Sell

We sell through a variety of channels including branches, call centres and online, with a strong focus on providing excellent customer service.

Focus on customer service measured through regular customer surveys
Investment in employee training programmes and tools to allow our branch employees to deliver the best customer service
Investment in online sales channels to drive organic growth

Channels

Sales to customers are made over the counter at our branches, through supply contracts which are managed centrally, or through orders that can be placed with branches, into call centres, or via the internet. In some regions we also operate a network of showrooms which enables us to showcase our product range.

E-commerce is a rapidly growing sales channel for the Group and we continue to invest in our business-to-business (“B2B”) and B2C websites across the Group. For example, Wolseley UK has recently introduced www.tapoutlet.co.uk which is a B2C website based on our Build.com site in North America.

Customers

The Group has a wide range of customers operating in different industry sectors, ranging from individual plumbers and builders through to national contractor chains and house builders. Wolseley’s primary customer focus is on professional contractors, who constituted 88 per cent of the Group’s customer base during the year ended 31 July 2012.

Customer mix

Graph to show total % of revenue for 2010/2011: Building contractors: 23%, Plumbing and heating engineers: 24%, Industrial: 15%, End users: 12%, Mechanical contractors: 10%, Utilities: 10%, Heating, ventilation and air conditioning: 6%

Customer service

Wolseley is a relationship business and our focus is to meet our customers’ needs better than the competition, ensuring we deliver the right products, at the right price, at the right time, on every occasion they do business with us. We use regular customer surveys in all of our business units so that we can take actions to improve our performance, both nationally and within each branch operation.

Branch staff

In order to achieve the best customer service in the industry we need to have the right talent with relevant training, skills and knowledge in our locations. Within each of the business units there is a strong focus on ensuring that training programmes and tools are available for our people so they are equipped to give the best service in the industry. Employee engagement is measured in each business unit at least annually and the results are used to make improvements in working practices and environments.