What makes Vikan different?

During our travels and many site visits, we are often asked: “What makes Vikan different from our competitors?” Well, the short answer is our company’s purpose.

Our purpose is to help our customers live up to their hygiene ideals. Yes, we do this mainly by supplying high-quality cleaning tools. But even the best tools alone won’t make sure a company lives up to its hygiene ideals. That takes genuine expertise and services, along with the cleaning tools.

Let me share a couple of recent customer-visit experiences that illustrate how, guided by our purpose, we add services to great products and take our customers further.

During a recent visit to a key end user, one of the team was explaining our unique Vikan Site Survey service. Whilst explaining some of the benefits this service would provide, such as…

• Improvement and standardisation of the company’s cleaning tool inventory

• Comprehensive product documentation for external and internal audits

• Site maps detailing product storage locations

• Convenient tool inventory list for quick and accurate re-ordering

...the customer jumped in and said: “I think the service sounds fantastic, however, I just do not have the budget to spend on a consultation like that at the moment."

Our area sales manager proudly explained that this was a FREE OF CHARGE service that we offer to our key customers. The customer was naturally delighted and took us up on the offer. The Vikan Site Survey – and the fact that we’ve made this service available for free – helped this customer to move one step closer to living up to its hygiene ideals.

On a separate occasion, we had completed a Vikan Site Survey at a site which was part of a multinational group. The customer was delighted with the result and had really seen the benefits. During the follow up meeting we asked: “If there was one cleaning challenge we could help you with, what would it be?” After a brief pause, the client came back: “If you could help me reduce water consumption, that is my number one issue at the moment.”

Luckily for us, we were able to offer another outstanding FREE OF CHARGE service that took our support above and beyond anything available elsewhere.

In line with our purpose – which takes expertise and services to live up to – we have our own in-house Hygiene Department, led by our global hygiene specialist Debra Smith. She is an internationally renowned expert in microbiology and food safety. For key customers, Debra often gets involved to provide further end-user support, looking holistically at everything within a factory to advise on (amongst many other things) best hygiene practice, potential hazards and in this case issues relating to water consumption.

Our client was delighted with the report Debra provided, which now gives him expert backing when putting his ideas forward for change to his management. And it shows again that our unique purpose and the expertise and services we rely on to help customers live up to their hygiene ideals sets Vikan apart from the competition.

Do we still have to explain why Vikan is different to its competitors?

To find out how Vikan can help your operation live up to its hygiene ideals, please visit our Knowledge Centre, or contact me at afreer@vikan.co.uk.