Tag Archive for: Reports

Changing Ourselves to Drive Customer Success


POLARIS Laboratories® embraces change because it is the only way to continuously improve the value of our oil analysis. Some changes are driven by feedback from employees, but often it’s the voice of the customer that drives us to become better.

Each month we send surveys to customers to discover what we are doing well and what needs improvement. Recently, survey comments requested more information in our results comments to help maintenance programs diagnose what is causing abnormal conditions in their equipment.

We took a closer look at our report comments. Wear and contamination comments contained quite a bit of information on potential causes and how to correct the problem, but fluid property comments lacked some of these details.

Our customers pointed out a valid area to improve, so improve it we did. Comments on viscosity, acid number, base number, pH, oxidation and nitration now include more details and possible root causes.

Our ultimate goal is for customers to be confident they are making the right maintenance decisions based on their analysis results. Expanding the report comments is one way we’re helping customers save their equipment.

Log into HORIZON and open a recent report to see the expanded comments for yourself.

Proven Impact. Proven Uptime. Proven Savings.
Let us prove it to you. 

Turn Up the Heat on Your Turnaround Time


The speed of business has accelerated in today’s on-demand, instant-access world. This makes me wonder why some of our customers don’t take advantage of the shortcuts and speed-ups HORIZON® offers. There are simple ways to have your samples tested faster, but only a small portion of our customers take advantage of them. Now you can avoid unnecessary delays before your samples are tested.

Online Sample Submission: Customers have the ability to enter sample information directly into HORIZON instead of shipping paperwork with the sample. Sounds easy, right? Well, it is! When this information already exists in the system, it accelerates our internal process and reduces errors. Handwriting equipment and sample information is not fun for your technicians and reading that handwriting can be quite challenging for ours. With HORIZON, all your account and component information is there from previous samples so all you have to do is scan a barcode, enter is a few fields of sample information and click submit. Some paperwork errors stop our laboratory technicians from being able to run tests on the sample or data analysts from providing accurate, reliable recommendations. With HORIZON sample submission, all the information is entered an approved by you. We just apply a lab number, assign testing and your sample moves directly to the lab in front of thousands of other samples. Which brings me to my next point…

Shipping: We accept packages from UPS, FedEx, DHL and the United States Postal Service (USPS). The shipping time for each service will vary depending on your location(s), and you should weigh the cost of faster shipping against the business cost from waiting for oil analysis results. We recommend using UPS, FedEx and DHL so you can utilize their package tracking systems.

Samples on Hold: From missing information to account issues, there are a several reasons why a sample may be placed “on hold”. A delayed sample is frustrating to both us and our customers. Here’s how you can find out if a sample is put on hold.

  • HORIZON offers a Sample Hold Subscription, which sends an email when a sample from that account is put on hold. The email can be sent immediately for each sample, in a daily summary or in a weekly summary.
  • The Sample Hold Summary Report can be run on-demand. Customize it to show what samples are currently held or use it to discover the root cause of why a sample was placed on hold.

Using these tools will improve your overall experience and help ensure your samples are received as soon as possible, minimize errors and avoid unnecessary delays.

Proven Impact. Proven Uptime. Proven Savings.
Let us prove it to you.

Published January 28, 2015