For LG and F1™ there is no ‘I’ in ‘Teamwork’

By Louise Goodman

Oscar Wilde wrote that “memory is the diary we all carry about with us”. Well, if that’s the case then my diary is jam-packed from March to November and a little light on entries during the winter months. Why? Because the Formula One season runs from March to November … and Formula One has dominated my calendar since 1988.

That’s the year when I took my first tentative steps into the male-dominated world of Grand Prix racing. I’ve been travelling with the F1 circus ever since, working for teams, handling PR for their drivers and, for the past 12 years, reporting on the sport for the British TV station ITV. It’s been one heck of a ride and has generated enough red letter days in that diary to last a lifetime, but there’s one that I will always recall with special pride.

This particular entry was made on 11th July 2006 at the British Grand Prix. That was the date I made my own little bit of sporting history by becoming the first woman ever to take part in a pit-stop during a Formula One Grand Prix.

It all started as an idea for a feature that would form part ITVs coverage of the Silverstone race weekend; the plan was to give the ITV viewers the background story on those frenetic few seconds that can make or break a driver’s fortunes in the race. The Midland Team (which has since become Force India) decided to take the idea one step further and invited me to join their 28 strong pit-crew and find out what it actually feels like to don thick fireproof overalls and a claustrophobic helmet and stand fast whilst a racing car hurtles towards you at 100mph like a bullet down the barrel of a gun.

I trained for three months for a job that took around 1.5 seconds; man-handling (or woman-handling as the case may be) an 11kg wheel from the rear left corner of Tiago Monteiro’s MF1-Toyota. In less that 7 seconds the rest of the crew had replaced all four wheels, added fuel, cleared the radiator ducts and wiped the driver’s visor before sending Tiago on his way to rejoin the race.

Much to my relief – not to mention the team’s - my part in the whole process went like clockwork and I was able to report back to the viewers the incredible cocktail of nervous anticipation, intense focus and pure adrenalin I had just experienced.

I’m sure a few of the millions tuning into the spectacle would have relished a little mishap though. Pit-stops have been a fundamental part of the sport since the first Formula One World Championship event took place at Silverstone in 1950 and a good stop can totally transform a team’s results in a race. The record for the fastest ever pit-stop was set by Benetton in 1993 and stands at an incredible 3.2 seconds - but you can bet that more people remember the Benetton pit-stop of 1994 that went horribly wrong causing the car to ignite into a fireball – thankfully without lasting injury to anyone involved.

Formula One teams spend hours practising and perfecting their pit-stops to try and ensure that such dramas are few and far between. Servicing a Formula One car quickly and efficiently is a source of immense pride to the pit crews. As Ron Meadows, Sporting Director of the 2009 World Championship winning Brawn GP outfit, and the man who calls the shots where Brawn GP’s pit crew are concerned, puts it: “We’re not driving the car, we don’t design the car and we’re not engineering the car, but good teamwork from the boys on the pit crew can win or lose you a race.”

That’s a sentiment that strikes a chord with Maarten Cornelissen, Vice President for LG’s Services operation in Europe. Cornelissen is the man charged with ensuring that the five million consumers who contact LG’s service centres throughout Europe each year are satisfied with the support they receive; he’s the man who controls the pit-stop crew for Team LG in Europe, as it were.

“What I find really impressive about a Formula One pitstop is that everything comes together and everybody on the team knows exactly what to do. In that sense F1 pitstops are an example for any service company,” Cornelissen explains, “We work hard at LG to ensure that all the different elements are working efficiently from the call centres to the engineers and the parts suppliers. It all has to be in place to enable us to fix the problem and it has to be done right first time to ensure that we have happy customers.”

But good teamwork isn’t the only similarity between the crew that serviced 2009 World Champion Jenson Button’s Brawn-Mercedes Formula One car and the band of men and women who ensure that LG’s customers receive first class service if their TVs, airconditioners, phones or fridges break down.

As I discovered when I investigated the subject further with Cornelissen and his colleague Paul Pike who heads up the Service and Quality operation for LG Electronics in Canada, Formula One pitstops and LG’s service set-up share many similarities: alongside teamwork there’s the need for clear and effective communication and both operations utilise the latest technology to facilitate the rigorous demands placed upon them. Like in Formula One, LG invests heavily in research and development to ensure quality and functionality of products … and, of course, there’s speed - a fundamental factor in the success of both operations.

