Month: July 2019

Five Motivational Quotes We’re Living By Right Now

~ socialmedia

“Great things never come from comfort zones.”

We’ve been in business for 25 years and are thriving, but are we stopping?  Nope. We have a well-oiled sales funnel in place to sell our casters and wheels; however, we know that there is room to grow, so we’ve been focusing on building brand awareness on social media in both our business-to-consumer and business-to-business markets.  It’s the one piece of the marketing puzzle that we haven’t leveraged to date and we’re super excited to see how we can utilize it to grow.

“Price is what you pay, value is what you get.”

Most people don’t think about their casters.  “But my office chair came with wheels. Why should I buy new ones when these are totally fine?”  Sure, they’re fine, but why settle? Manufacturers put casters on the bottom of a lot of products, however, they don’t put the BEST casters on for the application because it doesn’t make sense for them to lose profit-margin over something so small, literally and figuratively.  You’d be surprised by the difference an upgraded set of casters makes on the bottom of your product.  

“A satisfied customer is the best strategy of all.”

We strive to provide our customers with superior customer service throughout the sales process.  There is nothing more frustrating than having a question about a product or an issue with a product and being unable to get a live human being on the phone work through it with.  Our customer service representatives are all located in our West Reading, PA headquarters and are available to walk our customers through the sales process, answer questions, and resolve complaints five days a week during business hours. 

“Surround yourself with people who are only going to lift you higher.”

We’re very proud of our collaborative staff here at Service Caster.  Our staff members are quick to step outside of their designated roles to pitch in on projects that will grow our brand awareness and increase sales.  Our customer service team has been working closely with the social media team to produce behind-the-scenes photos for our Instagram feed. The website store team is helping the social media team, too, by coordinating the back end of our new soon-to-be-launched facebook shop.  And the marketplace and web store teams constantly have their heads together on one project or another. We absolutely love it.

“Success doesn’t come from what you do occasionally, it comes from what you do consistently.”

Consistency is what matters in the end.  Being consistently visible on social media, in Google searchers, and through other marketing channels.  Having staff available to handle customer inquiries, sales, and complaints. And selling quality products.  If we lack in any one of those three areas we will miss out on providing the best customer experience possible, which threatens our ability to obtain new customers and keep existing customers buying from us over and over.  But all three together, well, they’re pretty powerful tools for ensuring we’re here to serve you for another 25 (or more) years.

Like this post?  Share it with your friends on social media.  Then, let us know your favorite motivational quote below.

Oh, and if you need some casters or wheels, our customer service team would be happy to help you find the perfect set  for your application or project. Just give us a call at 800-215-8220. #shamelessselfpromotion #wehaveacasterforthat

This Simple Hack Will Transform Your Outdoor Living Space from Blah to “Ahh!”

~ socialmedia

Now that we got your attention with our snappy title, we’ll tell you all about our favorite outdoor living space hack: wheels.

Yup. You heard us right. Wheels.

Here in Pennsylvania, where our headquarters is located, we’ve got three months of outdoor living time, maybe five, but only if we are blessed with decent weather in May and if said warm weather stretches into September. The rest of the year, we either have to winterproof or store our patio furniture.

As we looked back at past orders and thought about blog topics, we realized that mobilizing outdoor living furniture is a bright idea. Wheel it out in the spring. Move it around in the summer. And roll it away when it gets too cold. Booyah!

Using wheels to roll your large furniture to and from storage is pretty self-explanatory, so we’ll skip the tips on that. But, we can’t stress enough the efficiency of being able to move heavy patio furniture and accessories around during the summer. Especially patio umbrellas because, well, the sun tends to move, too. Sometimes titling the umbrella only gets you so far. But being able to effortlessly move a bulky umbrella stand to maximize your shade? Well that’s just priceless.

We’ve been trolling Pinterest and set up a board to go with this post.

Items that we found those bright Pinterest users putting wheels on were:

Umbrella Stands
 If you put your umbrella through that little hole in your outdoor table, well, this won’t apply to you. But, if your umbrella is big and stands alone using a weighted base, then adding wheels may be just the thing to easily manage your shade levels. You can add the wheels directly to the base or try out a little wheeled dolly. In the former, we recommend you empty the sand out before attempting to turn it upside down and install the casters. In the latter, get some help lifting the base onto the wheeled dolly. No point in throwing your back out.

Large Planters
 Planters are a great alternative to stationary flower beds to add a pop of color to your outdoor living space each season without committing to massive weeding efforts. But, unless they’re small, they’re pretty heavy once you add all that soil and plant those flowers. So, save yourself and your back some aggravation and put some wheels on the bottom first.

Raised Gardens
Having a raised garden on wheels, especially for growing herbs, fruit, and vegetables is pretty convenient because it allows you to move the garden to wherever the best growing conditions are. A random frost predicted? (Which happens a lot here, by the way, especially at the beginning and end of the season.) Well, then you can move the garden inside the house, garage, or other outbuilding for the night and protect the plants you’ve worked so hard to cultivate.

