Expert Talks with Patrizia Sansolini: Service problems are solved by listening to the customer

Patrizia Sansolini's journey: the importance of empathy and relationships

Daniele: Good morning, everyone, I'm Daniele Delle Case and this is Expert Talks, the Things5 podcast that talks about technology and smart products with industry experts. With us today is Patrizia Sansolini, Branch Service Manager with ten years of experience managing service at multinational companies, and she's going to tell us a bit about her story, about her work, about the tricks of the trade. Hi Patrizia, it's a pleasure to have you here with us.

Patrizia: Hi Daniele, the pleasure is mine.

Daniele: Patrizia, when you told me a bit about your story before the interview, there was one thing that really struck me: the fact that you went from being an auditor to a service manager in the world of forklifts. What was that journey like? When was the moment you realized consulting wasn't for you anymore?

Patrizia: Actually, between auditing and forklifts there's an intermediate step, which is elevators. That said, what really stirred something in me was the need to build relationships, the desire to build relationships.

Even though in auditing you obviously need to interact with people to gather data and information about the numbers in the financial statements, numbers don't talk, and so, as an external consultant, I used to go to the various contacts at the companies, talk with them, collect all the information I needed and then formalize it in Excel files.

The first part, the relationship part, was the part I liked the most, while all the more analytical aspects, the ones tied to an Excel sheet, were the ones I struggled with a bit more. They were still necessary, because they were part of an auditor's job. As much as I made them my own, and in fact I carry them with me and treasure them, because in the end everything turned out to be useful, along my career I truly understood that the number didn't talk, so I really needed to build relationships, to interact, to communicate. The empathy you create with people is a great value, and so basically that's what pushed me to change.

I still remember the interview when I moved from auditing to a leading company in the elevator industry. The person who interviewed me, the branch manager, looked at my résumé and said: "Are you sure?" Yes, of course. And I gave him the same reason I'm giving you right now. And not only that, I started over from scratch. I didn't completely leave it behind, because the branch manager at the time was smart enough to make sure my whole background could be useful in management control. But I started over in sales back office, so sitting at a desk; for a while I set aside my dynamic attitude as a consultant, going out to the customer, and I started again with an 8-to-5 schedule that, up to that point, was something new for me, because before I was used to working late nights at the client's to close the audit of the annual financial statements.

Getting back in the game and overcoming the fear of career change

Daniele: Listen, starting over from scratch in a completely different industry is a choice that can scare a lot of people. What did you bring with you instead? What's the most unexpected skill you brought with you through this change?

Patrizia: Well, first of all, everything starts from curiosity, everything is driven by curiosity. As a woman in my first metalworking environment, I was driven by asking, by knowing, by understanding certain dynamics. That same branch manager, who was kind of a dad to me, a good family man, so a role model, always used to tell me: "An elevator is a little box that goes up and down." And so basically I carried that logic forward: even if you don't know anything about elevators, little by little you'll learn, you'll get to know all the components, you'll learn to sell them; just get started. And I really made that expression my own: the elevator, don't worry, is a little box that goes up and down. And in fact that's how it was. Then of course, in front of the customer we couldn't say that the elevator was a little box that went up and down, but naturally I had all the technical strength behind me supporting me so I could learn. So that's where I started speaking "tech-speak" in the elevator world, which was all new to me. Definitely curiosity, the desire to know, to put myself on the line, to interact with the various departments, not to close myself off in my own little world, in my job title, which basically was sales back office. Just the fact that the little word "sales" echoed in it was fine with me; it was my starting point.

Daniele: I sincerely admire people who have the courage to get back in the game, to start over, to take on new challenges, so I really appreciate the courage you showed along this path. Is there anything you'd feel like recommending to people who feel the same restlessness and need for change that you did?

Patrizia: Change can definitely be scary, but if you're aware that the place you're in at that moment isn't built around you, then it's right to change. It's always good to look for a new comfort zone. Probably the one I was in at the time, even though I still had the chance to grow there, wasn't really designed around me. Let's also keep in mind that we're talking about roughly 12-13 years ago, so there was also a bit more lightheartedness about change. I really jumped at the idea of switching from one industry to another without thinking twice: I knew what I didn't like, and so I was looking for something better, let's put it that way.