“Customer loyalty can be won or lost with that first call so it’s critical to the whole process” says Paul Pike. “When a customer calls our service centre we have to have all the resources in place to respond as fast as we possibly can.”

But just how fast is that? A pitstop takes on average just 7 seconds to complete which is a tough standard for any service process to match. However LG customers can expect a surprisingly rapid response from the moment they first make contact to report a fault. “It starts with the average speed to answer the call” explains Paul Pike “and after that we need to make sure that the whole customer experience takes place in the fastest time possible, from the moment they explain who they are and what their needs are to the point where we provide a resolution for them or schedule an onsite visit.”

“You could argue that F1 speeds are not attainable for 5 million consumers, but speed is still very important in our business” adds Maarten Cornelissen. “You need to look at it from the perspective of the consumer. If you have a fridge full of food that’s broken or a family with four children and a washing machine that isn’t working we need to get to it very quickly and where possible fix the problem in the customer’s home. Consumers want speed and they want as little hassle as possible.”

I also had LG input from Andrew Barrett, VP Global Sponsorship and the man responsible for LG’s Global F1 Program. Andrew has an overview of all LG’s products and programs, as well as the global work being done on F1, and was therefore also able to enlighten me on the parallels between F1 pit stops and LG’s Customer Service operations.

“We know that when a consumer’s product is not working as it should that they want it up and running as fast as possible” says Andrew. “That is why when we are not sure if we can fix the unit in some cases we will even go to the lengths of swapping it out for a new working model in less than 24 hours.”

Effective communication can help to avoid that ‘hassle’ both for LG’s team and the pitstop crew at Brawn GP. “You just couldn’t do a pitstop without good communication” explains Ron Meadows. “There are too many people involved and the possibility of it all going wrong is just too great.

“I sit on the pitwall next to the boss, Ross Brawn, and we take an overview of the situation and where both of our two cars in the race are. We have an intercom that’s linked directly to the two race engineers and the strategists sat alongside us on the pitwall who are focusing specifically on one car each. Whilst the engineers are talking to the drivers on the radio, discussing the balance of the car and any changes they want to make to the set-up during the pitstop, myself, Ross and the strategists are talking about what the other teams are doing and how our strategy is playing out.

“Ensuring clear channels of communication between all the different parties involved is one of the fundamental parts of my job,” Meadows continues, “and it’s crucial to make sure that the guys in the garage are engaged in the process the whole time If they suddenly see a crash on the TV and the Safety Car comes out onto the track then they have to know instantly how to respond because it can be critical to the outcome of the race.”

Like all Formula One teams, Brawn GP also makes heavy use of technology in the form of complex telemetry systems to communicate electronic messages from hundreds of sensors placed around the car to the data engineers back in the garage, allowing the team to monitor performance and reliability levels throughout the race and optimise their strategy.

“Where strategy is concerned it’s a continually evolving process and you sometimes have to make decisions very late - particularly when the weather conditions are changing” says Meadows. “It’s vital that I communicate that information on the radio through to the boys in the garage who are responsible for bringing out the right tyres and making any changes that the driver has asked for.

“At Silverstone last year our driver Rubens Barrichello suddenly called for a set of the extreme wet tyres as he was actually driving towards us down the pitlane. It had just started to rain and everybody else was switching from dry tyres to the ‘intermediate’ option – however Rubens decided at the last minute that he wanted to use the ‘extreme wet’ tyres. We gave them to him … and he went from nowhere to third place.”

Good communication plays its part on the road to success for LG’s service centres too. “It’s absolutely key” says Maarten Cornelissen.

“Communication with the customer is obviously hugely important. It starts with the initial call and extends through to follow up contact from the engineer to ensure that the consumer is available for home service calls at a time that suits them. We also communicate with customers via our website so they can access ‘live chat’ to help them try and resolve issues or keep in touch with the progress of repairs via our tracking system.”

Internal communication between call centre handlers, LG service centres and authorised repair agents is another important part of the equation as Cornelissen explains. “It’s very important that everybody is aligned so we use an application that enables each job to be visible to all the LG service staff throughout the process so that everybody can see exactly what’s going on with that particular repair. Nowadays it’s also very easy for the call centre and the engineers to have real-time communication with each other – and with the consumer too.”

