Personal contact built on trust

According to the Dutch dictionary ‘Dikke Van Dale’, a team is ‘a group of people working together’. That is certainly the minimum you can say about Kurt, Joeri and Ben. They take teamwork quite literally. Together for one goal: long-term customer relationships. “That strong customer focus has grown enormously in recent years,” says sales manager Kurt Liekens. “Ten years ago, Office-IT started with five experienced technicians, and today we have several departments with a total of twenty-seven colleagues. Technical expertise remains the foundation of our business, but we now place much more emphasis on the complete picture. We don’t just sell products — we support customers with a long-term IT vision. By being genuinely involved in their organisation, we want to become more than a strategic partner.
Ideally, we want to be seen as a trusted advisor and first point of contact for all technological questions.”

Joeri Vael has been part of the team for many years as a sales employee. He remembers how his role gradually evolved. “In the past, I was solely responsible for purchasing and inside sales. I simply didn’t have the time to go out and visit customers. Our technicians took on the role of account manager because they were usually on site anyway. As Office-IT grew and our managed services became increasingly important, things changed. Remote support is now provided much more frequently. And I now have two sales colleagues, which gives us as a team more time to meet customers in person. An account manager must first and foremost be able to listen carefully to a customer’s needs.
The market offering is incredibly broad, and it’s up to us to determine what we should and should not propose.
What helps is that we, as sales, know exactly where all the expertise lies within Office-IT and who to involve when needed. We often rely on our technical colleagues. They have full insight into every customer’s infrastructure. This ensures that we present the right products and the right licences, and that our quotations are based on correct, customer-specific information.” Ben Schoeters, the youngest account manager, agrees. “The first contact usually runs through our sales department, but after that the entire company works together in function of the customer. We identify what customers really want and translate those needs to the rest of the organisation. Clear communication is extremely important — in every direction.”