Over the past year Monster Tower has become a common name in the wakeboard tower industry. Devoted to exceptional customer service and products, Bill Bierbower always has an ear for the riders opinions and input. In a time where many companies have become faceless, I wanted to find out why Monster Tower is standing out in the crowd.
I've had a look around on the Internet and found that you have in past been an inventor of sorts. How did Monster Tower become what it is today based on this previous experience?
REPLY: My background is in mechanical engineering and early in my career I obtained great design and test experience. After a 10-year run in the technology sales world I returned to engineering about 3 years ago (after being laid off in the technology bust). Monster Tower began when I made a wakeboard tower for my boat. I had been looking at the options to purchase one and after buying one for almost $900 that I was very disappointed in, I decided to build one for my boat. Everyone that saw it really liked the design so I started building them for others to generate some income. Soon requests were beginning to come from neighboring states as well. This lead to updating the design to make it cost effective to ship and easy for the customer or dealer to install.
You have mentioned a number of times that "Wakeboarders are the best customers", why do you feel that Wakeboarders relate to you and Monster Tower so well?
REPLY: We are all Wakeboarders here (it’s a requirement of employment) so our customers are all people we would love to ride with and have lots in common with. Some of the people we ride with are customers that have become friends. We are certainly not perfect, but we are dedicated to making sure each customer is happy and our customers have been very enjoyable (and patient) to work with as we went through our learning curve.
You seem to really enjoy what you do, and the company is growing quickly. What does a typical day entail?
REPLY: I love what I am doing today – we have been blessed in being able to make our passion of wakeboarding into a decent living. In such a small company everyone has to do everything. Whether it’s unloading a truck, customer support calls or emptying the garbage cans, nobody, including me, is exempt from anything. My focus is on the engineering and new product development but I also manage our factory relationships and do a lot of the accounting. I end up being involved in some way with just about everything.
If I can comment on one thing about Monster Tower, besides the product, I would have to say that the Customer Service is outstanding. What is the philosophy behind this?
REPLY: The old saying about “A happy customer might tell a friend but an unhappy customer will tell everyone” is so true. I don’t understand why so many companies treat their customers so poorly – customers are the reason a business is in existence. The philosophy here is that our job is not done and the sale is not over until the customer is happy – and if we cant get to that point the customer has the right to return the tower for a refund. We can only afford to have happy customers.
This seems to be a labor of love. Is there anything that you can say about the coming year and what we can expect to see?
REPLY: It certainly is a labor of love and is allowing me to use a lot of different skills I have developed over my career. For 2004 we will be rounding out our products with a complete set of accessories as well as unique products we have in development now. I’m always reluctant to say too much about coming products because if they never get there you look bad. We are very happy with how everything has gone so far and are not making any big changes, just going to keep on our current path.
You are quick to give others credit that have helped Monster Tower. Anyone you'd like to thank?
REPLY: First and most importantly we need to thank our customers and dealers, without them we would not exist. They have also been a source of incredible feedback to improve our products as well as ideas for new products. The development team deserves tons of credit also. This is a group of nearly 20 people that have provided input for a long time now and their ideas, support and encouragement have been invaluable. Brad (operations) and Rob (marketing) have been there with me since the beginning and have done so much to make Monster Tower happen - I owe them huge thanks for lots of hard work and late nights. Also, we have met so many people at the magazines, websites, boat companies and other companies in the industry that have been a tremendous help along the way. OK, OK, it’s starting to sound like a Grammy speech, I’ll shut up now!