Daniele: Of course. I always say we have something like an internal GPS, right? It tells us whether we're heading in the right direction or the wrong one, and it gives us this sense of need, of change, that we should probably listen to more.

Technical service vs. Service Manager: definitions and operational differences

Daniele: I'd like to move on now to what your daily work is. You now do a different job from the one in elevators, too. Would you like to tell us a bit more about your day-to-day work?

Patrizia: Yes, so, a few months ago I took on the role of Service Manager at a multinational company that deals with forklifts. Definitely my whole career path, really all of it, from when I was an intern at an associated professional firm (because at the time the idea was to become a chartered accountant), my whole path today helps me try to do my best, because of course I still have a lot to learn. Even the earlier path, which starts from a back-office role or even before that, when I worked at an audit firm, I put it to use every single day.

Because when I interact with a colleague who has a role such as, for example, administrative or sales back office, I have that extra skill that lets me speak the same language as her. And that's no small thing, because I really did start from there, so I very often put myself in my colleagues' shoes, precisely to try to give them input in the best possible way, as understandable as possible. Same thing for everything related to the sales approach: all the colleagues who currently work in service and support the group in managing the customer. Since that was my field, the thing that comes easiest to me is managing the customer, empathizing with the customer, understanding their needs, anticipating the customer's needs.

I try to work with my colleagues to convey what I'd like the customer to expect from a service company like ours. So right now I'm learning to give more to my colleagues, so more to the internal customer than to the external customer, who until a few months ago was my main focus. Now the main focus is more inside the service department, where there's a group of colleagues such as back office, sales, service coordinators, disponents and above all the field technicians, who are just as many and just as important. I know I have to focus on them, and for me too this is a test, because until recently I wasn't so responsible for them. So it's a bit of give and take: I know for sure that I'm learning a lot from them, and I know for sure that they also need me to be able to pass something on. It's not easy. I've moved into a new zone that's not yet a comfort zone, but for me it's a challenge, a personal and professional challenge.

Daniele: OK. But for those who don't know your work and your role very well, could you tell us what the difference is between whoever manages technical service and a Service Manager like you?

Patrizia: Yes. Technical service is a machine made of people, it's a set of gears, where each person has their own activity, a fundamental function. Let's say this set of gears is monitored by the Service Manager. The people who run service are all the people who work for service, whose ultimate goal is to guarantee customer satisfaction. I'm a sort of figure who tries to monitor and make sure the whole mechanism works well. The end goal is customer satisfaction.

Daniele: Sure. And you act as a bit of a bridge between different areas within the company, between sales, technical support, service.

Patrizia: Yes. Service starts, quite simply, from a service request, and the service request is handled by whoever schedules a technician. Following the technical inspection, there's probably a quote that the technician issues for the repair. Then another department comes in, spare parts procurement, until we have the spare part ready and it comes back, and so the technician becomes the protagonist again, going back to the customer (because ours is field service, mainly at the customer's site), all the way, of course, to invoicing. So this whole process, as I was saying, quite simply, is a set of gears: it's the service machine in motion, it needs to be dynamic, attentive, anticipatory, and it's made of people who, each in their own area of expertise, have specific tasks and a fundamental role so that there's an excellent handover to the other colleague who maybe handles another part of this mechanism. We're all essential, and the end goal is always the customer.

Team alignment and daily meetings to optimize performance

Daniele: Sure. How do you get these different souls to communicate? Do you have tools you use?

Patrizia: Yes, absolutely. We have moments when we all stop and share critical issues and measure our goals. This happens in the morning, 15 minutes, where we really quickly go over what needs to be done that day and what needs to be reviewed, because maybe something didn't go well. That's where we measure our goals.

The technicians have this moment, this focus, too. Even though by now they're far away, spread out across the territory, they stop once a week and, divided into teams, they discuss with each other to understand what the critical issues, opportunities and food for thought are, which are then shared. So the technician too, above all the technician, is a fundamental figure for service, because for us they're considered our calling card with the customer, so they're our eyes and ears. And while we're talking there's a technician who's at a customer's site, dealing with the customer's critical issues, solving the customer's problem, and maybe getting a thank-you from the customer (which is what I always hope for) once the problem is solved. Hearing from them what's not working and what is working is fundamental for us, because they're on the front line: service is made by them.

