KATY, Texas – Even when Rhonda Holliday is at a store nearly an hour away from her own, she hears it.
“Hey, Rhonda!”
The U-Haul Team members prepping to attend a class turn their attention to U-Haul Moving and Storage of Katy General Manager Rhonda Holliday, who is smiling and returning a wave to a customer. While some are surprised she’d be on a first-name basis with a customer 40 miles from the store she calls home, Holliday is used to it.
“I’ve worked in many stores,” she explained with a small shrug. “I’ve been very blessed with U-Haul, and I help as often as I can anywhere the Company needs help.”
Rhonda Holliday never says “no”
“When she took charge of the Katy store, it was relatively new and was struggling,” noted Matt Merrill, marketing company president of UHC of West Houston.
Under Holliday’s leadership, her store has built an excellent customer base. In fact, it is one of the few U-Haul locations to rank in the Top 100 for all three retail categories: boxes and moving supplies, hitches and propane.
“When you tell her to do something, she doesn’t know the word ‘no,’” Merrill chuckled. “I’ll tease her and say, ‘You sold 32 hitches this month … but I bet you can’t get 40 next month.’ Then, sure enough, she’ll do 41.”
But Holliday is quick to give the credit to her team.
“My crew understands what to look for and can explain to customers what they need,” she praised.
Keeping it all in order
When pressed, she will take credit for one thing.
“Organization,” Holliday declared. “If there’s one impression I’d want someone to get when they visit, it’s that we’re organized. I push my team to keep the place neat and clean.”
“We work in teams,” Assistant GM Jonathan Moreno explained. “If I’m at the counter and a customer needs a truck, someone is there to take the keys and get it. Someone else will get a dolly, another will get boxes. Everything keeps moving.”
That efficiency and the results it breeds are a source of pride for the Katy Team.
“She shows us how well we’re doing,” Moreno confirmed. “We get pumped to do more, and she makes sure we have everything we need to do it.”
“If a customer needs something,” Merrill assured, “Rhonda will find a way to make it happen. If someone needs a hitch, she’ll schedule the time before she checks to see if they have it in stock. She knows that if they don’t have it, she can get it from some other store in Houston, even if she has to pick it up while driving into work some morning.”
Finding a way
For all her store’s success, though, Holliday brings it back to a basic idea that should sound familiar: providing a better and better product and service to more and more people.
“You have to want to help the customers,” Holliday stated plainly. “Figure out what people want and give it to them, and they’ll eat it up and keep coming back.”
“Rhonda knows that U-Haul has solutions for every customer,” Merrill praised, “She’s got customers calling her cell phone around the clock because they have the confidence she will have the answers they need.”
And the fact that she always does is why so many people around Katy have a reason to know her name.
Rhonda Holliday really cares about her customers! If you like, you can send her some praise in the comments section below.