Fire Pits
Obviously, we aren’t talking about fire pits made of pavers and embedded in your patio here. Those are staying wherever you put them. But, there are ones you can buy or design yourself using metal that you can pop some wheels on the bottom. Front yard. Back yard. Doesn’t matter. You can have those s’mores wherever you want them.

Bar Carts, Grill Carts, and Cooler Carts
 While the fact that your outdoor space is, by definition, open concept, it means that people have plenty of space to mill about at your next party. Bar carts and cooler carts are great ways to keep your guests hydrated without requiring them to run inside to the fridge to get a drink all the time. And, a spiffy grill cart enables the chef of the house to be a part of the party even while cooking. Not a big entertainer? That’s okay. These work great for families or parties of one, too. Having food and beverages easily accessible on the deck, by the pool, or on the patio means you can stay outside and do your thing longer.

Lounge Chairs
Lounge chairs can be heavy. If they have wheels, they’re much easier to move when you need to change the position to catch some rays or soak in some shade. You can also follow the umbrella, fire pit, or bar cart around. Really, the world (or at least your backyard) is your oyster.

Of course, you can buy all of these things with wheels already on them. Or, if you’re crafty, you can DIY wheels onto your existing items and breathe new life into them. We are a caster and wheel company, so, yes, #wehaveacasterforthat, and our customer service team would be happy to help you find the perfect casters and wheels to optimize your outdoor living space. Just give us a call at 800-215-8220.

Like this post? Share it with your friends on social media. Then, let us know below which of our suggestions you think would be most useful for your outdoor space.

Leading the Charge for Superior Customer Service

~ socialmedia

Every month, we take one post to shine a spotlight on one of the members of the Service Caster family.  This month, we’re highlighting Luis Montalvo, our Customer Service Manager.

Having been with the company since 1998, Luis is an expert on our product inventory and a wizard at overseeing the customer service department, answering sales calls, processing orders, and checking the quality of products before shipping.  A “man of many hats”, Luis has also added Unofficial Social Media Photo Snapper to his résumé. (And he’s really good at it, too!) Luis says that the best part about working at Service Caster is helping all customers with finding the correct casters for their application or solving any issues that they might have. 

“The only way to do great work is to love what you do.”

Luis Montalvo

When he isn’t at work, Luis loves spending as much time with his family as he can  He enjoys going to flea markets and yard sales with his wife and playing games with their three kids. Since his kids are getting older, he has enjoyed being an assistant coach for his son’s basketball team and watching his daughter in flourish in track and field, as well as enjoying seeing his other daughter’s artistic talent blossom.  As a new homeowner, he also enjoys doing housework and cutting the grass.  

One of Luis’ favorite Service Caster memories happened at one of the company’s Christmas parties.  During a secret Santa swap, one of the gifts, which was a bottle of a very expensive alcoholic beverage, fell to the ground and broke as it was being handed to the recipient.  It was a sad, but funny, moment in SCC’s history, as you can see below.

What would we do without casters?

~ socialmedia

Welcome to the official blog of Service Caster Corporation.  We’re a manufacturer and distributor of many kinds of casters and wheels for home, commercial, and industrial use.  

We admit that casters aren’t the most glamorous accessory; however, we’ve come to learn that they are an essential one, given their usefulness in many industries and applications.

Yes, they’re used on office chairs.  (That’s probably the most common place most people see them, tbh.)  However, they’re also used by crafters, woodworkers, metalworkers and other DIY experts on their creations and in their shops on the bottom of toolboxes, large tools, and storage cabinets.  In commercial and industrial industries, you find casters just about anywhere – hospital beds, drive wheels, maid carts, shopping carts, furniture dollies, lawnmowers, material handling equipment, and more.

The truth of the matter is that casters make our lives easier.  (Imagine moving a grand piano without a piano dolly? Yikes. And what good is a bar cart if you can’t cart your liquor to the party? The horrors!)

In this blog, we’ll be sharing a lot of great caster-related information, offering application suggestions, answering questions, and giving you an insider’s view of the company behind the scenes.

We sell our casters over the phone via our in-house sales team and online, both in our website store and in various marketplaces like Amazon and eBay.  All our orders are assembled on-site and shipped to our customers as quickly as possible after undergoing several quality and accuracy checks.

We take great pride in the products we sell and have pledged to offer our customers stellar customer service at all phases of the buying process.  And an important part of that service is to educate our audience on how they can make the best use of our products, whether or not they’ve purchased anything.

We hope you enjoy the information we provide and look forward to getting to know you.

Wanna get to know us better, too?  Follow us on social media. Our Instagram is full of behind-the-scenes snapshots and our twitter feed is tons of fun to read.  We hope to see you there.