Providing World-Class Customer Service Requires a World Class Commitment

By Tim Tragesser, Business Development Manager

How do we ensure that our clients have a great experience with Polar Systems? We invest a great deal in providing great support. That involves spending money, not only for infrastructure but also for a team of players that view the support role as a mission, not just an occupation.

Client Communication

We recently hired Kim Wheatley to handle client communications and follow-up. Her official title is Client Support Specialist. That means she’s responsible for making sure that our customers have a good experience working with Polar. Behind her passion for customer support is a background in project management, and she does a lot of coordination with new clients. This includes making sure that our technical team is set up to deliver what we’ve committed to the customer. For example, Kim calls a meeting with all the people who will be involved in supporting the new client. She makes sure that everyone knows what’s unique about this particular client, and what their role will be in making sure client expectations are met.  Not surprisingly, our customers say that she is awesome to work with.

Support during and after the project

What happens when a customer has a problem? When a customer has an issue, the contact goes directly to our help desk, where at least one engineer is always on duty to field the call. Typically we have a main help desk person with other engineers integrated into the queue. Most of the time, the person who answers the phone is able to resolve the issue.

Another group on the Polar team is our account manager staff. The account managers work with our customers on the strategic level – managing quarterly business reviews and creating a technology plan for each customer. Typically, our account managers have conversations with each customer at least once per month, with a face-to-face meeting at least quarterly to review the client’s business and see how things are going. By taking the initiative in discussing strategic issues with each client, we’re able to head off many future problems that could otherwise impact our clients’ success.

Behind the scenes

But that’s not all… Providing world-class support involves even more people who are committed to making sure that our clients have a great experience with Polar Systems. In the background are the people who are responsible for developing the processes that we will use to deliver the best support for our customers. We make sure that we deploy the tools that can provide the best customer experience. For example, we’ve spent a lot of time reviewing how we will put together our BDR solution and our managed security solution (for more info contact Tim).

My personal commitment

And Polar’s management team is ever-vigilant to make sure that we’re delivering world-class service. My personal role as a member of Polar’s executive team is helping to manage metrics on our service delivery to make sure that we are responding appropriately to our clients. I also make sure that I regularly meet personally with clients. I’m here for the long haul, and I am very protective of Polar’s reputation because this is a family business. I’m committed to make our client experience Polar’s number one differentiating factor!

Tim Tragesser is the Business Development Manager at Polar Systems, responsible for client relations. He has been helping grow Polar’s business since 1993 and holds a bachelors degree in Business Finance from Santa Clara University.