When searching for quality metal fabricators as manufacturing partners, it’s easy to check their equipment lists to figure out if the machinery in-house matches up with your needs. Got fabricating, bending, laser cutting, and welding? Ok! But it’s not quite as easy to figure out if the quality of the finished parts and the level of personal service match up with your needs as a customer until you actually hire and start on a metalworking job.
Sure, there may be a few testimonial quotes on the Website and references from other OEM manufacturers certainly instill confidence. But over the many, many years we’ve worked with dozens of other custom metal fabricators and hundreds of other industrial companies, we’ve found that a nearly foolproof way to find a quality metal fabricating company is to check the amount of repeat purchasing activity.
Custom sheet metal fabricators work in a very competitive environment. It’s easy for a customer to get quotes on a metalfab project from several different fab shops in Reading, Pennsylvania, in the Northeast or all over the country. It’s also easy for a customer to try one metal fabricator and switch to another if the part quality or service doesn’t meet expectations. But metal fabricators that record a high percentage of repeat business are demonstrating they consistently produce high quality parts that meet specifications on schedule and provide a high level of personal, fast, responsive customer service with reasonable pricing. Why would customers keep entrusting their metal work to the same people if they failed to deliver when it’s so easy to find another fab shop?
At TAB, we’re very proud of our 99.9 % repeat purchase rate and grateful every time we get another purchase order. It validates our belief that customers who buy metal fabrication work still care about quality, lead times, fast service, integrity in business, and having direct access to the owners. Plus, repeat business also creates a number of advantages for everyone involved that people who frequently change manufacturing partners may overlook:
1. The more we do for you, the more efficient our staff becomes at producing the same or similar products and the more knowledgeable we become about special requirements or personal preferences. This means we produce your parts, assemblies, and products faster, smoother, and at high quality rates that pass inspections with ease. And they arrive at the right place and at the right time exactly as planned with a very high level of confidence.
2. The more we do for you, the more comfortable we can feel in sourcing and stocking large quantities of your material on site. This means your jobs don’t need to wait until material is ordered and delivered, there’s less risk of supply chain hiccups, and we can usually get a price break on material that we pass on as lower pricing.
3. The more we do for you, the more quickly we arrive at a shared understanding of terms, conditions, deadlines, tendencies, and other business practices. So if and when a situation arises, we can draw on our respectful relationship to come up with a positive resolution for long-term, mutual benefit.
For a free quote on your project, call (610) 921-0012, info@tabindustries.com.