That’s a handy tool when you consider that Cornelissen’s team has to communicate across the whole of Europe whilst Brawn GP’s conversations are focused on a 4-mile race track. Technology plays a significant role in helping LG maintain those effective channels of communication throughout Europe – and the rest of the world.

“We use a lot of computer systems in the call centres to help us handle the volume of calls that we’re dealing with in the most efficient way and we even have technology in place to ensure that the quality of the calls is excellent so that communication is easier” Paul Pike explains.

“For all our service providers, no matter where they are in the country, we have an application that enables us to look at their schedules and see if they are busy on any given day. We also utilise WAP technology to download software to make quick fixes on a range of our electronic goods. The use of technology is fundamental to the whole process and this is where LG does a really great job.

“For example we have a great order interface to help us support our customers. It enables us to monitor our inventory levels at a central warehouse so we’ve always got the right parts in stock for all our different products plus we have the technology available to enable us to ship everything for next morning delivery right across the country.”

That’s a tall order when you consider LG sells around 120,000 products a month in Canada alone – from mobile phones and notebooks to TVs and a huge range of domestic appliances. That’s clearly one area where the two operations do differ. Brawn GP has just one design of car each season whilst LG has an extensive range of products to service. Added to that, LG customer teams never know when the call for help might come through; there’s no such thing as a schedule pit-stop where consumer products are concerned.

But that’s no problem as Paul Pike explains; “The infrastructure and technology is in place to support all those products properly. Our call centre staff are all highly trained so they know the products and the process really well and we also have the technology in place to help them route the customer through to the right technician to make the repair.

“It’s extremely important for us to determine up front, if we can, what the issues are so that when we send the engineer he’ll have not only the right skills but also the right tools to do the job. We use different authorized service centres (ASC) for all the different units we service so we have specialist companies who look after home appliances, others who handle home electronics and different people again for mobile communications and notebooks.

“We don’t allow anybody to service our products unless they’ve been professionally trained by our dedicated trainer staff and that really helps us to resolve the customer’s needs and issues first time, no matter what the product.”

So it’s all about identifying the right specialist for the job then ensuring he has good back up and the right equipment to hand – maybe that’s not so different to a race team after all. The Brawn GP team might only have one model (two cars?) to service but over the course of a 190 mile race there are hundreds of different scenarios that could require attention from the guys in the garage.

“Doing a standard pitstop is generally quite straightforward” says Meadows. “It’s when unusual things happen - when the engineer suddenly calls for a late wing change as his driver is coming down the pit-lane or when it starts raining – it’s how you cope with all the ‘other’ stuff that makes a big difference.

“You have to be adaptable and understand that plans can change at any moment. We try and cover all the scenarios that could arise but these are racing cars we’re dealing with; they’re made out of thousands of components and we do have issues with them. It’s part of what makes the racing interesting.

“How we deal with each issue is largely defined by the problem that you’re presented with so we have to take decisions as each different scenario arises. If it’s something technical we have specialists on the team for each different area of the car but you’ve got to make sure they’ve got the right tools to hand too. It sounds quite basic, but if you’re sat in the garage watching the race and suddenly get a four second warning that the car is on its way in then you’ve got to have your tyre and all the other equipment you might need ready to hand.

“We might only be running two cars at a race weekend but we carry around different 4000 spares with us to every event to ensure that we have everything we could possibly need.”

If all goes well at the racetrack quite a number of those spares will remain in their boxes and be taken right back to the factory again after the race. Like Brawn GP, LG goes to great lengths in the design and testing of its products to ensure failure rates are kept to a minimum and that products can be serviced easily when they do need attention.

Paul Pike takes up the story: “We put a huge emphasis on quality with regards to product introduction and product review and we continue to see those efforts rewarded in terms of the serviceability and reliability of the products we produce. We closely monitor what we call the ‘failure rate’ which means we watch closely to see how new products perform. Anything that is identified as being suspect is addresses and we see on a regular basis the overall reliability of our products gets better and better as we go through the different evolutions.”

Strength, weight and reliability of parts is key to success in Grand Prix racing so Brawn GP invests resources into Research & Development for each season’s new design. Or as Ron Meadows sums it up; “We’re constantly reinventing the wheel nut! Each year we try and make every single component we design and build lighter and stronger, because that will make the car quicker.

