Company: EMKAY, Itasca, IL
Company Description: Emkay is a provider of vehicle financing and management solutions to businesses throughout North America. Founded in 1946 and the 2nd oldest fleet management company in the nation, our focus is on operational excellence. As the industries only privately held, employee-owned company, our unique ownership enables a special personal pride in servicing our customers.
Nomination Category: Customer Service Department Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Customer Service Department of the Year - Airlines, Distribution & Transportation

Nomination Title: EMKAY Fleet Management

Tell the story about what this nominated department achieved since the beginning of July last year (up to 500 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:

Emkay is a top eight leader, providing financing and fleet management service
solutions to businesses. EMKAY’s customer service focus is to provide expert
resources to clients and review opportunities to provide value-added cost
savings for both soft and hard dollar expense reduction. Our customer service
department delivers proven strategies and best practices that dramatically
lower our customer’s fleet expenses. The last two years our customer service
departments have accomplished milestone achievements from our customer service
survey by achieving a 99% satisfaction rating.

EMKAY has implemented numerous KPIs to benchmark our performance versus our
peers and the industry, to not just “say” that we outperform the industry, but
actually share proof that we do. It starts with training and expertise. As a
service provider, our differentiators are our ‘people-process-products’. EMKAY
helps customers maintain their vehicles through a maintenance plan that is
carefully crafted and managed by our customer service maintenance specialists.
On average, our maintenance specialists have earned 9 A.S.E. certifications
each. When compared to industry averages, it more than triples the norm. Also
in addition, the customer service department has earned the A.S.E. Blue Seal
of Excellence Award for four consecutive years. When phoned, our department
accomplished an Average Speed of Answer of 14 seconds for past 12 months, 20
is standard.

EMKAY has put forth great care in creating point-of-purchase controls to save
our customers on average $504 annually per vehicle in maintenance expenses
versus no program, and over $448 versus industry benchmarks over the
lifecycle. We accomplish this by through consulting on every repair visit,
tracking negotiated labor times/rates, and auditing every repair purchase
order for unnecessary repairs. We then share the results with each customer in
a cost containment report specific to them and their fleet. Also, customer
service prepares the exact necessary preventative repairs for every vehicle
model then pro-actively sends this to customers to limit the amount of work
done by a shop, hence eliminating up-sells or extra unwarranted costs.

Customer Service also assists with remarketing off lease vehicles. We achieved
numerous milestones versus the industry. Adesa Analytical studied our results
and EMKAY achieved 3.1% better than peers in 2009. One way we achieved this is
through personally representing each vehicle sold through our exclusive online
web-platform. With this, we pay close attention to the details involved in
each transaction, ultimately benefiting our customer. Another notable
accomplishment is by communicating maintenance history on every sold vehicle
to the buyer through a web-portal. With EMKAY as the only fleet provider in
the U.S. to have this program, it has brought great value to our customers by
average resale gains of over $350/vehicle.

Lastly, expertise and consulting are key to helping our client base. EMKAY has
created a 360? view for customers to view fleet results, accomplishments, and
metrics. These show performance versus industry benchmarks. EMKAY’s custom-
built “Quarterly Fleet Object Report” shows the KPIs and how each fleet
performed versus custom targets and industry benchmarks. Customer Service then
includes hand prepared recommendations for improvement and cost savings.

List hyperlinks to any online news stories, press releases, or other documents that support the claims made in the section above. IMPORTANT: Begin each link with http://, and enclose each link in square brackets; for example, [http://www.youraddress.com]:

http://www.myfleetsolutions.com/stevies

Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography about the leader(s) of the nominated customer service organization:

CHRISTOPHER TEPAS

Tepas joined EMKAY in 1999. Chris earned his degree from Arizona State
University and professional design training from the Art Institute of
California. Tepas was promoted to VP Sales in 2003, EVP Sales and Marketing in
2006 and currently EVP Client Services & Marketing. Tepas has helped spearhead
EMKAY’s marketing team to earn several recent awards such as 2009 MarCom
Platinum Award, 2007/8 Create Award, 2008 GDUSA Certificate of Excellence,
2009 Stevies Front-Line Customer Service Team-of-the-Year Finalist, 2009
American Business Awards Customer Service Department-of-the-Year Finalist and
Customer Service Team-of-the-Year Finalist, Winner 2009 101 Best and Brightest
Places to work in Chicago, 2009 Info500 “Top IT Companies U.S.”, and 2009
Winner for Business Excellence Mid-Sized Companies.