2020 Management Excellence Award Winner: Hagar Restaurant Service – Catering Equipment Reports, Articles & News
SERVICE AGENCY
- Headquarter: Oklahoma City
- Based: 1956
- Number of employees: 225
- Number of locations: 9 (5 full-service stores and four satellite locations)
- Sales: Revenues to exceed $ 40 million in 2019
- Company currency: “Parts and service since 1956”
Lorn Hagar founded Hagar Restaurant Service, a factory-authorized warranty and repair service provider for more than 200 manufacturers, in Oklahoma City 63 years ago, working from his garage until the first store opened. in 1971. An avid fisherman, he sold his beloved bass boat to purchase his first large order of commercial catering equipment.
Initially, Hagar only serviced cooking equipment, but soon expanded into refrigeration and eventually provided scheduled maintenance programs and installation services for entire kitchens. With just five full-service stores and four satellite locations across Texas and Oklahoma, Hagar has been able to remain nimble enough to truly engage customer service.
“We like to say that every call from a customer counts as an emergency,” says Bob Gilpatrick, Service Manager at Hagar. “Because they have key equipment broken and are unable to make any money until it is fixed.”
“We like to say that every call from a customer counts as an emergency.” – Bob Gilpatrick
Gilpatrick, himself a 30-year veteran of the company, attributes Hagar’s success to being able to pull staff and resources together when a call comes in to provide super-fast service. “A company that operates hundreds of pizzerias was about to hold a demo for a customer and dropped the equipment just at the wrong time,” he says. “We were able to get out in an hour and a half and help them. “
“Hagar is very responsive to our service needs, including evenings and weekends,” says Tom Van Der Bosch, vice president of parts and service at Scotsman Ice Systems. He describes a service call when a customer was frustrated with their ice maker system. “Although the machine appeared to be working when technician Hagar arrived, he investigated further, even calling Scotsman, and eventually discovered that a sensor needed to be moved,” he says. “Customer expectations were not only met, but were exceeded due to the good representation of service by Hagar.”
This same agility allows the Hagar team to come together to meet the needs of employees as well. “We see ourselves as family and will strive to provide all the necessary help to employees and their families in difficulty,” said Gilpatrick. “The response from our teams is always great.
At the heart of Hagar’s corporate culture is how it values people. “We don’t just maintain a piece of equipment, we serve a customer, and it’s extremely important that the customer is satisfied at the end of the experience,” says Gilpatrick.
“Here in the Southwest, we like to say that our moms and dads raised us well,” he says. “We want to treat people, both customers and employees, with honesty and integrity.
As a family business, we try to lead by example and always say to our teams: “This is your business. That will be all you do with it.