Premier Components, Inc. • 877-681-3064 • http://www.premier-com.com
Reprinted from Grain Journal January/February 2015 Issue
A customer calls your company at 4:30 in the afternoon explaining that he has experienced a breakdown with some piece of equipment and asks how soon it can get back up and running. Quick: What do you do?
If you’re Alma, MI-based Premier Components, Inc., you personally drive down to the local FedEx terminal at the airport after hours with part in hand to make sure it gets out the same day and shipped to the customer as quickly as possible.
“We have our UPS guy’s phone number in our system,” explains Premier Components President Jake Everdeen. “We’ll call and say, ‘Where are you right now? We have a box that’s got to go out next day air,’ and we’ll chase the UPS guy down. We’ll find him wherever he is to get the shipment out.”
According to Everdeen, who has been with Premier Components since 2004, the scenario and solution described above actually has happened many times with customers. (Prior to joining Premier, Everdeen had 10 years of grain industry experience, including purchasing manager at Crippen Mfg. in 1994-99 and head of parts and components sales for Material Handling Systems in 1999-2004.)
For a company that employs just 14 people, it’s this level of commitment to customer service that makes Premier Components a world-class manufacturer and supplier of mill and elevator products for the agricultural industry and beyond.
Founded in 2004, this small company has a lofty goal of becoming the leading supplier of premium quality, yet affordable material handling accessories in North America – and based on its track record to date, Premier is well on its way to achieving its goal.
Excellence from Day 1
“When we started the company there were three employees, and our goal was and still is today to have the best customer service in the industry,” Everdeen recalls. “We felt that the level of customer service in our niche market was not up to par, and we knew that we had a great product line-up and excellent pricing to accompany it, so with second to none customer service, we were going to be the number one source for grain handling accessories with time,” he says.
With that lofty goal in mind, the company opened its doors in Mt. Pleasant, MI, occupying a 2,000-square-foot warehouse that housed the company’s largest volume items. At the time, Everdeen says, Premier acted strictly as a dealer for its product line, but it didn’t take long to figure out that it soon would outgrow its facility. So in January 2007, the company moved to its current location in Alma, where it boasts 25,000-square-feet of warehouse space while also operating a 45,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Mt. Pleasant.
Everdeen says that in the past 10 years, one of the most exciting things that has happened is the expansion of Premier’s product line and catalog, which has been an accurate barometer of the company’s growth and success.
“Ten years ago our catalog was 24 pages,” Everdeen notes. “Today, it is 76 pages and still expanding.”
Much of this growth has come from the distribution side as many manufacturers have approached Premier about selling their line of equipment. “There are many items that we purchase at very large quantities and highly discounted pricing, which enables us to pass those savings onto our customers,” says Everdeen.
Premier currently stocks nearly all of the fabricated steel products in its catalog and can custom-build almost anything that can be drawn on paper. The company also stores thousands of feet of round spouting, so that it can meet the needs of its customers quickly and fulfill their orders when they call (morning, noon or night), whether they are from one of the 40 states that Premier currently serves in the United States, or in Canada or even overseas. According to Everdeen, Premier typically has anywhere from 18 to 20 lineal miles of round spouting on hand at any given time.
Unlike some of the company’s competitors, Premier takes pride in the fact that the majority of the products it produces or carries are manufactured domestically in the United States.
“We’ve got a couple of new competitors in the marketplace that are getting a lot of their equipment from overseas,” Everdeen explains. “We pride ourselves on the fact that basically all of the equipment that we sell is made in the U.S.A.”
Premier Has It All
The question isn’t: What does Premier sell? It’s: What don’t they sell? From dust control to bin level control, from elevator bolts to electric motors, Premier pretty much has it all.
According to Everdeen, the company’s bread-and-butter product lines include round and square spouting and accessories (carbon steel, painted, galvanized, or stainless steel); elevator and conveyor repair items, such as belting, buckets, drag chains, and pulleys; u-trough and tube screw conveyors; ceramic and urethane liners; power transmission products such as motors, gearboxes, and bearings; and level monitoring equipment.
“One of our new product lines that we are very excited about is our new Quick Clamp and Easy Clamp,” explains Everdeen. “These are a flange ring clamping mechanism, similar to the standard clamp band that has been sold for years but without the loose bolts, which prevents dropping or losing bolts and saving on assembly time. This is a great product at an even better price,” he says. “We spent a lot of time doing bend and break tests on the clamp to ensure it will stand up to industry needs.”
Regardless of what a customer is looking for, Premier has the right products in stock. Need trussing for spouting equipment? The company provides bolt-together truss kits complete with cable, turnbuckles, cable clamps and thimbles.
How about lining? Urethane, UHMW, and ceramic linings are available, and Premier carries on hand everything from elbows, angle rings, and clamp bands in a variety of sizes, to cushion boxes, valves and slide gates.
As a dealer for Hutchinson, the company also can deliver some of the best bin sweeps and augers available.
How’s that for comprehensive?
Success Through Service
Customer service is an integral part of the company’s corporate culture, as illustrated in the anecdote at the beginning of this article, and as Premier’s website states, “Customer service is the most vital part of our business. We’re not happy, if you’re not happy.”
“Over the years, we have always tried to make it a point when talking with customers to ask them, ‘What can we do to be better at what we do, or what product changes would you like to see?’” says Everdeen. “We have listened and made many product changes based on these conversations,” he adds.
As Premier looks to the future, Everdeen says it will continue to follow the path that has led it to growth and success; namely, continuing to expand its product line, to grow its inventory, and by treating customers as they deserve to be treated.
“As everyone knows in the grain industry, there are very busy seasons, and our goal is to go the extra mile to make sure our customers can count on us,” says Everdeen. Regardless of what time in the day it is, he says, Premier will be there for its customers.
“We usually work every day from six in the morning until six at night. There’s no answering machine on this phone that goes on and off,” Everdeen explains. “If somebody calls us at 6:04 in the morning, if we’re here, we’re answering the phone. We are going to take care of our customers.”