From reactive repair to operational continuity: remote tracking and forklift telemetry

Daniele: Sure. Now, the market trend is to move from the concept of repair to a concept of operational continuity. How are you approaching this change of perspective internally?

Patrizia: Work equipment is regulated by the Testo Unico Sicurezza, the Italian Consolidated Act on workplace safety, which requires legally mandatory maintenance on the machine. This helps us. This is operational continuity, because good, well-done maintenance not only allows the employer to comply with legal obligations, but also extends the useful life of the vehicle as much as possible. Naturally, on top of this there's the need to step in wherever the machine stops. It can happen, it absolutely does happen, but we focus a lot on the quality of the maintenance work, which prevents machine downtime as much as possible.

I'd also add that today we work with an insite system that lets us remotely monitor the operating performance of the vehicles and try to prevent certain critical issues. So it's a site that lets us remotely analyze impacts, for example how the vehicle's batteries are being managed, or maybe understand machine hours, working hours. We truly have a portal that, even from a distance, lets both us and the customer understand whether the machine is operating correctly or not. And this is an excellent tool for trying to correct what are sometimes the operator's bad habits.

Daniele: Sure. And how do you correct them? Do you give the operator proactive advice? And how do you connect these machines to the internet? Do you use them?

Patrizia: The customer can access these portals themselves if, of course, the machine is equipped with the appropriate software and hardware, and that's added value for them. We give the customer the ability to access this management system. That said, in critical situations, or situations where we start to see something that maybe isn't right, the tool can help us monitor. Because it's one thing to live with the machine (let's say the warehouse is in any case a complex environment, very often made up of many operators, and very often the warehouse manager isn't physically in the warehouse), so this really helps everyone, the customer and us included, to monitor the machine and give the customer some tips.

For example, battery management: when to charge them or not, whether there are critical issues with battery charging, with battery life. Very often it's analyzed and checked from the site, and that helps us go back to the customer with the reason why they have that problem.

The impact of IoT data on the business model and service fees

Daniele: And does this affect your business model? I mean, do you have items in the quote that are tied to the use of the product, of your forklift, and based on that there are variable prices or variable costs?

Patrizia: Well, the customer uses this tool by paying a fee, but they're happy to pay that fee because it's fundamental, it's really added value. Just think about impacts. When the vehicle hits something inside the warehouse, the customer can check why it happened right from the moment the impact occurred. There's also greater accountability for the operator, because very often the operator logs in with a badge, meaning they access the machine through a coded badge, and so this also makes the operator a little more mindful and careful about how they use the machine.

Keep in mind that today this is a tool we really leverage a lot, aside from legally mandatory maintenance, and so the technician's skilled hand during maintenance, machine cleaning, inspection, mechanical and electrical checks, and so on.

Measuring performance: KPIs in logistics service

Daniele: And how do you track the quality of your technicians' work in the field?

Patrizia: We have our KPIs, so actually we're measured, in fact we want to be measured, in terms of efficiency, so the time it takes us from the service request to the technician's arrival at the customer's site. That's our goal: trying to make that time span shorter and shorter. That's why today we tend to work with self-allocation, so the technician is a technician to whom we've assigned a customer portfolio and who is therefore responsible for those vehicles, and without a shadow of a doubt it's a technician close to their area of responsibility. This is precisely to try to keep reducing that time span.

Another KPI is tied to compliance with legally mandatory maintenance: if there's a schedule to follow, the planning of legally mandatory maintenance is a target we have to meet, as is resolving the job on the technician's first inspection. Let's say it's not easy to manage, because we don't always have the spare part available to carry out the repair; we also work with a just-in-time approach. But the goal is precisely to make the time from the service request, to the technician going out, to the resolution, as efficient as possible.

Monitoring the customer experience with the Net Promoter Score (NPS)

Daniele: And in your opinion, among the ones you've mentioned, which KPI has the biggest impact on your team members' operations and on the quality of their output?

Patrizia: Well, we base everything on customer satisfaction. We're also measured on customer satisfaction, which includes the Net Promoter Score, which encompasses all the other KPIs. If we think about it, when is the customer satisfied? When they see a friendly technician, when the person answering the phone is polite and professional, when they understand they have people who work in service and work to guarantee operations, when they're able to communicate well, and also when they get the technical problem solved quickly and with high quality.

