Regency's values improve and drive our service

If you were to walk through the office hallways or warehouses of Regency, you may not necessarily hear the term "RISE" used in daily conversation, but you will hopefully see it embedded in our culture.

We've coined our values "R.I.S.E," which stands for relationship, integrity, service, and expertise. Our values define how we do business and guide us in providing exceptional service. 

When I first joined Regency, I was attracted to a company that stands by such solid values, but I never imagined that those would be woven into every interaction, process, and service throughout the company. Most companies I've worked for talk about values but none had it so deeply rooted like Regency does. It's quite astonishing, actually. 

Those values are dependent and flourish from one another. You can't really have one without the other. Every employee here at Regency demonstrates in their own way their value of relationship, integrity, service, and expertise.

I've seen people go out of their way to help coworkers in need. I've seen managers pitch in on projects that were out of their job description. I've seen people demonstrate a high level of expertise while navigating the crazy complexities of lighting. And most importantly to you, our customer – I've seen some incredible examples of service.

Service in action

To be good at project management you have to be good at identifying problems and quick to create solutions for those problems. Jeff Petty, a project coordinator on our Energy Services team, does just that.

Jeff's project management abilities were put on display last year when a particular project had gone haywire due to several unforeseen problems, each outside of Regency's control. One of the stores on this project was staring down a grand opening but was without the material it needed to make the store shine before debuting to the public. So Jeff drove there one Friday night, hours before grand opening. He finished his work for the week and left our Atlanta office headed for North Carolina with a 20-foot lighting pole in tow.

Seven hours later, at just about sunrise, he was meeting with the contractors on the project for a last-minute Saturday install.

Jeff saw a need and, without thinking twice, he volunteered to help in any way he could. It's working with employees like this who put helping clients as their top priority that motivate me to better serve others.

The rest of these stories I may not have witnessed, but I've heard told throughout the company. It's encouraging to see how positive, value-fulfilling stories like these travel faster throughout a healthy corporate culture rather than negative gossip.

Here are four more:

1. A few years ago, a local customer service representative took a call from a customer who had an emergency situation and needed their order as soon as possible. Instead of telling the customer it wouldn't be able to ship in time, she finished her work shift, loaded the product in her car, and delivered it to the customer herself. 

2. Another story about product delivery comes from our Florida warehouse, where a competitor had ordered product from a manufacturer and it was accidentally shipped to the Regency warehouse. Our warehouse manager, Leonard Lee, ended up packing up that product in a Regency truck and delivered it down the road to the competitor.

Can you imagine the look on that competitor's face when they saw those trucks pull up?

3. As I mentioned above, you really can't have quality service without the value of integrity. Back when one of our sales reps, Tom Borga, first started at Regency, he had a customer on the phone and was trying to sell them on a certain light bulb. After he got done with the call he felt that he had exaggerated some of the product's capabilities and that it wasn't fair to the customer. So, instead of leaving the conversation as it was, he picked up the phone and called the customer back and was honest about the previous conversation. Seeing a sales rep that committed to integrity and openness with a potential customer is so inspiring.

4. In this video, Glenn Trunley of TUMI, talks about the importance of having the right lighting partner to design his store lighting. Tori Cole and Cameron Craig worked to dial in TUMI's lighting to make it consistent so they could roll it out across all stores. Glenn counted on Tori and Cameron to provide the service and expertise he needs for his job.

Solving our customers' pain points and understanding what makes each customer unique is what makes up great service.

It's such a pleasure to see small and large acts of service for our customers lived out in our daily lives here at Regency.