Listening Matters - How a Passing Statement Set Our Course as a Company

I was at the World Business Forum in New York two years ago when the keynote speaker began his closing presentation with what he called the six most powerful words: "Let me tell you a story." This rings so true. Let me tell you a story of how a passing comment not only set the course of our company but evolved into our corporate culture.

Fifteen years ago, as the CEO of Groupware Technology, a new VAR in the Silicon Valley, I understood from previous experience that striving to achieve recognition and relevance would be a day-to-day challenge, especially for us, the new kid on the block. At an off-site strategy planning session with the then six team members to determine what kind of business we wanted to be and how we were going to get there, we were mostly looking for differentiators of what we could offer to customers versus our competitors.

During a particular engaging exchange, one of the team member’s phone rang. Rather than ignoring the call and letting it go to voicemail, he answered it and started heading out the door. Looking at him with a somewhat perplexed face, the rest of us asked why he was taking a call in the middle of an important strategy session. His response, while seemingly in passing, resonated with everyone in the room: "We Answer the Call."

During his absence the discussion in the room quickly turned to those four words and we soon realized the power behind the statement. Right then and there we knew we had a serious differentiator. From this statement, we decided that whenever anyone called our company, a living, breathing person would answer the phone and manage the caller's inquiry. No voicemail or "Dial 1 for sales, or 2 for finance,” ad nauseam. The conversation for the rest of the strategy session revolved around this statement. Now "We Answer the Call" had a much more significant meaning for us as to how we were going to operate as a company. If a customer needed something ASAP, we would find a way to get the product or service to them within the specified time. If a customer had an emergency in their data center, we would send a rapid response team to quickly get them up and running. In other words, no matter the situation, no matter the request, "We Answer the Call" would be the response.

We incorporated "We Answer the Call" into our company tag line. At first the marketplace didn't fully grasp our purpose. But as we slowly grew from under $2 million in revenue in our first year to $30 million in our second year, potential customers began to take notice. In 2007, Inc. Magazine listed us as the #1 fastest growing IT services company. It cannot be understated the important role this recognition played in our business. We knew there would be more and more inquiries asking about our services and we were also keenly aware of how vital managing the calls would become. Everyone got on board; no matter when the call came in, no matter what the situation, we would answer the call and we would deliver positive results for the customer. Needless to say, weekends were no different than weekdays at the office. One would assume this would become an irritant since you couldn't rely on having time off without interruption. But to the contrary, as a young company growing in influence we all knew the time we sacrificed could pay huge dividends. And we were having fun.

Fast forward to now. We've grown into a $300+ million-dollar company, elevated ourselves from a small storefront next to a Mexican restaurant when we first launched the company, to a 35,000 square foot facility with an integration lab, proof-of-concept lab and IT test development lab. We employ a best-of-class engineering team which developed our highly praised Rack & Roll integration services and GroupWatch, a first-call, single point-of-contact support team. While we continue to challenge ourselves in what can best described as doing business in a disruptive environment, we always reflect on the seminal moment when a single comment set the course for who we would become. Just as listening to what a keynote speaker shared at the World Business Forum, listening to what my business partner said as he left to answer the call, I'm left with an understanding of the true power we all have in business: the power of listening.