“Those who are happiest are those who do the most for others.”- Booker T Washington, American author, educator, and orator.
Pace Logistics Supervisor Rich Horn has been happily serving others for over 40 years. “I think it’s in my blood,” he said.
“My parents taught me when I was young about our family core values, which included serving others by volunteering at church functions and helping those less fortunate than we,” Rich continued. “I believe this has contributed to the person I am today.”
With Pace for 4 years, serving customers and teammates in the Jacksonville, Florida market, Rich says he’s been fortunate throughout his career to find great mentors. “One of the greatest values I’ve received through my mentors is bouncing ideas off them and finding solutions and things we can control to get better,” Rich said. “I find it productive to use the same method with my teammates to find solutions to help our customers.”
Asked why he enjoys his job, Rich replied “I enjoy everything about my Job from the minute I start my day working with the drivers and our customers preparing for a successful day from the start.” Rich emphasized that assuring his drivers have everything they need for the successful completion of their routes is job number one.
“At the end of the day I get great pleasure knowing that my team provides a high-quality customer experience. I’m proud to say that every one of our drivers bends over backwards daily ensuring our stores are 100% satisfied, and if there are any issues the drivers bring it to my attention so I can get on top of it before it becomes a problem.”
A deep dive into Rich’s recipe for delivering exceptional customer experience reveals:
- Knowing how to communicate and LISTEN to customer concerns. He says this allows him to effectively solve customer issues.
- His development of Pace’s Train the Trainer Program. He learned better ways to learn and teach.
- During his career he’s had the fortunate opportunity to evaluate various engineering programs and run computer analyses as to which applications are best applied to Pace operations.
Rich reports he’s glad he’s had the opportunity to serve Pace customers and teammates. “Training and participating in procedure and policy creation has been a blast,” Rich said. “I’m glad to contribute toward Pace being a more efficiently run company.”
Getting better each day is a goal for Rich. Referencing Pace’s core value to always improve, Rich said that he’s “always looking for ways to improve things. It’s important for all of us to never stop learning. I’m constantly looking at everything I do to see what small changes can be made to improve the customer experience.”
It all adds up to opportunities to go “above and beyond” to help the customer. “An example is when the team improvises and delivers a part for a customer that was accidentally left out on the overnight run,” said Rich. “If we don’t pick up the part and deliver it first thing in the morning the store is going to lose a parts sale. There are tons of examples where we picked up the part and delivered it to the receiving store, which is then able to make the sale to their customer as promised.”
When he’s not doing his work at Pace “serving relentlessly,” Rich enjoys “going back into nature, where I can unwind and clear my mind. You will usually find me with my camera since I am also a semi- professional photographer.”