“It’s a fine line; when you’re competing at the top in motorsport everything is cutting-edge and sometimes the line gets crossed and components break. That’s something we look at extremely closely during the testing period before the season starts though and we continue to monitor it carefully as each race passes.”

For both companies that attention to detail continues from design and production through to the servicing of product as well.

“Every component that comes out of the factory goes through a stringent ‘lifeing’ and proof testing process” says Meadows, “and that includes the equipment that we use during the pitstops. It doesn’t just get put into a box after a race and come out when we get to the next one – just like the car it gets stripped down and sent to R&D for testing to make sure that it’s still seeing the same loading capabilities.

“The design of different components often changes during the course of the year too – both on the car and in terms of the equipment we use in the pitstops. We might find a better material or revise the design of an area of the car and that can result in changes right through to simple things like the wheel nuts as well”.

“When it comes to doing consumer repairs we know that it needs to be done quickly” says LG’s Andrew Barrett. “We design our parts for easy replacement to reduce the repair time, just like an F1 team does with a nose cone for example, on/off in seconds with just a few screws to tighten, or a wheel nut that can be taken on/off in seconds.”

The 2010 Formula One season will see a far more radical revision to pit-stops than a new set of wheel nuts; refuelling is to be outlawed from the start of next season as part of the cost saving measures being introduced into the sport. The new regulation will also bring about radical changes to the design of the cars and to the strategies that teams follow during races.

“It will make a huge difference” admits Meadows. “For starters the cars have to be built to accommodate a tank that’s big enough to carry enough sufficient fuel to last the whole race and that’s a big factor to accommodate into the design.

“For many years the time that a pit-stop takes has been determined by the amount of fuel put into the cars but from 2010 its going to be all about the time it takes to change the tyres so that’s going to add to the pressure on the boys. You’re going to see tyre changes of 2.2 or 2.3 seconds … and you’re probably also going to see a lot more mistakes!

“It will have a massive effect on strategy too. In previous seasons the speed advantage of putting new tyres on the car has been negated by the additional weight of the fuel added during a pit-stop, but for 2010 the driver who pits first will gain the advantage from having a lower fuel load and new tyres and therefore be fastest. But you can’t stop too soon or you’ll find yourself coming out amongst traffic so you’ll see groups of cars all trying to shadow each other’s strategies and teams coming out into the pit-lane trying to dummy each other. The pressure’s going to be on us to get the strategy and the pit stop right. It’ll be a real challenge … but that’s what this business is all about.”

And it’s that same relish of challenges that drives Maarten Cornelissen, Paul Pike and their colleagues around the world to ensure that LG’s service calls are the best they can possibly be. “The mentality of the service people is to make sure that the consumer is happy with the product after the servicing and that’s the same as a pit-stop” says Cornelissen. “Those people really support the driver and we’re looking for the same level of dedication and commitment from our service people too. We want life to be good after an LG service pit-stop – that’s what we strive for.”

“We are so passionate about the importance of customer service and see it as being key to a consumer’s perception of the LG brand,” concludes Andrew Barrett, “so much so that at LG customer service reports into the same global leader as I do, the Chief Marketing Officer. He overseas all global marketing and customer service operations. Unlike many other companies that position Customer Service under Operations or Product Supply, at LG we believe that Customer Service is an important ‘Moment of Truth’ for the consumer and it can make or break a consumer’s relationship with a brand. So we make it part of our marketing thinking structurally, and we also apply marketing processes to make the service offering even better, such as doing research into consumer behaviour, and their satisfaction with the service offering. In fact, we have lots of telemetry-like data that we measure including using the global Net Promoter Score (NPS) methodology to see how well we are doing, which sets a very high standard to achieve. Just like F1 teams we strive to be at the pinnacle of world performance.”

Thanks to the efforts of people like Maarten, Paul, Andrew and their teams at LG that goal is readily met, providing a world class service for LG customers to rival the World Championship winning performance of Brawn GP. After twenty years of travelling with one of the most fascinating sporting spectacles in the world I’m well aware that Life’s Good in the F1 Paddock, but I could never have envisaged that a consumer service like LG provides would share so many parallels with the sport in its methods, technology and mission. But clearly F1 style service ensures Life’s Good for the millions of customers around the world who benefit from that world class expertise too.