “In addition to Robert and Wayne, our staff includes Dan Lorenz, Raj Shekar, service technician Wesley Walsh, and our newest hire Amir Baradaran, and they’re all crack service providers, including on competitors’ equipment. And if we can’t get to a customer in a timely manner, we can rely on M.T. Innovations.”