Earlier this year, Wolper Information Services took the Gold Stevie Award for Front-Line Customer Service Team of the Year in the customer service awards categories at the seventh annual Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. (The 2014 edition is now accepting entries - get your entry kit today.) In 2012, Wolper received the Bronze Stevie Award in the same category. Here we look at how the company has maintained its high levels of success.
Wolper Information Services functions as the intermediary between publishers and content aggregators and its mutual corporate and institutional customers. As those customers increasingly transition their information resources from print to electronic, Wolper’s customer service team is on the front lines dealing with the realities of a myriad of new and complicated formats, including digital and mobile.
“Our goal is to exceed customer expectations every day and we do this by supporting our customer-facing staff and empowering them with regular training and constant communication,” said Susan Wolper, President and CEO of Wolper Information Services. “We are honored to be recognized by the Stevie Awards for our best-in-class Front-Line Customer Service Team.”
Rising to Meet Challenges
The Wolper Front-Line Customer Service Team has to be on the leading edge in order to:
- understand new requirements;
- help Wolper update its internal systems to accommodate new realities; and
- internalize every detail of the new workflows (licensing instead of purchasing, managing access issues as opposed to claiming missed issues).
The team has risen to these steep challenges and has made Wolper even more relevant to the industry and a better adviser to its customers.
Company-wide Commitment
Customer service is in the Wolper DNA. It’s a company-wide commitment, not the purview of a single department. Lots of vendors say that they provide great customer service, but Wolper has independent, third-party verification that proves it. The company maintains a Dun & Bradstreet Open Ratings PPE score of 97-98 out of 100, based on customers’ satisfaction in dealing with Wolper staff, their attitude, courtesy, and professionalism.
Seamless Transitioning
As Corporate America increasingly implements enterprise-wide e-procurement systems to increase efficiency and to capture and control spending, Wolper’s systems have to “shake hands” with the gamut of e-procurement platforms its customers are using. The company’s versatility applies to software as well as the one-on-one, personal support its customer service team provides. The company employs similar initiatives (in-house training, refined internal processes) for all of its accounts with high integration needs and consequently has developed a swift, seamless transitioning process and ongoing support for those customers.
Additionally, because of budget and staffing pressures everywhere in the transaction channel, Wolper’s customer service department increasingly absorbs workload overflow from both the publisher and customer sides of its business.
Commitment to Customer Care
Veronica Malitzki, Customer Service and Accounts Manager, is the Front-Line Customer Service team leader. With more than 19 years of experience in customer service at Wolper, Veronica oversees all aspects of customer interactions and management of the Customer Service department. She also oversees Wolper’s trade show and conference schedule and meets with both customers and prospects at shows and on-site for business review meetings.
While Wolper’s customer service representatives use highly technical systems, they engage people in a “high touch” way, remembering their contacts by first name, and in many cases knowing their account history (if not their children’s names or favorite sports teams) by heart.
At Wolper, there’s never an auto-attendant. There are no one-size-fits-all solutions. There is always a commitment to personalized, beyond-satisfaction customer care.
About Susan Wolper:
Susan Wolper, President and CEO of Wolper Information Services, has led the company for more than two decades, during its greatest period of growth and success. A former corporate attorney specializing in real estate, Susan earned a Juris Doctorate from Case Western Reserve School of Law after graduating Cum Laude with honors from the University of Rochester. Susan serves on the Executive Committee of The Association of Subscription Agents & Intermediaries and the Advisory Board for the Easton Area Neighborhood Center. In 2011, Susan was honored by the Eastern Pennsylvania Business Journal with its Executive Spotlight Award, and in 2013 she was named a “Champion of Diversity” by DiversityBusiness.com and a “Woman of Influence” by Lehigh Valley Business.
About Wolper Information Services:
For more than 35 years, Wolper has been a one-stop information management resource. The company provides selection, service, and savings to academic, research, medical, corporate, government, public, and consortia customers. Wolper’s High Tech, High Touch® approach delivers the perfect balance of next-generation technology and time-proven, personalized service. Besides serials, Wolper also handles books and e-books, print and electronic, domestic and foreign, site licenses, e-resource access, and management (ERM) and other information solutions. Recently, Wolper was named a Bronze Winner in the 2012 Best in Biz Awards for the Most Customer-Friendly Company of the Year, following multiple honors in 2011-12, from inclusion in the EContent 100 list of “companies that matter most in the digital content industry” to finalist for KMWorld magazine’s KM (Knowledge Management) Promise Award. Learn more at www.wolper.com.
