Weyers sees it as an additional benefit that his team in Mönchengladbach and Bielefeld don’t simply work in an impersonal call center.  The eight spare parts sales people work in small project teams like the key account managers, who handle each activity as a project. They know the spare part product because they can see it in the warehouse. This allows them to advise the customer with passion and expertise. A team member may then consult the designer to find out precisely which task an urgently required component carries out in a machine. This meticulous procedure doesn’t just apply to expensive, important components like motor spindles, whose importance even a layperson would understand, but also to smaller, seemingly insignificant components, such as switches.

Service theory is dull, but here is a “colorful” example: A regular customer in Northern Germany needed a replacement motor spindle immediately as their machine had broken down. Without any red tape, Starrag sent the part immediately by taxi courier even though the written order hadn’t yet arrived from the customer’s maintenance personnel. Weyers: “This only works because we have a good relationship based on mutual trust and confidence.”