By Documenting Its Policies And Procedures, SnugZ Ensures Brand Safety Through Delivering Products Buyers Can Trust
Since 1989, SnugZ has been committed to providing an exceptional customer experience and producing high-quality products for its customers. With beginnings in a humble, little attic in Utah, the company has grown from five to more than 450 employees.
Its product line has grown as well. In addition to its extensive collection of lanyards, the company is also known for its eyewear retainers, health and beauty products, and leather goods—all of which are consistently safe, high-quality, socially compliant and environmentally conscientious.
In this week’s Partners In Brand Safety conversation, we chat with Brandon Mackay, president and CEO, about how a lack of compliance can damage a brand’s reputation and how the implementation of documenting policies and procedures ensures SnugZ is delivering consistent products that buyers can trust.
1. What does brand safety mean to you?
Brand safety is vital to our success at SnugZ USA. Building consumer confidence by ensuring that products are not only safe but also meet the needs and expectations of end users keeps us in business. As large brands start shining spotlights on careless product selection and the damaging effects on their reputation, the more the promotional product industry moves to help educate suppliers and distributors on the need for brand safety measures. We take this very seriously and strive to provide the highest quality products and ensure testing requirements have been met for all the items we manufacture.
2. How has QCA Accreditation benefitted/improved your company?
Becoming accredited by the Quality Certification Alliance has opened the door for us to quote on large projects for many distributors who support national brands that are looking for suppliers they can trust in product safety. On the flip side, it’s also helped us internally by introducing the requirement that we write and follow new policies and procedures regarding product quality and compliance that we didn’t have before. Since QCA Accreditation, our customers are getting a more consistent experience when they do business with us.
3. How difficult/rigorous did you find the program to be?
3. How difficult/rigorous did you find the program to be?We found the program quite difficult in the beginning due to how many new policies that needed to be created and procedures documented. Since then, the re-accreditation process is quite simple since a lot of the legwork is already done.
4. What was the biggest lesson(s) learned about product safety, social responsibility, etc.?
One of the biggest lessons learned for us is that even though we’ve written the policies and created standard operating procedures around product quality and compliance, it takes continuous training to ensure these are followed. Having things documented has helped immensely when team members turnover and new employees step into their roles.
5. What type of company would benefit most from going through the Accreditation program?
All supplier companies should explore the QCA Accreditation process. It covers all the important things that we should be doing anyway.