At the core, the main KPI is satisfaction. We measure it with the Net Promoter Score, so we analyze the customer's experience a bit, we get into the area of customer experience, customer journey. That's where, by analyzing all the touchpoints between supplier and customer, we understand whether we've done our job well, meaning whether the customer always smiles in response to our actions.

The value of trust and loyalty in field service

Daniele: Sure. I really liked the concept of work self-allocation you just described. I find it very tied to the concepts of trust and responsibility. How much do these two values matter to you?

Patrizia: I believe that when the customer is satisfied, the technician certainly goes home satisfied too, and the technician's satisfaction then becomes the customer's satisfaction. Satisfaction is kind of cyclical. Having a technician who builds customer loyalty, who follows them, who accompanies them, who takes them by the hand and becomes their point of reference is fundamental.

Why is it fundamental? Because let's imagine the opposite scenario: today I go to the customer, in a month you go to the customer. What's the customer's sentiment? The customer feels lost because service is something intangible. So in reality the only tangible thing we can offer the customer is us, the people; it's right that the points of reference always stay the same, especially if the customer gets along well with them. This is fundamental at the technical inspection level too, because having the technician inspect and then come back for the repair is best practice. Whereas sending one technician to inspect and then having a second technician go and repair, that's where you really lose efficiency.

Handling emergencies and proactively listening to the B2B customer

Daniele: Yes, performance. You've always worked in fairly critical industries, where if the machine stops, people get stuck somewhere, or at the very least the customer loses money. What emergencies have you had to handle that taught you the most in this respect?

Patrizia: In the elevator industry, an elevator stopped with people inside is definitely a real emergency, especially if we're dealing with apartment buildings where there may be people with disabilities or elderly people inside. There, the focus was really almost about knowing it, knowing that in such-and-such building we had to have a much higher level of alert, because there were people with disabilities, elderly people and so on inside. There, though, the dynamics are also different, because if the technician doesn't arrive for whatever reason (traffic, it happened very often), the fire department steps in, so there's always a bit of a safety net on that.

As for the movement of goods instead, so my current work, a vehicle that's down in the warehouse definitely creates problems, and it creates even more problems if it's the only vehicle in the warehouse, especially if that single vehicle is at a retail store, because that's where loading and unloading happens. Every customer has their own critical issues, though, so you need to know them, you need to communicate with them. Very often I tell my colleagues that it's the customer who solves the problem: you just have to listen. Very often we put ourselves in the position of thinking there's a problem, and so we get alarmed with lots of ifs and buts, when in fact, if we call the customer and analyze the critical issue with them, it's possible that together with them we'll find the best solution in the shortest possible time.

And this happens especially when a stopgap machine is needed, so a replacement machine. It's not always a given that the customer needs a replacement machine: let's ask them whether, since that vehicle is down, they need another vehicle for those five to seven working days, or whether they can do without. So today I'm more and more convinced that service is cooperative with the customer, and the customer is a protagonist, part of the service: we can't leave them out.

Daniele: And in your opinion, is there a way to handle emergencies before they happen? I'm especially interested in knowing what your approach is.

Patrizia: The key phrase is "don't put out fires, anticipate every dynamic." Maybe it's my personal attitude, anticipating, because in my private life too I always try to anticipate; in fact, I run. I'm pretty future-oriented, so I run ahead and anticipate, but that's really how it is. You always have to put yourself in the customer's shoes, think about their needs, their business, and anticipate critical issues.

Let me give you an example. I often ask my colleagues (in fact it's becoming more and more standard practice, and rightly so) to call the customer in advance and ask, especially for retail stores, about the vehicle's availability whenever we need to carry out maintenance. Why? First of all, because we're going into other people's homes, so it's not a given that on that day they're willing to open their doors to us. Second, because it becomes an excellent habit, precisely to avoid showing up without notice and maybe not being able to do the work, or even worse, showing up and having the customer make us wait because at that moment they're loading and unloading goods.

It's always good to anticipate, because the customer's needs then have to go hand in hand with the needs of service. So if we tend to communicate well, we'll certainly find a customer who appreciates our ability to communicate and share; and secondly, regarding our request, which is to carry out the maintenance, which is also tied to a legal obligation, and so to a contract they signed, we find the solution together with the customer. So if tomorrow the vehicle isn't available, maybe we can go the day after tomorrow, with no surprises.

Daniele: How much does this affect your processes?

