The Challenge
Pete Gray is the Vice President of CN Robinson Lighting Supply Company, Inc., a company that offers businesses lighting solutions that range from completely replacing all of their lighting to only providing recycling services. They often help companies upgrade their systems to green lighting standards. Veolia helps them with their lighting recycling processes. The challenge is to increase CN Robinson's business in a very competitive market.
Our business
“Most companies like us primarily sell fixtures and may offer recycling later. At CN Robinson we’ll either lead with recycling the lamps or with a contract for the lighting, supplemented with recycling. If a company already has a lighting contract with another company, or if they are happy with their current lighting supplier, we’ll offer recycling to attract new customers. Sometimes we’ll lead with a normal lighting product contract and offer recycling. More often we will bid on large institutional contracts for replacing fluorescent lighting en masse, often updating the light fixtures as well.”
Our clients
“One of our clients is a large school system outside of D.C. that contracts out their lighting supplies. We have completed some very large fluorescent changeouts with them, and we handle the bulk of recycling the lighting on those projects.”
The Solution
Partner with Veolia, a recycling leader, to offer a turnkey program to building owners, property managers, and hotels.
Veolia became our one-stop shop
“We have been doing business with Veolia for several years now. When we first heard about recycling as a possible revenue stream, we had the jump on it because of what we do on the supply side of things. We thought we should get involved. We got started with the lamp recycling early on and began with a different supplier. Then, Veolia came along and had a lot more services and options, so we felt they would be a better match for us in the long haul.”
The Result
A successful partnership with Veolia for the past twenty years that has helped both companies grow their businesses.
Veolia helps us get new business
“We work very well with Joe, our Veolia sales rep, and his manager. They have actually given us new leads. Veolia provides names of distributors to work with their customers. They contact us when they have leads in our territory.”
Veolia is flexible with our schedule
“Veolia is fantastic when it comes to scheduling and following through on pickups. We really like that they are so accurate. We work together very well. We had changed our director of operations recently, but when the new person came in, everything was seamless. No hiccups, and he picked up where his predecessor left off. They know how we operate and what our needs are.”
We always recommend Veolia
“Veolia knows what they are doing, they have plenty of insurance backing them up, and they are very competitive. It’s easy to work with them, and we have recommended Veolia to a lot of our industry peers. Additionally, Veolia is now a member of the lighting association we are part of. We always spread the word that Veolia is good, and we have worked with them for years.”