Habif, Arogeti & Wynne LLP
Describe your organization’s philosophy of customer service?
Our goal is to let every client know they are important to us. We serve businesses of every size, both domestically and internationally. In every engagement, we strive to be responsive and add value, but we don’t and won’t stop there. We see ourselves as entrepreneurs, and that approach to problem-solving mirrors the way most of our clients approach business. So, in addition to competent, quality services, we seek deep relationships with our clients so that we can truly help them achieve their business goals.
Provide a case study that illustrates this philosophy?
When Closets and More needed an audit firm, the company reviewed interviewed at least six CPA firms. They selected Habif, Arogeti & Wynne based on our history of service with their CFO. Closets and More’s first audit covered two and a half years of financials. Jeffrey J. Lewis, president and CEO of Closets and More, said HA&W put together a package of services specifically tailored to meet their requirements.
“It was a challenging audit and there had been a transaction four years earlier,” he says. “Cleaning up some of the past practices took awhile. The expertise and capabilities HA&W brought to the table were very important to us.”
HA&W sought to bring value beyond the audit.
“Habif, Arogeti & Wynne are so entrenched in the community that their outside relationships are as important, or more important, to the growth and success of our business,” Lewis says. “There are continual seminars, webinars and opportunities to meet and greet other people in the industry. The opportunity to continue to work with those people has led to the point where we’re running two-thirds of our business on repeats and referrals.”
Lewis says the key to Closet and More’s success is taking care of every customer every day. “There is no question that Habif, Arogeti & Wynne is the correct choice for us.”
Learn more at www.hawcpa.com.
Northwestern Benefit Corp. of Georgia
How have you created a culture of customer service in your organization?
At Northwestern Benefit, our culture is intentional and purposeful. It is the foundation for our success. We place emphasis on our core values, the way we build lasting relationships and exceeding our clients’ expectations.
Before we can create an intentional service culture, we must be clear about the business we are in, which is client advocacy, plain and simple. Without a clear service vision and written service strategy, it would be impossible for us to have an intentional service culture. We are not a company that expects just our ‘customer service’ representatives to uphold extraordinary customer service; we expect all of our associates, from our CEO to our front receptionist, to provide world-class service.
Through our leadership team, we are teaching, training and measuring our associates every day against these standards. In the regular practice of our 25 Tenets, we teach our associates to recognize all opportunities to exceed customers’ expectations, regardless of the circumstances, and to practice blameless problem-solving. Also, it is important that all of our associates clearly understand our nonnegotiable standards, those actions and practices that we will always do, and those we should never do.
Our service brand promises are at the forefront of every decision we make, both with internal and external clients:
• Create a feeling
• Keep it simple
• Drop it in their hands
• Focus on what you can do, not what you can’t do
In order to maintain a resilient service culture, we must empower our associates to take all necessary steps to make Northwestern Benefit easy to do business with by continuously scrutinizing our customer service cycle, which is all the points of contact and interaction that our customers will encounter when doing business with us. It is important to us that associates are given the authority to fully engage and take action to quickly resolve problems; we believe empowerment shouldn’t just be in the hands of management.
Learn more at www.nbcga.com.
Freeman Mathis & Gary LLP
What is your philosophy of customer service?
Freeman Mathis & Gary LLP strongly believes in certain core values that always govern our conduct in the practice of law and representation of our clients. And one of those core values is a true commitment to delivering the highest level of support and service to our clients and doing so with integrity, honesty and superior competence.
‘Client-Centered — Results Driven’ is not only our motto, but it also is our philosophy. We understand that clients, like people, have different needs. That is why we tailor our representation of client matters in the manner most appropriate to the client’s needs. Every client is important to our firm, and we strive to make them feel that way in our communications with them. Whether it is responding to phone calls promptly or e-mailing our client with the latest development, we excel in communicating with our clients in a timely and efficient manner so they can make practical and effective decisions. Or, in many instances, our client-driven philosophy is highlighted when we are asked to get involved in a time-sensitive matter that requires the immediate attention of our lawyers and staff.
Can you provide an example in action?
One of our clients, a national logistics company, called us worried when one of their employees left and began using confidential information in the solicitation of current customers. As one of our client’s customers already had left to go with the former employee’s new company, lawyers from our labor and employment team quickly put together a complaint and filed a lawsuit where we asked the court to enjoin the former employee from using confidential information in the solicitation of customers. After the lawsuit was filed, the former employee voluntarily agreed to pay our client a sum of money and, most importantly, agreed to stop her unlawful solicitation of customers and to comply with her contractual obligations in the future.
