Celebrating regional customer service champions: meet the winners of the Ricoh Australia Customer Service Awards 2020

Customer service is at the heart of Ricoh Australia’s business and the company is thrilled to throw its support behind other businesses that share that ethos. One of the ways it does so is by sponsoring the Awards Australia Regional Achievement and Community Awards in NSW/ACT, Victoria and Western Australia, and the Awards Australia Community Achievement Awards in Queensland and South Australia each year.

The Regional Achievement and Community Awards were established to encourage, acknowledge and pay tribute to individuals, communities, businesses and groups that are making a significant contribution to regional and rural areas. The Community Achievement Awards honour outstanding individuals, businesses and community groups from across the states in which they operate.

Since 2013, the Ricoh Australia Customer Service Award has celebrated small and regional businesses that go above and beyond to care for their customers in each state.

This year’s winners, announced at a series of gala online events in early December, are Broken Hill Skip Bins (NSW), Alex Lemmon of Ballarat Car Sales (Vic), West Coast Honey (WA), Tony’s Tropical Tours of Port Douglas (Qld) and Caroline Lowe of Eyre Peninsula Broadcasters (SA).

“The success of small and regional businesses is so important – for the communities they live and work in, and for our economy as a whole,” Ricoh National Sales Manager – Wholesale and Awards judge, Brian Wood says.

“Ricoh has built its own business on meeting and exceeding customers’ expectations and the company is proud to be associated with the Regional Achievement and Community Awards and the Community Achievement Awards. The calibre of the entrants this year was truly inspiring. So many businesses made serious personal sacrifices in their efforts to support their customers through the COVID crisis.”

Selecting winners from a stellar shortlist is never easy and doing so this year was extremely challenging, according to Jonathan Hines, Awards judge and Ricoh Regional Wholesale Manager.

“COVID had a devastating effect on many industries and there were some remarkable stories of businesses that maintained an extremely high level of customer service at their own expense,” Jonathan said.

“It was a very hard call to judge the winners this year.”

Awards Australia managing director Geoff Griffin said Ricoh’s ongoing sponsorship of the Customer Service Award helped to showcase the efforts of many outstanding enterprises.

“Customer Service is very important to me personally and it is a critical part of the Ricoh philosophy. Partnering with Ricoh helps us celebrate businesses and individuals that put customer service front and centre in all they do,” Geoff said. “Every year, we’re astonished and humbled by their efforts”.

“We look forward to continuing our relationship with Ricoh and working together to acknowledge the contribution these Aussie champions make to their local communities.”

Read more about the Award winners in each state:

NSW/ACT: https://bit.ly/3oU8I2G

QLD: https://bit.ly/38nDdaP

SA: https://bit.ly/3qVhWxz

VIC: https://bit.ly/37s2NMB

WA: https://bit.ly/34hrpFG

About RICOH

RICOH is empowering digital workplaces using innovative technologies and services enabling individuals to work smarter. For more than 80 years, RICOH has been driving innovation and is a leading provider of document management solutions, IT services, communications services, commercial and industrial printing, digital cameras, and industrial systems.

Headquartered in Tokyo, RICOH Group operates in approximately 200 countries and regions. In the financial year ended March 2020, RICOH Group had worldwide sales of 2,008 billion yen (approx. 18.5 billion USD).