The modern approach to traditional service

With a thirty-eight year trading history, F R Jones and Son have built up a loyal following of regular customers-mainly for garden machinery. The company’s’ move to sell arboricultural equipment has not only brought them a raft of new customers, but has seen the business expand at an extraordinary rate. Growth is being recorded on a month on month basis, and the business will move into new premises within the next twelve months – purely to keep up with demand. What makes F R Jones and Son stand out? Euroarb went to investigate.

The business was started in 1968 in a garage by, F R Jones, but quickly progressed to light industrial premises in Hither Green. The company’s name became F R Jones and Son when Bob Jones joined his father in the seventies. It continues to be very much a family business as Bobs’ son Justin joined the firm straight from school and has worked his way up to be a partner and general manager. It was Justin’s idea to make the sale of arboricultural equipment an integral part of the business. With a long history of sales and service in the mower trade, and experience of a wide variety of small engines, together with an understanding of their clients needs, diversification in this direction was logical. Justin had identified that there was a gap in the local market and was constantly being asked to supply arboricultural kit to a variety of professional users. As he watched the market grow it was only sensible to direct the business along the same route and supply that growth.

Extensive stocks are held of all fast moving products

Most of the new business that the company has attracted has been by word of mouth. It is often said that your best advertisements are your customers, and customer satisfaction is certainly high. Typical of the level of customer service is the habit of opening for business at 6am. This is to allow customers to collect machinery left for repair the previous day, on the way to the job where it is needed. In fact, the premises are often operating for up to ten or more hours a day in the busy season. Another example of the way in which the customer is put first is when the workshops were flooded out a few years ago. Obviously, this meant that a number of customers’ machines that had been left for repair were underwater and left unusable. They needed to be stripped down and repaired for a second time. Insurance declined cover these costs, citing that the cause if the flood was the ubiquitous ‘Act of God’, leaving the company to pick up the bill. This the company did, without any additional charges to the owner of the machinery, and with the provision of loan machines if required. This type of service gets people talking and whatever financial loss the flood may have caused the company, it has been handsomely repaid in increased and consolidated business. F R Jones and Son have survived and indeed, prospered whereas many of their competitors have not.

For the future, the company intends to continue to build on its success with established brands. In the arboricultural sector it sells Stihl, Oregon, Petzl, Felco and Silky products, much of this by either mail or telephone ordering, although walk in customers still account for a large proportion of the business A new website is currently being put together and it hoped that this will allow more potential customers to access the company. When the new premises are completed Justin plans to add new product lines specifically for the arborist, this will typically feature a range of towed machinery such as woodchippers, stumpgrinders and other equipment as requested. This is another feature of the company’s attention to detail and customer service philosophy; they’ll listen to what is required and then make every effort to source and supply it.

In short F R Jones and Son supply very traditional service in a very modern way.