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West Sussex-based BTS Liquid Waste was founded just four years
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ago yet S' the firm has an impressive customer base. As Tim Maughan reports, its recipe for success is quality and generosity to its customers...
BIS Liquid Waste regularly rubs shoulders with the rich and famous. Jimmy Hill and actor Richard Wilson are among the clientele, which specialises in the disposal of liquid waste from both business and domestic sites.
Tanya Heath, proprietor, and her sister Debbie Heath (the sisters are married to two brothers) control the operation from a small room within a gothic-style office building in the West Sussex town of Haywards Heath. The company's two trucks—a Seddon Atkinson four-wheeler and Ford Iveco Supercargo 6A—reside at a rented park space in Hentield, 10 miles away.
"I founded 875 Liquid Waste in June 1997," explains Tanya. Then, the firm ran one truck, a Seddon Atkinson fourwheeler with a 2,000-gallon vacuum
'-'-1 tank. Tanya bought the truck from ,
BFI, an American-owned waste management company, but she ,, i was no stranger to haulage. She
■ .,.., says: "My father had a haulage 41.. 4 E company. He had curtainsiders
which he used to rim into D Europe. so I have always been around trucks. I was always aware of new vehicles on the market. Before 19971 worked in corporate sales for an electrical company, and I also worked in the travel industry," she adds.
Tanya grabbed the bull by the horns, but admits that she underestimated the heavy workload. She says: "In 1997 I said to myself 'yes, you can do it'. I thought I could run the business from home, so I installed a telephone and worked on the dining room table. At the time I thought running the business would be very simple, and I was not daunted by the Seddon Atkinson because I had been brought up with trucks. I believed I would have to work just two hours a day."
She could not have been more wrong. "I advertised BTS in the Yellow Pages arid 1 was bombarded with phone calls,reflects Tanya_
Fleet expansion was necessary. Tanya bought a Leyland Constructor six-wheeler, equipped with a 3,000-gallon tank. She says: "It was nine years old when I bought it, but it did the job. But as it got older, it started to look a bit tatty."
She spent £3,000 on refurbishing the tank. "Four weeks after the work was done, there was an electrical fault, and the cab went up in flames. The vehicle was written off, but I only received a minimal insurance payout. I was extremely disappointed."
After such drama, today things are ticking along nicely. The firm runs two trucks: the original Seddon Atkinson vacuum tanker, and a Ford !veep Supercargo 6x4 with a 3,000-gallon Whale vacuum tanker. Tanya is the proprietor, and Debbie is transport manager.
The duo continue to advertise within the Yellow Pages but, as many operators find, when you do a job well the work comes to you. "We have so much repeat business," reports Tanya.
Generosity
It is important, she believes, to extend generosity to your customers. The customer base is longer than your arm: Thames Water, J Sainsbury, actor Richard Wilson, Jimmy Hill, a catalogue of hotels and schools and even a monastery. Many remote countryside homes rely on cesspits for waste, rather than mains sewage. One customer is an eccentric elderly lady, who insists on having the same BTS driver come to her home, and won't consider using a different driver.
Tanya and Debbie do not see such special customer requirements as an irri
tant. Quite the opposite, in fact. They will often not bother invoicing a customer after a small job has been completed. "We pride ourself on customer service," smiles Tanya. Honesty, she says, must be the best policy.
Customers may require their cesspits to be emptied; unknown to them, their 2,000-gallon capacity pit may contain just 1,000 gallons of waste. At these times, unscrupulous operators could easily invoice the customer for sucking up 2.000 gallons—but not at BTS. Tanya says: "Sometimes people tell me that I worry too much about being fair to the customers, but I am not in the business of ripping people off."
Strong words—but her record seems to prove her right. HIS customers keep coming back. Around BO% of work is in contracts; this involves emptying cesspits, and also kitchen grease traps from restaurants and hotels. Much of the waste is sent to Thames Water and Southern Water treatment works.
The remaining 20% of work is done on an ad hoc basis. In this respect, BTS becomes an emergency service—and sometimes the word "rescue" seems more appropriate. Last autumn East and West Sussex were deluged by the worst floods in living memory. "We sent our vehicles to Uckfield and Lewes to drain water from banks and restaurants." reports Debbie. "We were inundated with calls," adds Tanya.
Customers can rest assured that the company does things properly: "We have the 1S09002 quality standard." says Tanya proudly.
With such a small fleet, it is important that each truck is used to the full. The Seddon Atkinson concentrates on local work, whereas the Iveco Ford takes on jobs right across East and West Sussex and east Surrey. Tanya praises her two drivers, Malcolm Granger and Brian Gave, for their commitment and hard work. "Our repeat business is down to their conscientiousness," she asserts.
Vehicle servicing is outsourced. BTS pays a modest fee to Stormont, an Iveco dealership in Partslade, to look after both vehicles. Servicing and general maintenance are catered for then, which allows Tanya and Debbie to concentrate on garnering new, and looking after existing, customers. Like many operators, BTS actively seeks new customers. If Tanya gets wind of an impending con
tract to shift liquid waste, she is on th( telephone promptly, attempting tt secure fresh business.
The sisters hold on to existing customers, and seek to win new ones: si what about expansion? -Yes, we do plan to expand. We are very busy eight monthr of the year, May to December, and them is pressure for us to buy a third vehicle,' says Tanya. Although not hectic, thi workload is steady for the remainim four months.
Depot
BTS Liquid Waste is set to grow out of it: rented parking space in Henfield, shi explains. "We are actively lookinn towards having a depot. and we plan t buy it rather than rent it."
Lack of work is never a problem at th■ firm. If anything, the opposite is true. " have been in positions where I have been afraid to answer the telephone becaus things are so busy," says Tanya.
She adds: "1 am over the moon wit how BTS Liquid Waste has developed, an it has gone better than I could ever hay imagined, "The company will expand—it is just matter of how and when."