Patrizia: A lot, a lot. It's efficiency, it's truly efficiency, it has a huge impact. Communication is fundamental; we're working on it a lot right now: communicating with the customer and sharing with the customer.

The Swiss model vs. the Japanese model in service management

Daniele: You've worked at a Japanese company and a Swiss one. They say the Swiss model is a bit obsessed with the "what," while the Japanese model is more obsessed with the "why." Do you confirm that, or is it an oversimplification in your opinion?

Patrizia: Well, maybe yes, it's true. I wholeheartedly embrace the Japanese philosophy, the values that drive us in our work. Very often I find that the values that are now rooted in every department, I also apply in my private life. So going to the source, basically, I realize I apply it in everyday things too: not stopping at the surface. The customer told me the problem might be this? Go to the source, go check it yourself. And I notice I embrace this in everyday life too: checking with your own eyes, understanding.

My experience at the elevator company where I used to work was procedural, made up more of rules. Not that there aren't any at my current company, absolutely not, but you can see a different approach. The "why" echoes much more, always asking ourselves why we do something. Very often you might end up highlighting a critical issue, but then you also have to ask yourself: how often does this critical issue happen? Because if it rarely happens, then it doesn't yet deserve to be investigated in depth. If instead it happens with a certain frequency, then we have to ask ourselves why.

Daniele: What's the threshold?

Patrizia: Definitely frequency and impact.

Daniele: Frequency and impact. What impact it has. OK, so if something is infrequent but has a high impact, is it still worth it?

Patrizia: Well, I always tend not to take anything for granted and to investigate on every front, but I'm also learning to prioritize the various "going to the source" efforts. Very often you also need to start... there, this is an effort for me, I've been doing it lately also because of time. Before, I had more time to investigate, to go to the source on everything. Now it's a little less, so you definitely need to delegate and, at a later stage, also figure out what priority to give to that type of critical issue.

Genchi Genbutsu: the Japanese approach of seeing problems firsthand

Daniele: Can you explain your concept of going to the source a bit more?

Patrizia: Yes. Investigating, doing Kaizen, getting to see the problem firsthand. Very often, we salespeople (I'm speaking as a former salesperson, because I had a lot of contact with customers) should go to the customer and understand the critical issue just as the technician experienced it, because then you also see it from different angles. The technician investigates the critical issue with a view to solving it, because there's a technical problem, so the machine is down, a machine that doesn't work; that, for them, is the critical issue. But let's go to the source, let's really understand what the related critical issues were: the warehouse at a standstill, the warehouse manager who maybe couldn't explain that event, who maybe had to report to a superior and was in a tough spot.

Going to the source really means understanding, investigating and seeing it firsthand. That's it: not taking things for granted, not working superficially, going down there, getting into it.

Daniele: OK. When it's worth it, clearly, as you said.

Patrizia: Yes, when it's worth it, but for us it's a way of working, it's a modus operandi.

Daniele: It's really a modus operandi. And how would you compare this approach with the Swiss one, for example, on a forklift that's down? What would the two approaches be? How would they tackle this problem?

Patrizia: Well, the way I am, I'd go more with a Japanese approach. In all likelihood, in the end, there's a technical inspection in both a Swiss and a Japanese approach. But in the Japanese approach you see it more firsthand, you really get to make the problem your own, to be able to describe it well, from every angle. The more Swiss approach is more structural, a bit more procedural; maybe you lose a bit of touch with what you really have to face, what you have to solve. I don't know how to explain it to you.

They're two approaches that helped me a lot, and combining the two has given me a method that I'd probably already partly inherited from the audit firm. But at my first company I really acquired method, procedures, handovers, departments that collaborate with each other, in synergy with each other, regardless of cost centers. In any case, an excellent handover between departments, knowing who does what. The previous approach was based more on knowing who does what: that was law, that was the Bible, and you started from there. But this approach is natural; and then there's that extra value I'm bringing to my way of working. It's nice to read about it in university textbooks and then live it, because we actually live it, I mean, I live it.

Eliminating logistics waste and working on the "waste of intellect"

Daniele: And in service, how is the concept of waste seen, and how do you solve waste? Time, I imagine.

Patrizia: Yes, time. An error in procuring a spare part; having scheduled the technician and not allowing the technician to carry out a maintenance job, because at that moment you're not given the forklift since the customer is using it. Waste is also a waste of intellect, when, for example, you don't put to work a colleague who actually has all the potential to do a certain type of activity.

