Oliver Mellor (r) and his business partner, Phil Rice (l)
Anglian Lifts, by Oliver Mellor
www.anglian-lifts.co.uk
Read about Anglian Lift in THIS. Trading Magazine (found on p25):
Which stage are you at with your business?
Registered and running for less than 1 year
What does your business do?
Anglian Lifts sell and install the best stairlifts, wheelchair lifts and home elevators products. We can also provide servicing on almost every brand and have engineers on stand-by for emergency call outs.
What’s spurred you into starting your own business?
I have been looking for an industry to invest in and found an opportunity to create something unique together with Phil and his excellent team. Phil has held several senior positions in the access and mobility market. He was managing director at MediTech and more recently, he was managing director at another local stairlift installation company. His principles have always driven his business approach and he puts the needs of his customers first.
How did you come up with your business idea?
The concept of selling and servicing stairlifts is nothing new but what Phil and I bring are years of operational experience combined with a strategic vision to create a company which delivers excellent customer value, brilliant customer service and provides opportunities for employees to grow.
How has Startup Peterborough helped your planning / business so far?
The Peterborough start-up eco-system has been very welcoming and extremely helpful. Anglian Lifts were able to get up and running quickly thanks to the quick response and thoughtfulness of the Peterborough team.
What have been the biggest challenges you’ve overcome (or are overcoming) in setting up and running your own company?
Establishing ourselves quickly and finding customers. It’s tough to raise awareness of our fledgling company especially in this day and age where internet ‘findability’ is so critical. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and internet ‘authority’ can’t be accelerated too much as it becomes costly. So, we’ve bootstrapped our digital and physical marketing to get our name out there and win our first few customers. We’re confident that now we have a few happy customers our reputation will spread via word of mouth and our website will start to rank higher as more content gets added.
What’s been the most rewarding aspect of setting up your business?
Phil and I both believe there are multiple aspects of our business which are rewarding. Firstly, it’s the feeling that we’re providing a service to the elderly, infirm and disabled which genuinely improves their enjoyment of their homes and gives them back some independence. Secondly, we love the feedback we get when employees deliver brilliant customer service or they enhance their skills. Finally, we can see that there is a big opportunity to ‘do it right’ in this industry. To us this means doing it right for customers in terms of service quality and value for money but also doing it right for the local community and our employees by giving back. Our reward will be seeing Anglian Lifts be successful by doing it right.
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