Centorrino Technologies: 2020 Best of the Best

Centorrino Technologies has been recognised by the ASEAs every year since 2013, but in 2020 the company snagged the Best of the Best Award thanks to a company-wide ‘hunger’ for innovative customer service solutions.

Voted one of Australia’s leading customer-focused managed services providers, Centorrino Technologies is renowned for creating tailored IT solutions – but its dedication to customer service has set the company apart.

CT garnered a swag of awards at the recent ASEAs, including Customer Service Organisation of the Year for a Medium-Sized Business, Contact Centre of the Year for a Medium Business and the highest accolade, the Best of the Best Award.

Here, we chat with CT founder and CEO Adam Centorinno about the award win and why customer service will always be king at Centorrino Technologies.

What gave you the edge to win Best of the Best?

We have a genuine and deep rooted passion for customer service which is prevalent through the whole organisation. Our teams are consistently pushed to find more innovative ways of improving our customer service delivery. To do this, we focus on our people, our systems and our processes. One of the strongest internal programs we run is our continuous improvement program. Each team contributes ideas to improve a function of our delivery. These ideas are then assessed to which should be prioritised, and are then assigned to a team for execution. Our mantras are, ‘we must do everything we do brilliantly, or don’t do it at all’ and ‘what was good enough today may not necessarily be good enough tomorrow’. We feel this hunger for continuous improvement won the award.

What does winning the Service Hero in the Customer Service Executive of the Year category mean to you?

Professionally, it represents recognition of what we set out to achieve in that we have built our business and our products on a customer service focus. Personally, it is incredibly humbling to have been selected from the incredible pool of candidates.

How did CT achieve a customer retention rate of over 99%?

So many organisations place a huge emphasis on their sales pipelines and contracts and somewhat neglect their existing customers and/or their service. We don’t. We truly value our customers and literally pump thousands of hours per year into delivering them the best experience we possibly can.

How has CT created such a successful customer-focused operation?

It’s the result of years of iteration and mistakes in order to continuously improve, learn and evolve our offerings. Customer service has been baked into every decision, from hiring new team members to office fit-outs.

How much of a priority is positive workplace culture at CT?

Our internal culture is absolutely critical because ultimately, happy team members result in happy customers. We place equal emphasis on our eNPS (employee net promoter score) as we do our customer satisfaction scores.

Strong leaders build strong workplaces -- what are the attributes of your leadership team?

They are the greatest champions of both our internal culture and the service experience. The ability to balance the often conflicting priorities whilst still exuding passion for what we do is instrumental.

How important is it to have specialist knowledge teams within CT’s contact centre?

Specialisation wins. There is no obstacle that cannot be overcome more rapidly, nor a solution that can be more comprehensive than one devised by people who are specialists in their field.

Biggest lesson you’ve learned about customer service?

When it comes to providing excellent customer service, you cannot stop. The moment you feel you’ve perfected something is the moment your customer service will begin to suffer.

Any final words?

Customer service isn’t a choice, or a strategic direction for CT. It is part of our fundamental behaviour. We love and are humbled for being recognised by ASEA, but there’s plenty more we look forward to doing for our customers.