We work a lot on what we call muda, and I have to say we're getting better and better at it. The pursuit of standardization, being standardized, definitely allows us to reduce waste more and more. Together with, as I was saying earlier, going to the source, the concept of waste is another little magic word that's part of our philosophy.

Daniele: And how do you reduce the waste of intellect? I mean, what are the techniques? Because I find this really fascinating.

Patrizia: Personally, you always have to understand who you're dealing with, get to know the people you work with well, to try to bring out their potential. There are team members who can give five and team members who can give ten. That's fine, we're all different from one another. The important thing is that, for the team member who can give five, we put them in a position to be satisfied and to be able to give five. Then we can't ask for more; it would be almost inhuman to think of asking more from someone we know can't give beyond that; but we try to make sure they give that. Very often, though, we ask for five from someone who could give ten, and that's a waste of intellect, and that's where you need to motivate, to understand which levers to pull.

Personally, I work with a group of colleagues with whom, today, we're all truly ready to try to give our best according to our potential. Now, this is maybe also up to me, and for me it's a challenge: trying to launch them, as far as possible, helping them grow with pleasure, with satisfaction, and never forcing. One thing that really gave me a lot of satisfaction was also saying that my role, my position, would have to be taken over by someone else. Because, obviously, as of April 1st I switched from what was a service coordinator role to service manager. At that moment I reasoned, I thought it over, I reflected: we could also have chosen to hire another team member from outside, but then I dug deeper, I went a bit to the source, I dug among those of us, field technicians and internal colleagues, who could have taken on that role. And we ended up hiring internally, and that's a source of satisfaction, because you try to recognize potential and you try to develop it.

Daniele: Sure, it's not always easy to recognize potential; it takes a lot of listening in that respect.

Patrizia: It's not easy to recognize potential, but above all there are a lot of us, and very often what I'm learning is to listen a lot and try to keep everyone happy, even though it's not easy. All of us have personal and professional needs, all of us have ambitions, sometimes we carry some past frustration with us, and you need to listen a lot. This is a bit of a challenge for me, because, again, I was used to listening to the external customer; now instead the focus is on turning inward and looking at what's around me, and trying to help it grow, so reducing that muda of potential, but always with that satisfaction. I mean, I really believe in this, in making sure it's not only the customer who has to be satisfied. After hours of work, it's also good that all of us go home satisfied, each for our own share of the work.

A success story: the domino effect of awareness in the company

Daniele: Sure. Now, would you tell us about an improvement you've applied to your workflow? Something that maybe seemed small, insignificant, but that eliminated friction, that really turned around the way you worked?

Patrizia: Well, I joined the company six years ago, and I actually came from a very procedural environment, and I won't hide that it wasn't easy. At first I'd joined a group that was already formed, a group I observed and where maybe I also felt a bit like a fish out of water, so I really had some initial difficulties; and above all I joined in the Covid year, so the onboarding wasn't the best.

But then I started to understand, I got closer to the people, the team members, the colleagues I needed to work with, including a colleague who was actually supposed to be my right hand, my hands supporting all my sales activities, so the sales back-office role, the one I myself used to have. But that role wasn't really what I'd always imagined, because I'd made it my own in my old job, and there I had difficulties, because I needed a certain kind of collaboration and instead I realized it wasn't quite what I was looking for.

It was hard, very hard, but today the biggest satisfaction is that she now manages herself, the customer and her colleagues really well, and we've put in place many activities, many tools, even non-procedural ones, that still lead us to reach goals such as properly monitoring the acceptance of repair quotes and monitoring spare parts procurement. So the extra something I brought was definitely being a little persistent, but in a good way: I didn't give up. I could have let go right from the start; instead I cared, I believed in it, I knew the moment would come when she would turn the corner. And when she turned the corner, paradoxically the attitude changed not only in her but in many others too: it was kind of a domino effect.

This colleague has actually been an example, we've talked about it very often, because six years ago she didn't have the approach to work she has today. And you can also see it from a question I asked her a few days ago during the talent review, that moment of dialogue between team member and manager. Before, she was a colleague to me; now maybe there's this slightly different relationship, but I asked her: "Are you satisfied now when you go home?" "Yes, I really like the work I do," whereas before she was almost unaware of what she was doing. There's real work involved in making the person aware of the value they're bringing to the company.

