By Cindy Wendland from Poblocki Sign Company and Bill Holloway from Liberty Signs
We believe that quality costs less and lasts longer. For us, quality is caring about all things – the big things and the little things. To the trained eye, it is easy to spot a quality sign – the seams are nearly invisible, the lighting is even, the paint is continuous, etc.
What about the things you can’t see? In situations of quality, there is a lot that goes on behind the scenes that a customer will never see or know about that have a great contribution to quality. We believe when we offer a turn-key solution to our customers, it is our responsibility to have all those details covered. One way we accomplish that is through quality partners.
Partner with Quality Firms
In our 90-year history of providing signage solutions, we have done work in all 50 states, Puerto Rico and Canada. It is not realistic or feasible for us to have installers in all those areas, so we partner with quality firms, or we send our team there. The team that went to Alaska in 2012 did a great job, worked hard and expressed that it was very cold! (The city of Barrow, Alaska was a small place with limited resources, so we sent our team there.) Learn more about that hospital above the Arctic Circle.
What we have found works well and maintains the level of quality we expect is to partner with great install firms – enter Liberty Signs in Texas.
Bill Holloway from Liberty Signs echoes our statement of quality. Over the years our partnership has blossomed through trust. According to one of his project managers, Shana Downs, “Working with Poblocki is always an amazing experience. They are polite, knowledgeable, and willing to do what it takes to get the job done and leave the client happy.” Liberty Signs has eight crews working significantly in Houston, Dallas and Austin, Texas. We know that our projects in those areas will be installed just as if we were there ourselves. Our installers and Liberty Signs use materials and techniques that last over time.
All Sign Materials Are Not the Same
To the casual observer, aren’t all materials the same? Actually no. For exterior signs, rain, wind, snow and birds are the arch enemy. Birds nest in signs and their excrement can fill up crevices which creates extra weight. Add in the rain (snow in the north) and wind beating on a sign, and if the attachment is not properly engineered, and the attachment hardware is not of high quality, the attachment can loosen over time. That is not acceptable to us, so we design the signs to prevent that from happening, and we install signs with hardware that actually tightens not loosens over time.
Planning for wear and tear are basics of installation in our book. Most customers have detail fatigue by the time we get to the installation discussion, so they may not hear or remember these details. We assure the client their sign installation will be done properly, and we keep our word. If we have to go above and beyond, we will do that too. Our team has been known to re-engineer a sign support so that it will not only support the sign but reinforce the building as well. That is quality in our book.
Our sign warranty is one of the longest in the industry. Liberty Signs is one of the few companies that offers a warranty on their installation. If something happens to the sign in that first year, they attend to it. Our project managers sleep easier at night knowing our customers are taken care of. In the end, our customer wants a great sign that promotes their brand. It’s our job and that of our partners to deliver it. That is what we do, and that is why we rely on quality partners.
