Keeping employees aligned, productive, and efficient in today’s agile manufacturing environment requires a deep focus on the right technology. Increasingly, businesses are discovering the best business results come from not only investing in the right voice solutions but other platforms too.
Video communications in the manufacturing sector have the potential to enhance creativity during collaboration sessions and bring teams closer together. At the same time, these tools can also provide organisations with a powerful way to differentiate their customer service strategy.
American Woodmark, a company responsible for manufacturing over 10 million bathroom and kitchen cabinets per year, decided it was time to upgrade its technology stack for the new generation of communications. Keen to enhance both employee and customer interaction, the company turned to the innovators at Zoom for assistance.
Here’s how Zoom helped American Woodmark to evolve.
Overcoming Communication Issues
American Woodmark is a leading manufacturer of cabinets for kitchen and bathroom renovations. One of the largest cabinet creators in the world, the company supports endless independent showrooms, builders, and big-box retailers. To deliver the kind of exceptional and fast-paced support these customers need, the brand relies heavily on access to the right communication technology.
According to Josh Keiter, the manager of collaboration, technical support, and clients at American Woodmark, the company had been struggling with its communication tools for some time. For years, the brand had been searching for an easy, secure, and reliable communications platform capable of empowering 10,000 employees across 30 locations.
The team tried a number of options, starting with Microsoft’s Skype for Business and then Microsoft Teams. They also explored other vendor options like GoToMeeting and Cisco Webex. However, nothing seemed to fit perfectly with the needs of American Woodmark’s employees.
The issues and inconsistencies faced in the communication stack for American Woodmark started to have a profound impact on employee satisfaction. Some team members even started to use their own, less secure alternatives to communicate, like FaceTime and WeChat. This led to concern among the IT team, as employees were often using these tools to share sensitive company data.
Eventually, American Woodmark decided it was time to standardise its communications solution with something new. That’s where Zoom came in.
Introducing Zoom Technology to Teams
According to Keiter, Zoom seemed like an excellent alternative to the tools the American Woodmark brand had already explored. The company appeared to understand the unique needs of customers when it came to creating web meetings. Zoom’s interface was extremely simple and easy-to-use, making it ideal for employees struggling with adoption.
The transition to Zoom started slowly for the team. Keiter and his colleagues introduced a trial of the video conferencing software with a small selection of users. Early adopters were chosen from across multiple units in the business, including sales, marketing, IT, and HR. The aim was to deliver a solution which would allow employees to connect with each other more easily while also supporting better partner and customer conversations.
After the trial was rolled out, Keiter’s team started receiving positive feedback almost immediately. The business resolved to start expanding access to Zoom to more members of staff, including senior executives. This decision to rapidly accelerate the adoption of Zoom proved to be a good choice on behalf of the company when the pandemic emerged.
When lockdowns and employee distribution began influencing the way American Woodmark’s employees could work, Zoom quickly became essential. In March 2020, the company’s CEO implemented a work-from-home policy to help keep team members and families safe.
During this time, the brand believed maintaining strong communication between team members, managers, colleagues, suppliers, and vendors were particularly crucial. Fortunately, Zoom was already on-hand to help smooth the transition to remote working. Staff members were able to rapidly adopt Zoom and utilise its features to stay connected and engaged.
Employees could continue to see their colleagues through video, collaborate on designs and documents, and preserve relationships. According to Keiter, Zoom became an integral part of day-to-day communications for the entire workforce.
The Impact of Zoom on American Woodmark
The impact Zoom’s video communications technology has had on the American Woodmark brand has been incredible. According to Keiter, Zoom ensures employees can conduct video communications seamlessly and safely without interruptions. Employees are also enjoying more efficient meeting experiences. Rather than spending 10 minutes trying to get set up and connected, team members can get straight to business in a couple of clicks.
The Zoom customer success team was particularly helpful to the brand, assisting them with user training sessions, which were then recorded for future onboarding. During the first two months with Zoom, American Woodmark was already averaging around 8,000 meetings on the platform per month. By the end of the third month, the number increased to 10,000.
Keiter noted the Zoom environment has prompted significant evolutions in the way employees work. Users have become resident experts, launching meetings over mobile and desktop, sharing screens, and collaborating on projects with annotation tools. The security enhancements made to Zoom over the recent years have also ensured the American Woodmark team can remain compliant.
The business has even begun using Zoom Webinars to launch all-hands meetings and training sessions. What’s more, American Woodmark is now branching out into different features of Zoom, like Zoom Chat and Zoom Phone.
Throughout the transition into the video-first communications landscape, American Woodmark benefited from highly open and responsive guidance from Zoom’s team. This helped to accelerate the rapid adoption process even further.
Looking Forward with Zoom
According to American Woodmark, the company plans to continue utilising Zoom technology going forward. The brand’s values of teamwork, integrity, and customer satisfaction have remained core to the brand for the past 40 years and continue to guide the business today.
Keiter says Zoom has played a significant role in empowering employees to connect not only with each other but more effectively with consumers and partners too. American Woodmark is excited to continue implementing its Zoom strategy in the years ahead.