Procedure as a safety net: using your head before the rules

Daniele: Yes. Now, staying on the procedural side, you work in an industry where a technical error can really have serious consequences for people, as well as for goods, objects and so on. In your case, do you see procedure more as a cage or as a safety net?

Patrizia: No, there has to be a procedure. It's not a cage, otherwise we'd all be too individualistic. There necessarily has to be a procedure. Maybe I say this also because I come from structured companies; they've always been structured. The company itself is structured and fairly procedural. Then, when it comes to safety, there's no discussion: the technician, I'm sure, would never leave a machine running unless it's safe. Another common keyword is safety. Safety first, before any customer satisfaction. There absolutely has to be a procedure; there can't not be one.

Then it's up to us to have a communicative approach with the customer, an approach that's sometimes even a little outside the procedure, but that still guarantees safety. When I say a little outside the procedure, it's because it happens very often: we're used to everyone knowing which activities they're responsible for, but there are also people who usually tend to work by supporting each other, we all know the process, and if one of us is missing and there's an emergency, I always tend to say you have to use your head before the procedure. So, there's an emergency and approval from a manager would be needed, but a manager isn't there: what do you do? Do you block everything or do you use your head? You have to use your head. Then you take on the risks; naturally there's some leeway to take on those risks. The important thing is that it's safe. But very often it's also essential to get to the point of saying: the manager isn't here, this activity is important, I'm going to go ahead and do this. It's natural, always within certain limits, but that extra push, why not?

Daniele: And what's the line, always within the limits of safety? Where's the line where procedure turns into bureaucracy? Because it's a pretty thin line.

Patrizia: Yes, yes. They still have to be respected, otherwise we'd have no rules. But the line between autonomy and procedure: I always tend to work with procedure. Autonomy... I couldn't give you specific cases, but at least when you work autonomously, at the very least you need to talk it through with someone. There are situations where you say: OK, just this once maybe we go outside the procedure. Yes, it can happen, but those cases have to keep decreasing, and you always have to use your head, understand whether there are any risks. There you go, risk analysis: I go outside the procedure, what's the risk? If the risk is low, then that's fine; but as a rule, you go outside the procedure only as a last resort. The rule is the procedure, otherwise there are no rules. There are a lot of us; you can't operate without rules, without procedures.

Using IoT data to get to the source of the problem in logistics

Daniele: Sure. Now, moving more onto the technology side, technology that supports your work: IoT, connectivity (you said it yourself earlier), is certainly one of the main technologies you use to provide information both to your customers and to yourselves, to improve products or to understand why something happened. How can this IoT data be used, in your opinion, to get to the source of problems?

Patrizia: Well, just by using it you go to the source. Imagine a forklift impact. At that moment the warehouse manager is far from the vehicle and from the warehouse itself; it can happen. By opening the management system, they go to the source, so they check it directly right away. It's as if there were eyes on the warehouse: let's say the doors open, it's a first inspection, a first understanding of the problem, it's going to the source with more knowledge, more critical sense. You already know it happened, it happened at a certain speed, it happened while the vehicle was being driven by so-and-so's code, and you already have a lot of information to better analyze the problem. You also create less alarm, because you know it happened, you freeze it, you take a snapshot of it; it's a fairly objective aspect.

Daniele: Yes. Now, as for predictive maintenance, so the evolution of IoT, if you will, meaning the use of data to predict potential breakdowns, failures, problems: have you tackled this new development? And where are you today? What are you missing to use it in your daily practice?

Patrizia: We're a work in progress, we have good potential, excellent potential, which is IoT; we're making more and more use of it, and there's definitely still some way to go. I have to say it's definitely a tool that allows us, in the long run, to be more aware of the vehicles we maintain, that we manage, and to pass this awareness on to customers too. And that's no small thing. First and foremost, though, it's the technician's hand that matters: we could even think of having a science-fiction connectivity tool, but if we don't have good technicians, connectivity crumbles. And we rely heavily on good technicians, we're full of them, the customers say so.

