Roberts Rules the Road

In the early 1980s, 80% of Roberts's business came from the Big Three automakers, which relied on precise pickup and delivery times. As more companies realized the need for time-critical shipping, the market grew. "For years, we were the only ones in this business," says Simpson. "We used to go on sales calls and people would say, 'Expedited trucking? That's a neat idea. But we'll never need you.' Then a few weeks later, the phone would ring and it would be those same people saying, 'We're embarrassed to have to use you. It means we made a mistake.' "

Those mistakes keep adding up. In 1982, Roberts had its biggest year ever to that date, exceeding $3 million. Eleven years later, it raked in more than $138 million. Last year, its fleet of more than 1,600 vehicles traveled more than 80 million miles and made more than 200,000 deliveries. Net revenue topped $200 million.

All this success came at a price. The new Roberts was no longer a folksy operation with a handful of agents who knew their customers by name. That was a problem - customers liked the intimacy of the old Roberts. Thus was born another of the company's fudamental rules of business: Stay small in the eyes of the customer, even as you grow big in the marketplace. "We might have 700 critical shipments for 700 customers in a day," says Simpson. "But we want each customer to feel like he's the only customer."

Roberts "shrunk" itself by dividing its operations into self- managed Customer Assistance Teams. Each CAT is assigned to a specific geographic area, and the phone system routes calls accordingly. (The calls get sorted by area code at an AT&T database in Kansas City.) New York calls go to CAT 1, Maine calls to CAT 2, Chicago calls to CAT 5, and so on. Stroll through the call center in Akron and eavesdrop on the dispatchers, and it will sound as if you're strolling across America, one cluster of cubicles at a time. To regular customers, Roberts is no bigger than a particular CAT. For instance, when a call comes through from Art at Atlantic Metal in New Jersey or Joanne at Transgroup in Brooklyn, they hear the same familiar voices - it's Mary or Debbie or Bill in CAT 1. And if Art calls back that day, his call is automatically routed to the dispatcher he spoke with earlier, the person most familiar with his order.

But the folks at Roberts do more than talk on the phone. They think about their phones - a lot. Whose call should take priority, a driver's or a customer's? How long should these conversations last? How do you free up agents to take more customer calls? And it's not enough to be available to customers. Roberts wants to know as much as possible about its customers. When a company's shipping manager calls, Roberts's computer searches its database of more than 180,000 customers for a match. If it finds one, the dispatcher sees a "screen pop," a detailed customer profile, before picking up the phone. No need to ask which company the customer is with, the address, or the size of the loading dock. The system "remembers" all that and more, including the company's most recent shipments and quotes.

"We knew that the first 20 seconds of every call was spent identifying the caller," says Greulich. "And we knew from our customer surveys that they didn't like playing 20 questions when their plant was about to shut down. So right there, by having our phone system talk to our computer, we've made ourselves more efficient, and we've made our customers happier."

Often, when outsiders visit the Akron office, says CharterAir Division Manager Kevin McClellan, they're struck by how ordinary - and how calm - the place appears, especially considering what the company does. Its business revolves around deadlines, high stress, and high stakes. But the demeanor of its employees is confident and focused. That's not to say you don't sense the urgency in the phone calls. But nobody's panicking. Roberts solves big problems every day - back-up-against-the-wall, job-on-the-line problems. The process has become almost routine. Almost. "Every day, you've got a new challenge," says Vasilatos. "You do get a high. An adrenaline rush. It's like, Good grief, how are we going to get that covered?"