Consensus has won Ricoh Business Partner of the Year for the second year running. The North West-based business is a Ricoh Platinum Partner that has qualified at the highest levels of Ricoh SA’s new partner programme and gained technical certifications from Ricoh SA at all three of its branches, one at Rustenburg, one at Mafikeng and the other at Klerksdorp, which the business acquired during the course of 2010 and 2011.
“Certification on Ricoh high volume solutions has helped our business to grow,” says Heloise Visser, owner and manager of Consensus. “High volume solutions helped us significantly to win the award last year and again this year. We have also built on our strengths in that arena by gaining two certified high volume business consultants during 2013 and 2014.”
“Consensus has dedicated itself to achieving the certifications and qualifications of our new business partner programme and the results speak for themselves,” says Jacques van Wyk, executive GM of direct and indirect operations at Ricoh SA.
“The programme was designed to offer Ricoh customers easily understood levels of expected service they can get from our business partners. Together with the training, qualifications and marketing support that we offer to support each level of qualification, the business partners, like Consensus has done, can present a professional service that sets customer expectations accordingly.”
Visser says that the new business partner programme has aided her business in achieving greater customer satisfaction and ultimately sales in a largely word of mouth-driven market.
Consensus employees have also paid attention to detail, such as sticking a 24-hour help number to all of their devices in the field, and using @Remote, Ricoh’s remote monitoring and management system that helps technical employees deal with potential problems and consumables before they become a business hindrance for customers.
“These measures help us to conduct preventative maintenance and we maintain good communications with our clients so that we know when they have large runs scheduled,” says Visser. “Communication is the most important link in the chain that leads to good customer service while our close ties with Ricoh SA and our commitment to certification and qualification ensure that we can put our money where our mouth is.”
Last year Consensus won a Payment Award and the Lion Award for highest turnover for supplies, as well as the Buffalo Award for dealer of the year. The company maintains a staff complement of 84 between its three offices, including 27 technical and 22 sales employees. It’s top sales person of the year was Johan Groenewald, who successfully exceeded his targets by a large margin.
“It’s often said because it’s true: people are our most valuable asset,” says Visser. “Johan was our salesperson of the year but he’s not the only good person we have. We’re fortunate to have some of the best in the business who actually believe in and support our vision to achieve customer satisfaction at all times by enabling change.”