I've just finished a thesis on customer experience and servitization, where, by interviewing many customers and analyzing all the touchpoints between supplier and customer, this is exactly it: even though we might slip up a bit on communication (and we're improving on that), the customer is satisfied because they're satisfied with the technician's performance; they really see the technician as the company itself, that is, as efficiency. They feel reassured when the technician arrives; the person who solves the problem arrives and solves it well, with quality. So we also put a lot of emphasis on technician training. We have an excellent program that allows technicians, over the years, to be trained from entry-level forklifts all the way up to automation. By now we present ourselves on the market as a provider of logistics solutions, not just of mere forklift repair and maintenance.

So the customer, in the world of service (again, it's all intangible, an intangible service), you're selling them a promise: the promise to do a good job, the promise to come at a guaranteed time, the promise to be punctual, to be skilled, to be friendly. We make promises. So, when the customer sees you, what are you selling them? A promise. But then the beautiful part is when they can actually touch that promise. And how do they touch it? Through the technician. So our added value is the technician. The technician is no longer just a technician: we're moving to a technician who provides professional consulting, a technician I'll keep learning from from now until I retire.

The evolution of servitization: selling logistics solutions, not forklifts

Daniele: OK. You just mentioned servitization. When it comes to servitization, in product sales too, are you adopting this business model, or is servitization for you simply selling a service connected to the product you sell?

Patrizia: Well, keep in mind that we don't just sell products, we don't just sell the forklift: we also sell forklift operator training courses, we also sell our values, because we have a division that's precisely the Academy, we sell consulting, we sell repairs, we sell maintenance. And we're at the center of our business: it's no longer about the forklift; it's about the customer being able to have a provider of logistics solutions, and that already is servitization. I mean, we've moved from product to service: the focus is no longer the product as a forklift.

Then of course we work in service, we work with owned machines and rental machines, and there we deal with two different aspects of servitization, because it's one thing to have rental machines and another to manage machines owned by the customer, on which we carry out maintenance and repairs. The focus is always tied to customer satisfaction, always. But it's satisfying to know that the customer looks to our company not just for a repair or a maintenance job, but for everything related to their warehouse.

Daniele: Sure. And what about generative AI integrated into your world, how do you see it? What's your point of view on this?

Patrizia: By generative AI do you also mean, quite simply, something like Copilot?

Daniele: Yes, Copilot.

Patrizia: We're experiencing it, we experience it as if it were a colleague, so we have Copilot as a colleague, we consult it, but we absolutely don't rely on it. We consult it using our heads. Let me give you a simple example: I was away from the office, I couldn't reply to a colleague, and in the warehouse they were looking for a pair of tapered forks. The colleague wasn't quite sure what a pair of tapered forks was, which was needed for a repair the following day, and asked Copilot, and from the image they then understood that, among all the forks we had in the warehouse, the tapered one had that particular feature, that characteristic. So for us it's a help, a support. Copilot is more and more among us, artificial intelligence is more and more among us, but we don't rely on it exclusively. Absolutely not.

Daniele: OK. And looking to the future, people often say it will take work away from people. What's your view on this?

Patrizia: No, a person is a person; service can't be done with artificial intelligence. I'm firmly convinced of that. It's a help, it's good support, but empathy isn't part of artificial intelligence. Seeing things firsthand isn't part of artificial intelligence. Listening to the customer, anticipating the customer: it's still our ally, but it can't replace us.

Daniele: No, great, a great answer, I'd say. Patrizia, at this point I'd ask you the last question, which is the one we ask all our guests: the one that tells us a bit about what you carry with you from your experience. If you could go back ten years, for example, and meet the Patrizia of ten years ago, what are the three pieces of advice you'd give yesterday's Patrizia to become today's Patrizia, or even to improve today's Patrizia?

Patrizia: Definitely don't be afraid of change; change whenever you realize that the place you're in isn't the place you'd like to be. Curiosity: it always drives everything. I actually studied business economics; I didn't even know what an elevator was or what the main components of an elevator were. Same thing with a forklift. But you're always driven a bit by curiosity. And what maybe I wouldn't do... but maybe I'd do it all again. No, I'd do it all again: mistakes are useful too.

Daniele: Excellent, that sounds like a great way to wrap up. Listen, Patrizia, thank you so much for being with us today, for telling us a bit about your story, for sharing some of your experience with us. Goodbye to you, goodbye to all our listeners, and we'll see you at the next episode of Expert Talks. Have a great day.

Patrizia: Bye, thank you.