Welcome back Martyn!
If you cast your minds back to my last blog post a few months ago you’ll remember that our technical support guru Martyn had to undergo surgery at short notice. All of us here at 3D Group are now delighted to say that he is back at work and has recovered well. Martyn is now taking on a more office based role managing our technical support department as well as helping us research and develop new products. Martyn’s years of auto locksmith experience means he’s the ideal person to assist with any technical difficulties our customers might be experiencing and now that he is office based he will be able to respond to e-mail support enquiries much quicker.
Research & DevelopmentMartyn and I have been working together testing a whole host of new parts and tools so that we can be sure of their quality before we release them for sale.
One product that flew through its testing phase was the new Ford PIN-Code retrieval tool for the SKP-900. This nifty gadget is now for sale on our website here, it connects to the OBD port of the vehicle as well as the SKP-900 machine and provides the PIN-Code in a matter of seconds. It’s so easy to use and such great value for money. Martyn’s full product review will be featured in the latest 3D Group e-mail newsletter and more information can be found on our website. Hopefully we will also be releasing a Nissan version of this tool in the near future. It’s currently being tested and much like the Ford version it will connect to the SKP and read the NATS code eliminating the need for code retrieval from another source. We’ll let you know as soon as this is available for purchase.
Another product that recently passed our rigorous testing procedures with flying colours is the 884 Mini Decryptor key cloner. Martyn was amazed at how easy this product was to use! In case you missed the email you can read Martyn’s full product review here . The good news is that we have held the introductory offer price so it really is great value for money and a great key cloner that will pay for itself within just a few jobs. Find out more about the Keyline 884 Mini Decryptor here.
We develop our own 3D Group range of after-market products and those that we have released already have been received very well. We aim for these products to be as good in terms of quality as the OEM version, however in the last few weeks we have received a complaint about one particular product and that is VGB1. The customer reported that he had a few cases of this particular blade snapping at the point where the groove can be found at the top of the blade. We have retested this product and found that there is a fault when excessive force is placed on the blade, therefore we are changing the design of this product and future batches of this blade will not have a groove at the top. This groove provides no particular function it is purely cosmetic, so removing it will simply remove the weak point in the blade and should improve the products quality.
We are also in the process of developing our own 3D version of NR9 - the Nissan remote. Unfortunately this has had to go back to the manufacturing factory due to it failing our test procedures on one particular vehicle. We realised that this problem vehicle is not available in the manufacturers’ country and so couldn't be tested which explains why we only realised we had a problem when it reached us. We have worked around this issue and final testing is now being done. Once this product has the green light and we are certain it will work on the full range of Nissan vehicles it will be available for sale.
New members of team 3DI’m pleased to tell you that we have a couple of new members of staff that have joined us in the last few months. Matt is now well and truly settled in our sales department and you might have already spoken to him on the phone. We recruited Kristina as Matt’s replacement in the warehouse, her previous role was working in the Marks and Spencers distribution warehouse so she has plenty of experience and she has filled Matt’s boots well. She’s also over 6 feet tall so reaching the top shelves isn’t a problem for her and this quality has come in quite handy!
Developments within the company and the speed at which we are growing has meant that I am not able to dedicate as much time to the development of the new 3D Group website as it needs. I have waved the white flag and admitted that I need help so this week we have welcomed Istvan to the 3D Group team as our new web developer. Having Istvan on board should mean that we are able to release our new website sooner, as well as having the expertise in-house to potentially develop new projects too. The only problem is, with the new building still in development and the need for more office space for new staff, we have had to convert our stationary and filing room into a new office! This new office will also be the temporary home of a very exciting secret project that we are currently working on that will be coming to the UK next year! It’s all very hush hush at the moment and we are all sworn to secrecy but we are really excited about it and can’t wait to be able to tell you more in the New Year!
The Big Build
Speaking of the new building extension, things were going well. We had finally received approval and planning permission and we were excited to begin transforming the old building next door into our new office and warehouse extension. The plan was to remove the top floor of the old building but keep the external walls and remodel the internal structure so that we could align doorways etc with our current building and knock through. But the buildings inspector paid us a visit to see how the demolition was going and threw a spanner in the works! You can see the progress in this video.
The MLA
This year was the first year that 3D Group exhibited at the MLA Expo. Thank you to those of you who took the time to pay our stand a visit. Our stand was a lot smaller that we usually have at the likes of ALEX and LOCKEXPO but the introduction of a new touch-screen ordering system meant that not as much space was needed and it made it easier for customers to take advantage of our huge trade show offers. Our small stand proved effective and the show was a successful one for us. I hope if you visited, you enjoyed the MLA Expo too. This coming year we are increasing our presence at industry trade shows and will be adding a couple of new exhibitions to our repertoire so we look forward to meeting more of our customers face to face.
Customer Service
We are keen to provide the best customer service that we can and we try our best to monitor how well each department works. In our warehouse department our main target is to dispatch all orders as efficiently as possible with zero mistakes. Mistakes do occasionally happen, although very rarely and there has been a couple of instances where customers have received the wrong product. In order to try and iron out these errors our warehouse department has altered the way it picks products and we hope that this will increase our accuracy. Add to this the new systems updates that will be occurring with the launch of the new website and I hope we will be able to get the number of mistakes down to the bare minimum.
Reward Scheme Success
It’s just over three months since we launched our Reward scheme and it seems to have proven a hit! In the last three months we have given away thousands of points and you have treated yourselves to thousands of pounds worth of free products! We are delighted with the schemes success and hope that you are enjoying reaping the benefits of the orders that you place with us. If you have been saving those points to treat yourself to something extra special why not take a look at the new products we have recently added and see if anything takes your fancy? Keep your eyes peeled for some special rewards and offers appearing in the run up to Christmas too!
So, there’s the highlights from the last couple of months here at 3D Group. As always, keep in touch and up to date by following us on social media and registering for our newsletter if you don’t already receive it. Have a great week!
Dean
