How the work of the largest 3D company Top 3D Shop is arranged from the inside

Hi, this is the Top 3D Shop. At the beginning of the year we published a post about the foundation, the first steps and the growth of the company, which aroused the interest of readers.

We decided to continue the series of posts about open business, disclosing the internal business processes of Top 3D Shop for all who would be interested.

What is the article about?

With this article we want to highlight some unobvious moments in our activities. And at the same time and collect all the negative, which will be processed and put to the good of the case.

How is the Top 3D Shop

Top 3D Shop is a company with two central offices - in Moscow and St. Petersburg, four franchise branches - in Omsk, Volgograd, Yekaterinburg and Novosibirsk, separate production divisions and warehouses.
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We not only sell 3D-printers, 3D-scanners, CNC-machines and robotics - we repair and install it, but also provide services for 3D printing, scanning, casting and machining.


In the month we ship more than 400 orders.


Every day there are a huge number of hits - from the site, in instant messengers, by mail and by phone, each of which must be considered and properly processed. Their number comes to 500 per day.




All this requires careful study, and at the moment there are only 50 people in the staff. Each has many simultaneous core tasks that must be performed in a timely manner.


With such a load on employees, especially in the holiday season, when half of them are not in the workplace, there are also misses - incorrect calculation of the load causes problems such as longer responses to handling and delays in shipments, but more on that below.

Customer notifications

An important nuance when processing orders is a properly configured notification system. Notifications to customers come at all stages.

Receipt of application

Receipt of funds

Sending order and tracking number

SMS notifications

The customer is always aware of what is happening with his order.

Logistics

We promptly send orders to any corner of the Russian Federation, using Yandex-delivery - a service for organizing transportation, working with the largest transport companies in the country.


In addition, we directly cooperate with those services that Yandex-delivery does not work with, for example, Business Lines. At the request of the buyer, we can agree on the shipment by any convenient transport company.


In Moscow and St. Petersburg, our own drivers and couriers work, delivering orders directly. Pickup is available in these cities, of course.

Balanced Scorecard

Top 3D Shop has built a system of operational control over all important business processes and KPI online.

I can’t show it in full, but I’ll give an example of the quality control of the staff’s responses to their mail


An example of how we felt the holiday season - the quality of responses began to decline, we began to receive more negatives, to which we must immediately respond.

Despite this, I would like to emphasize that most of the reviews about our work are still positive, and even the authors of critical reviews rate the company above average, but this is no reason to rejoice.


By the way, the requirements for the return of goods - single, here we have something to boast.


Work on the bugs continues permanently. No negative feedback is left unattended.

Work with reviews

We get a lot of feedback and comments with which we work carefully. We greatly appreciate this feedback - customers point out our shortcomings in our work and this helps us to develop.

Thank you very much for helping us, seriously.

It happens differently - sometimes people write who are not customers and have no idea about our work. Sypyat empty accusations and bred flood in other topics, give dubious advice. We will not speak about such commentators in this post.

Examples

We get a negative response and immediately react.



Despite the fact that negative motivation is much stronger, we constantly receive positive feedback. People take the time to express their gratitude, and we are very pleased to receive such feedback.




Sometimes positive reviews are doubly more pleasant, because of their suddenness and location in unexpected places. So, the winner of one of our contests wrote a whole post on 3DToday.



You can leave a comment or ask a question through many channels, such as: direct communication with the director through the site, popular instant messengers, comments and messages on social networks, email and pop-up dialogue Jivo-site right on our page - during business hours there will always answer a living company employee, not a bot.


The system of collecting and analyzing feedback is constantly being upgraded. We react to any negative in relation to our activities, precisely because we want to leave as few as possible reasons for it, to become better and faster for our clients.

By the way, you can read honest reviews about us here . Negative, positive - all that is. We are open to criticism and work on ourselves every day, and this is true.

What we do to get better

Frames

For full-fledged work and development of the company a constant influx of qualified employees is necessary. We grow, so people are always needed. If you are interested in working in a developing adequate company with great prospects - see our vacancies and respond, we will be happy.

So historically, additive technologies are not an area where the labor market is oversaturated with workers. The best solution to the shortage of personnel is to train our own specialists for all positions.

