SHERPA Connection Systems GmbH is an Austrian company, which got founded in 2012. The first product-generation though already launched 10 years prior to that. Two years later their connectors, which are SHERPA’s flagship today, launched. In general, the company’s assortment consists of connection technology for timber construction, which is supposed to automate and simplify planning and processing. SHERPA mainly exports their products in over 30 different countries such as Russia, Canada, Australia, or the UK. They are also very active on Social-Media and of course their website to create as much transparency about the company and the products but also to explain the products and their functions.
Easy Engineering: What are the most successful products in your line-up?
SHERPA: We would say our most successful products are our connectors, because we provide a wide range of different sizes and also different types of connectors depending on which materials other than wood need to be connected. Our customers confirm that our connectors are highly innovative because they rationalize and simplify construction, which makes them also very likeable.
E.E: Tell us about the team in your company and how important is the human factor?
SHERPA: Our human resources, specifically our employees, make the success of our company possible and are therefore highly important. Even though we focus on exporting our products, which means that we mainly communicate with our customers via E-Mail and telephone, they appreciate it a lot to have a specific person they can always contact. Also, the fact that every person provides a certain amount of personal experience concerning different situations is very helpful.
E.E: What can you tell us about products distribution?
SHERPA: Important to say is that we only distribute our products through partner traders, which then offer our products to their customers. Whenever we receive an order or a request, we focus on working on them within 24h to keep our supply chain as short as possible. After that the customer receives an order confirmation or a quotation. For any technical questions you can contact our support team. On the other hand, we offer a lot of informative product-videos on YouTube that contain the most important information to understand the products and their variety.
E.E: What’s the client feedback for the best-selling products?
SHERPA: Mostly our customers tell us about our connectors, that they help to simplify and fasten construction significantly. They also tell us, that the application is very easy and makes it possible to work even more professional.
E.E: How does this feedback impact development of new products?
SHERPA: Generally, we love to get feedback to our entire assortment. After receiving it trough a variety of channels we always try to include and realize it. At first, we take a look at how many reactions have the same conclusion. Those aspects need to get worked on first. After that, we concentrate on the other aspects. Then we start with analyzing if new products would be a good idea and if yes which products and which target group we are looking at.
E.E: Tell us about the research and development in your company?
SHERPA: We cooperate with national and international research and development facilities such as the technical university of Graz, the University of applied science or KIT Karlsruhe. We work together for active product development. This contains working on product-ideas, testing to get authorizations and lead them to their marketability.
E.E: What is your company philosophy and what drives your company forward?
SHERPA: As a company, we think, that innovative and modern connection technology is the future of the timber industry. Because of that we turned it into our mission to make construction in practice as modern and standardized as possible with our connection technology. Also, the fact, that wood as a construction material is getting even more popular drives us more forward.
E.E: What guarantees success in your area of activity?
SHERPA: Within the construction industry it is essential to guarantee and be honest with the availability of products, to keep the supply chain as short as possible and to offer the best quality you can possibly offer. All of these aspects make it possible for customers to complete their projects in time without building up more costs.
E.E: Give us some details about the after-sales service & customer support?
SHERPA: Regardless of whether technical or commercial questions arise, our customers can always reach us through various channels. It is also important that our dealers are always up to date. We have conversations via video conference or telephone several times a year.
Concerning our after-sales service, we inform our customers regularly about updates on product innovations and -changes but also about changes connected to authorizations. We also offer our customers geometry data, information about upcoming Events, trainings and generally where they can meet us and get in touch with us.
Our customer support includes services such as giving technical information, information about the availability and delivery time of the goods and of course general information.
We also support some projects per year by mentioning them as a reference project in our media after completion. This shows all interested parties which projects are being implemented with SHERPA worldwide.