Don’t you sometimes wonder where it went? We all have days like that, but this week I have to say, it’s alive and well in Geraldton and I just have to tell you about it.
I’ve been judging the Business Excellence Awards (BEA) and it has been truly inspiring to delve into some local businesses that I had not heard of and am now the richer for knowing. From electricians who have grown solely from word of mouth to new kids on the block such as an interior designer with a special edge, I have been amazed how much they care about caring. In not one single interview did I meet a business owner who was looking for quick adulation or who chases the fast buck; all of them are in for the long haul, in a small city, where reputation matters, and where our lifestyles matter. Good, genuine people, many of whom would remain out of the limelight if it weren’t for awards such as these. So basically, it’s been a complete privilege.
One of my own clients, not in the BEA, this morning raved about the way she’s been treated by her local settlement agent. As a seasoned investor she thought she had the settlement agent of her dreams, til she didn’t. They let her down, then a friend told her about Champion Bay Settlements in Geraldton. She’d said “who? I don’t know them”, and I admit that until I became a mortgage broker, I too had walked straight past their office next to the GPO, for many years, without looking to see who the tenant was.
Erin & Alyce, at Champion Bay Settlements, have recently helped her through a complex and problematic property purchase. My client compared the experience to being welcomed into a boutique hotel, which is a comparison I’d never heard before. An office that treated you like a boutique hotel? “These gorgeous girls welcome you by name, have bothered to know before you walk in, what you will need, and then proceed to go about their job with efficiency and flair, and with a country friendliness that we all just wish we saw more of”. She is right, as they treat me like that too, and it IS like walking into a boutique hotel.
Settlement agents are qualified professionals who have to know their way around all manner of property and legal-related matters that send most of us into a head spin. This is not the first time that one of my clients has raved about how Erin & Alyce do this well. So yes, they need a mention. What they deliver is very special. Of course, there are other brilliant settlement agents in Geraldton and further away, and I know of one in Bunbury that is simply brilliant, but when I get a chance to rave about a local business getting it just right, I have to share. It’s why I write.
Back to the awards, the awards night is tomorrow so once the winners are announced I will write more about some of the incredible people I interviewed, because people, Geraldton and surrounds are jam-packed full of great customer service in case you’ve felt that you’re in "The Great Customer Service Drought” lately. Life gets like that.
Post Office Plaza, 52 Durlacher St, Geraldton Ph 08 9921 6189