Knowledge

We have about a hundred refresher courses and job training.


Each course - with mandatory testing, verification of the knowledge gained by the employee.


All courses are updated - constantly updated, as new information becomes available.

Training

We take part in the most important specialized events all over the world: we go to Japan, the USA, Germany, England, China and other countries, get information about the latest equipment and materials there, and then pass this knowledge on to our employees.

With the same goals, we visit manufacturers.



To share experiences and build relationships with partners and suppliers, as well as to enable ordinary users to get acquainted with the market innovations, we organize Top 3D Expo every year - the largest one-day exhibition and conference on 3D printing and scanning technologies in the former Soviet Union.

Polls

To better understand what is happening in the company and next to it, we regularly conduct surveys (NPS), both for clients and for employees.

Master Classes

To train clients and all comers, we regularly conduct theoretical and practical workshops on 3D printing and 3D scanning.





Do you know many companies with a similar approach, so confused on the improvement and development?

Why do we need negative

One goal - to understand their own mistakes and become better.

Negative reaction is normal, it arises in relation to any company, regardless of speed and size. None of the more or less large enterprises escaped it.

The negative reaction is important - in contrast to the positive feedback, which carry little useful information, negative feedback and opinions can indicate errors and omissions that could not be noticed. Negative motivation for the company is much stronger than positive and helps its development, makes the company stronger and more responsible.

What problems are we solving now?

There are difficulties that we occasionally encounter. Not all of them are allowed yet, but we are working on it.

Irrelevant availability of products on the site

Not every product on the site current status of availability. It happens that a person orders a product, and he is not in stock - you have to choose another one.

Why is this happening?

We have large warehouses and stocks of working capital, but not endless. With an assortment of more than forty thousand items, it is impossible to keep everything in the right quantities.

“Presence” does not always mean the physical presence of the goods with us, it may be the presence of the goods in the manufacturer’s warehouse and, in the normal course of things, this is not a problem - contracts are concluded, dispatches must be made immediately. If all manufacturers would be able to monitor the availability of goods in their warehouses, the status of availability would always be relevant, and the available goods would be shipped immediately.

While this is not implemented - different storage systems from different manufacturers, and not all of them are synchronized by API with our database. It is technically difficult.

How to solve?

We are increasing our own warehouses and working capital, we work with suppliers about synchronization.

It often happens that the manufacturer declares the products as affordable, and ships with delays - most innovative companies are subject to this, even large and successful ones. Manufacturers of new products, such as Voltera, sometimes without notice raise the price, making dealers and partners “extreme” when communicating with a customer.

This happens not only with deliveries to Russia, it is generally the specificity of the innovation business, the processes in which are not yet established.

In addition to this, it is worth noting “surprises” at the customs: unscheduled inspections and sudden requests for incomprehensible documents for not the first, it would seem, deliveries. In general, not to be bored.

Slow site

The site is really heavy, it takes a long time to load, it’s not very convenient to work. Search site works only on products, not indexing articles and reviews.

Why is this happening?

We tried to maximize the functionality and saturation of the site and, apparently, overdid it.

How to solve?

New site in development. We took into account all the disadvantages and make it better than before, more convenient and easier, it will be launched next year.

Service order hang

Orders for 3D printing and other services are not always promptly fulfilled.

Why it happens?

A lot of orders, few employees, especially during the holidays. There is such a problem as the slow operation of the devices themselves - 3D printing and scanning do not occur instantaneously, now their speed is limited by the technical capabilities of the equipment.

How to solve?

We recruit and teach new employees to increase productivity. We increase the number of equipment involved.

What else?

Know about our other problems or mistakes? Be sure to write to 3d@top3dshop.ru - we will carefully read and will solve them. After all, for this all was started.

Of course, we are not perfect, but who is perfect? We have a lot of positive feedback and thanks, a small army of satisfied customers and the desire to become even better.


If you want to write a negative response, opinion or wish - write me personally: on 3d@top3dshop.ru or on Facebook .

It will not go unnoticed.


Problems? Poreshim!

Vasily Kiselev
CEO Top 3D Shop
Top3DShop