We recently had the chance to chat with Jaye from RAPIDTOOL Australia to find out more about the industry-leading company behind revolutionising construction sites across the country.
Good afternoon Jaye. Can we start with a little bit about your RAPIDTOOL brand?
Sure, we’re RAPIDTOOL, Australia’s leading supplier of rebar tying, bending and cutting machines.
So, rather than manually cutting, tying and bending, like for tying, a lot of people use nips, which is the old-school way. We provide tying machines that automatically do all the tying, twisting and cutting for the worker.
So, really what we’re about, is making life in the construction trade a lot smarter and just easier for people out there.
As well as efficiency of work, other core values of the RAPIDTOOL brand include health and safety on the job site. Can you tell us more?
Health and safety is our main priority.
For example, with our rebar tying machines we have an electronic extension handle, so you don’t even have to bend over when you’re tying rebar. This saves your back and also saves your hands and fingers because you’re not doing the manual twisting.
Many people over time can get muscular strain from this type of work, which causes a lot of chronic problems later in life.
And, with our rebar cutters, there’s no hot work with them. Obviously, there are a lot of job sites where you can’t use tools that have sparks in certain areas for safety reasons. All our machines are spark-free, which is awesome.
It’s all about working smarter rather than harder, and working a lot safer.
That’s excellent. You just made some great points there. What about the history of the company? How long has it been around for?
So, we’ve been around for about 12 years now. It was my husband who actually started the company. He’s an engineer by trade and would also supervise residential builds and all sorts of projects, he was even a site supervisor for a while, so he’s done all sorts of things.
But, he was on site one day when he saw how people were doing things and thought there must be a smarter way of doing this. So then he’s gone on to create the company — finding the tools and helping develop and upgrade tools to make them as smart as possible for workers.
That’s basically how Rapid Tool Australia was born.
You supply Australia and New Zealand, but do you supply to anywhere else?
Yes, certain machines we do.
Basically, our rebar tying machines are supplied across Australia. But with our rebar cutting and bending machines, we do sell worldwide.
How does that work?
Pretty much in every metro city, we have a dealer and a lot of regional areas now have dealers too. We’ve basically covered most of Australia, which is awesome. We find it’s easier this way and our service and support network is also important.
We’re very proud of how that works. Obviously, people will sometimes have warranty issues or something needs to be looked at and it’s a very easy process. You go back to the nearest dealer and we organise for it to be shipped to one of our repairers. Then it just goes from there and gets shipped back to them.
We make sure our customer service is number one.
I guess that’s the main difference between us and our main competitors. It’s the service and support we provide our dealers and our customers — they come direct to us if they’ve got questions or need parts and things like that.
Our after-sales service is extremely important to us, as well as our customers.
You mentioned a warranty — how long is your warranty?
Yes, we have a 12-month warranty.
To be honest, we don’t really have many machines come back, as we’ve spent a lot of time testing and developing.
For example, rebar tying machines may just come back if they have a minor thing like a bit of dirt. Obviously, it’s quite dirty and rough on a construction site and so a machine may get a bit of dust in a sensor or something like that.
If people have an issue like that we try to teach them and our dealers to give us a call first because 99% of the time the problems can often be solved over the phone. Sometimes it could be just blowing out the machine to get rid of the dirt and it fixes the sensor again.
So obviously dealers play an important part in your sales and afters-sales service?
Yes.
As part of our dealer network, when a new dealer comes onboard, we make sure they undergo training.
We want to make sure they know our products as well as we do. It helps when a customer walks into the store and wants to find out more about our products, rather than dealers trying to explain something they don’t know about.
What training do you offer to your dealer’s network?
When we take on a new dealer we ensure our sales manager goes and trains them and their whole team. If we can’t get to them face to face a team video training call is another option.
There are many ways that we try to get around to all our dealers. For us, it’s an important part of the process that they’re fully trained to know about our products to be able to advise customers as efficiently as possible.
I don’t think a lot of people do that. They supply products but don’t really train the people on what it actually does and how it can benefit.
You also have a RAPIDTOOL Platinum Plus Dealer Scheme. Can you tell us more about that?
Sure, we have dealers, known as Platinum Plus dealers, who stock our products in-store. And, they also have a demo model of our rebar tying machine.
We have a full jig set up where customers can try the machine. We feel it’s important that people can go and see and try it themselves. This obviously helps them, once they experience firsthand how fast it is and how much time it saves them.
PYou mentioned earlier you’re going to launch some new cordless tools soon. How far off do you think they are?
Yes, we do have some cordless products coming out in a few months. This has been in the making for a long time.
We have a couple of cordless cutting machines, one that cuts rebar and another that’s more of a bolt cutter. We also have some flush cutters coming out, which cut through threaded bar, and are also spark-free.
The rebar cutter will cut about 20 mm rebar while the other more suitable for bolts will cut up to 18 mm. The flush cutter will be a variable diameter capacity. But, you’ll find all the details on our website closer to the time.
They’re scheduled for release hopefully later this year. We’re just in the final stages of putting it all together. There’s obviously a lot that goes into it — making sure we have all the instructions and certifications ready.
It’s an exciting time for us.
That sounds great! Do you have any special deals or offers to tell customers about?
We have some great deals at the moment.
If you buy 20 boxes of tie wire you get a free tying machine, and if you buy 40 boxes of wire you get two tying machines. You can choose which one, the RT40A or the RT60A.
We also have starter kits for rebar tying, where the machine comes with a few boxes of wire. If anyone is interested, they can find out more on our RAPIDTOOL website.
Where can customers find a list of your dealers?
We encourage people to call us.
Our sales team is amazing and knows the products inside and out. They’ll be able to go through the information and be able to recommend somewhere to buy, which helps the sale process and the dealers too.
If somebody knows the tool they want they can get in touch and we can give them the contact details of their closest dealer. We can also pass their details on to the dealer, so if for some reason they can’t call, the dealer is able to call them back.
And, if someone wanted a demo of one of your machines, what should they do?
Call our sales team. They can arrange for certain tools to be sent to their nearest dealer where they can collect and try it out on their site.
Obviously, we only have so many demo machines, so calling us in advance to organise everything avoids disappointment. But we’re always moving them around to different dealers to help everyone.
Thank you very much Jay for taking time out of what must be a hectic schedule. All the best for the launch of the new cordless range later this year — it must be an exciting time for the company.
To find out more details, download their catalogue or speak to their awesome sales team — check out the RAPIDTOOL website.
Rapid Tool Australia