Another example of our customer-driven commitment is highlighted by a unique service offered by our Transportation Law Practice Group. This group, which has extensive experience defending trucking companies in motor vehicle liability claims, maintains a 24/7 emergency response team. Through the ERT, our firm provides clients with immediate around-the-clock access to our attorneys and network of qualified investigators and experts. So, if a truck swerves and hits another car and we get the call about the accident, the ERT immediately moves into action and coordinates the various delicate aspects of the accident investigation in preparation for the defense of a future lawsuit.
Simply stated, whether it is an employment issue, a trucking accident or another matter for a client, our commitment remains the same. We are your partners in the law.
Learn more at www.fmglaw.com.
BlueWave Computing
What is your organization’s philosophy of customer service?
Many companies are forced to view IT services as a black box. There is little accountability or visibility into the process and little information provided about how the organization can better manage costs and IT performance. We excel at providing complete accountability for what we do and putting control back into the hands of the customer. We believe that by providing transparency into our actions and taking complete accountability for the outcomes that it forces us to continually be better at what we do and provide outstanding customer service.
How does your organization make customer service a competitive advantage and price less relevant?
BlueWave has invested years of research and development into creating a Web-based IT management system that allows us to fully manage and monitor our work and our customers’ networks. Clients can log on to an IT dashboard where they can monitor service levels, network status, their IT budget and spending levels, IT assets and much more. Our exclusive IT quality management system ensures continuous improvement of the customer’s IT infrastructure. The Atlas Dashboard provides unprecedented visibility into support call status, network uptime, monthly budgets, team performance, spam/virus filtering, asset management and more. The bottom line — BlueWave keeps technology highly reliable, cost efficient and under control to meet our clients’ evolving IT needs.
How do you go above and beyond?
We see ourselves as partners with our customers in their businesses. We are their IT department and take that responsibility with the utmost sense of urgency and importance. To ensure their critical systems are always available, we provide around the clock support for our customers’ critical infrastructure. For example, if a customer’s server should go down at 2 a.m. on a Sunday night, we will have an engineer working on it within the hour to get it back up and running before their employees arrive at work on Monday morning. The dedication of our team to this mission goes above and beyond normal support on a regular basis.
Learn more at www.bluewave-computing.com.
Country Club of the South
How does your organization deliver world-class customer service?
We deliver world-class service by ensuring our team — at all levels — delivers above and beyond any expectations.
This starts with our club and golf course. Opened in 1987, The Country Club of the South is an Atlanta-area club and golf course that is graced with unsurpassed natural beauty. Of all the Jack Nicklaus golf courses in Georgia, this Atlanta golf course presents one of the most challenging layouts. Lush pines and hardwoods, rolling hills, lakes, streams and granite outcroppings were preserved to provide spectacular natural hazards and scenery. Voted one of the ‘Top 20 Best Courses in Georgia’ by Golf Digest, our 7,000-yard, world-class championship Atlanta golf course hosted the Champions Tour Nationwide Championship from 1991 to 1994. All of these features and more combine to make The Country Club of the South the best of all Atlanta golf clubs.
It then extends to the homes where people live. Nestled away on more than 900 acres of beautiful countryside, the community hosts more than 700 homes in an unmatched lifestyle. Residents can find not only a perfect home but also a perfect family environment, highlighted by a quaint community center, basketball and tennis courts, swimming pool, as well as two well-maintained playgrounds and scenic vistas throughout the year.
And then there is the club, itself. The Country Club of the South is the perfect club for the busy family. We provide an unparalleled level of service. Our people and world-class facilities combine to create a fun and relaxing environment for family and professional activities, including business functions, weddings and other private events.
Learn more at www.clubcorp.com/Clubs/Country-Club-of-the-South.
The DiJulius Group
What is your customer service philosophy?
At The DiJulius Group, we believe in anticipating what our clients needs are. We do this by really listening to what people tell us and using ‘secret service’ to personalize our relations at all levels. Our clients are people who we get to know at a deep level and whom we trust as much as they trust us. Family, occupation, recreation, dreams are the types of information we look for in our interactions with our clients which help us create long-term bonds.
How do you make training an integral part of this?
As the leading customer experience consulting firm, we have to walk the talk every time. There are many organizations out there who do everything from customer service training to consulting. We differ from them not only by teaching world-class principles, experiences and systems but also by creating wonderful experiences in any and all touch points. This is only possible by being a team of certified customer service specialists willing to serve at all times. Though our culture is trained heavily on what are some of the fundamentals of becoming world-class, our rigorous hiring is what truly sets us apart. You have to love to want to serve others, to help and to go above and beyond. We can’t train for this. Yet these people do come to surface during our hiring process. We can’t train for attitude but we can train for technical skills.
These same people become the heart of The DiJulius Group. And together we set goals and objectives allays aligned with an ultimate cause. It’s the cause that makes teams move mountains and it’s a cause that makes people go above and beyond by their very own nature. Our cause is simple really: to change the world by creating a customer service revolution.
Learn more at www.thedijuliusgroup.com.
