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Where you could once smell the scent of fresh baked bread, Jacques Eijkens and Frans Zijnen started a new adventure with the launch of ROM Technische Handelsonderneming. In an old bakery at the Kromme Mijdrechtsstreet in Amsterdam they started selling RIDGID drain cleaners.
Eugéne Plompen begins at ROM. As a sales representative and service mechanic. In the morning he works in the shop in overalls. After lunch he switches to a suit and tie. Many plumbers, drain cleaning companies and municipalities are persuade by him on the RIDGID quality.
ROM comes up with a playful promotion. RIDGID End-users get free service. Just the parts and accessories are to be paid. It turns out to be extremely successful as they have built a loyal client base.
ROM Customers are enthusiastic about the free service received. Happy customers sign yearly service contracts. This takes away the concerns of service and guarantees a well running RIDGID machine
Next to the sales of RIDGID equipment, ROM produces high pressure drain cleaning machines. ROM also initiates the production of portable toilet servicing machines. Amsterdam gets traded for a bigger building in Barneveld. More productionspace and a showroom location gives customers the chance to experience RIDGID and ROM.
Drain cleaning equipment and RIDGID machines are more popular than ever. To comply with the current demand, extra sales representatives are hired and trained as ROM and RIDGID specialists. ROM moves to a bigger building (the current one in the Harselaarseweg in Barneveld) that partially is set up as a RIDGID experience center for the ultimate experience.
It is the beginning of the internet age. In addition to extra sales guys and an experience center, a website is a great addition as a sales tool. RIDGIDKollmann.com is born. At first mainly as information provider. For example, only 8 orders came in in the first year. More than 20 years later, many see this webshop as THE place to buy their RIDGID gear.
The RIDGID KJ1590 is being designed together with RIDGID. The production in Europe is provided by ROM. The distribution by RIDGID. More than 20 years later, the second model, the KJ1590II, is a real
bestseller.
The demand for ROM high-pressure sewer cleaning machines continues to grow at an incremental rate. Barneveld is too small, so a second production location is being established in the Czech Republic. It gets the attention of Plumbers and sewer cleaners from the Czech Republic and Slovakia so the decision is made not only to produce, but also to sell in these countries.
Eugéne, who started as a service engineer and sales representative, now has more than 20 years of experience in the field of sewer cleaning machines and RIDGID equipment. Jacques Eijkens sells his shares to the KOKS Group. A new period dawns for Eugéne as Managing Director of ROM bv and his collaboration with RIDGID.
More than ten thousand ROM sewer cleaning machines are deployed daily all over the world. For the Netherlands, Belgium, Czech Republic and Slovakia ROM is besides a producer of sewer cleaning machines also the specialist for RIDGID Underground equipment. The one stop for plumbers, sewer cleaners and municipalities in the field of sewer cleaning machines, pipe inspection and detection equipment.
RIDGID and ROM start to work alongside even more intensively. With a truck full of RIDGID equipment, sewer cleaners, plumbers and visited municipalities throughout the Netherlands and Belgium are being
convinced of the RIDGID quality. This 'Roadshow' doesn't go unnoticed in the RIDGID headquarters in the US.
Reconstruction works are being executed in order to have the staff work in a more pleasant and efficient environment. Also the RIDGID Experience Center gets a make-over to provide an even better
experience for visitors of the showroom.
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