There Are Reasons Why Ranco Fertiservice Has Been Around for 60 Years
Fertilizer blending and handling equipment company hangs its hat on over-the-top customer service and experienced, skilled employees.
Ranco Fertiservice celebrated the big 6-0 this year. There’s little doubt the Sioux Rapids, IA-based company will make it to 70 years and then 80 years and long after that.
Companies in business this long have a few things going for them, and Ranco, a leader in manufacturing innovative and high-quality fertilizer blending and handling equipment, is no exception. Nate Wittmaack, Ranco’s president and COO, attributes the company’s endurance to its ability in finding singular solutions for its customers as well as its experienced sales and engineering teams, which have a combined 180 years of experience.
“It’s about collaborating with each other, with outside sources, and with our customers to fill our customers’ needs,” he says.
Total Collaboration
A typical process on a project involves a Ranco sales territory manager having a thorough discussion with a prospective customer, which typically includes a visit to the customer for a face-to-face meeting, Wittmaack says.
“During this discovery phase, the sales territory manager asks questions about the goals of the project, and takes thorough measurements of the space available, noting any specific constraints,” he explains. “Sometimes, prospective customers have specific requirements in terms of using or not using a particular type of equipment. All of the information is assembled by the sales territory manager, and that information is brought back to our home office.”
Then, the sales territory manager meets with other Ranco team members from engineering, service, and installation to discuss a potential solution. Then the drafting/engineering team begins to work on a drawing of the solution, which is shared with the territory sales manager and other Ranco staff members for feedback.
The process can be described in two words: total collaboration. “This concept of collaboration to fulfill a customer’s request sets Ranco apart from its competitors,” Wittmaack states. “We can draw on valid perspectives from our engineers, our service team, our electrical department, and our production department to make sure we are designing the most effective system for the prospective customer.”
Exceeding Expectations
Ranco also hangs its hat on exceeding its customers’ expectations. Recently, the company received a conceptual drawing from a customer for a new blending system the customer wanted to have quoted. After studying the drawing, the Ranco sales territory manager for the customer sensed there was a better solution for the client to achieve its goal. The territory manager gathered a team of
Ranco departmental leaders to discuss the matter.
“After a thorough review, we determined we wanted to propose a different solution than what had been presented to us by the customer,” Wittmaack says. “The sales territory manager reached back out to the customer to ask permission to provide an alternative arrangement as a secondary option, and the customer was happy for us to provide another option.”
The drawing the customer supplied was going to require two pieces of equipment and significant modification to an existing structure, according to Wittmaack. But Ranco suggested an alternative option that included only one new piece of equipment and a significant reduction to the modifications required to the structure. Yes, the customer was pleased … and impressed. “This was a win-win for the customer,” Wittmaack says. “It only required a small shift in the position of a proposed new building on the customer’s property, a change the customer decided it could easily accommodate.”
Going the Extra Mile
For Ranco, customer service means being ready and willing to put forth the extra effort to put customers in the best position to achieve their goals, Wittmaack notes. Everybody at Ranco, which is an employee-owned company, is involved with that.
“Sometimes this means sticking around after hours or over a weekend to gather parts for a customer to come pick up,” Wittmaack says. “It’s not uncommon to drive by Ranco during non-business hours and see one or more of our employees– any of our employees, including production and service team members or even our CEO gathering some parts for an off-hours pickup or a late-in-the-day ship out.”
About those 87 employees, the average tenure of a Ranco employee is an impressive 13 years, with many working 20 years or longer at the company.
“Ranco is built upon the dedication of its people,” Wittmaack says. “Employees take a huge amount of pride in their work. Ranco is also very involved and entrenched in the local community and the communities our employees live in. The values of Ranco really reflect the values of Ranco employees.”
Those employees have also willingly rolled with the changes over the years to keep the company on the leading edge of technology. Interestingly, the original idea for Ranco was to place a multi-compartment spreader box on floater chassis and “blend on the go” in the field, Wittmaack says.
“This concept was well ahead of its time and could be seen as a precursor to today’s variable-rate technology-type spreaders,” he adds. “But tending equipment at the time proved to not be effective in keeping the multicompartment spreader fed properly. So, the volumetric multi-compartment blender was removed from the floater chassis and placed in the plant. Thus, the idea of continuous blending was born at Ranco.”
Ranco has also broadened its scope over the years and has added augers, conveyors, and bucket elevators to its offering. It also offers catwalks, structures, and additional types of conveying equipment.
“Ranco’s product offering has evolved and has been driven by its customers,” Wittmaack says. That evolution to satisfy customer needs will continue for many years to come.