I was reading a post today where a fellow process server made a statement about price, quality, service. Here’s what he said:
“I always throw out the highest bid, and quite often I’ll throw out the lowest. You can get price, quality, or service. Pick any 2, as a company can’t stay in business trying to offer all 3.”
Is that true? As a general rule I would have to say yes, but there are exceptions, there is also balance. Food can be a great example. There are a lot of levels of mexican food, Taco Bell can get you price but not the highest quality, personally I love the quality of Cafe Rio but you pay a higher price. Both have friendly service. You can go for price and get a $.99 McDouble or quality and go to Five Guys, if you want service you can get a sit down burger at Red Robin. In some areas we have to make choices, sacrificing something for something else.
Let’s look at these three factors in the process serving industry.
Price:
Nationwide when we have to out source papers we find rates on average run $60-90. The rates offered at Statewide Process Servers, $35 for a serve and $25 for a posting or garnishment, are considered too low. Many feel we and people like us are ruining the industry, under valuing our services. I have seen on many occasions people claim that firms offering our rates rates will be out of business in less than a year, we started in 2002 and this is my career so I do not plan on ever leaving. It is comical how other companies, because of how they do business, feel that they should be able to dictate what our rates should be or that they know our expenses are more than our costs. Occasionally there is an individual out there that is less than we are, I wish them the best and we are always looking to stay competitively priced and efficient so we can continue to offer great rates. An interesting conversation I had yesterday that is relevant: I spoke to a purchasing manager of a item that is sold in retail stores all over, it is also sold in Wal-Mart. They have some vendors that complain that Wal-Mart is undercutting them and they are loosing sales because customers can go around the corner and get the item for $2.50 less at Wal-Mart. While this company does have an MSRP of $8.95 they do not say what you can sell the product for. Wal-Mart has chosen higher volume for a lower price and sells the item for $6.50. Both stores are buying the product with in $.25 of each other and well below the $6.50 Wal-Mart has decided to sell them for. One store wants to make several dollars on each sale while the other seeks to sell more and make a few dollars on each sale. I think this can apply to process serving just as well. We have our costs, gas, pay to servers, office, supplies ect. Each company has to look at what their overhead is and decide what they need to charge on a serve to stay profitable. We understand the more papers we can get in an area the lower the cost per job will be for us, through volume we can offer better rates to clients.
Quality:
What determines quality in process serving? I think the key areas clients look at are how long it takes to get a paper served, how soon they are aware service has been made, accurate returns received quickly, trained servers that understand the law so they don’t have to fight serves. While the effort to perfect these areas takes time and is continual we do take steps to control this. Technology, training and guidelines have helped us.
We have invested in what we feel is the best software in the industry. It requires the office to input everything correctly but once that is done the servers control everything from the field and smart phones. We do not have to try and decipher what they wrote down, it’s direct from them. Each attempt, serve, or non serve is documented with a photo of where they were. When they take these photos the phones log the date, time, and GPS location. All of this data is available though clients secure log in. All of the service info is entered through their phones, when they come into the office they can enter the job numbers and print off all their returns. This ability to utilize technology to allow the servers to input all the data and service information eliminates the potential of human errors when a person in the office tries to transfer information from a work sheet to an affidavit. It also allows for immediate notifications to clients of jobs served, in real time as the information is uploaded from the smart phones.
Our agents are trained in rule 4 of civil procedure. They are taught the in’s and outs of a legal serve. While sub serving a paper on a wife is ok for individual service if the husband is also an owner of a company but the wife is not a part of the business we can not sub serve the business paper at home however can serve the individual paper. It is situations like this that all agents need to understand. When a mistake is made the server must correct it (it helps them learn) but also the situation is explained and sent to all servers so they can also learn. So by monthly trainings, initial training, and continual training we work hard to ensure everyone is well trained and knowledgeable of our profession.
Utilizing guidelines for servers and office is also critical in making sure the paperwork flows quickly where it needs to be. Internal policies help us ensure servers are picking up and dropping off frequently, that all new papers are entered immediately, that served jobs and affidavits are returned promptly, and that returns are checked for accuracy. We work hard at maintaining processes that makes us as efficient as possible and meet clients needs for fast accurate returns.
Service:
In an industry where we literally “serve” what type of service are clients looking for? I think the bottom line is they want their papers handled fast, efficiently, and they want it communicated to them how they like. Every client likes to communicate in their own preferred way, some want a call when a paper is served, others an e-mail. We are available when you need us, whether it’s through e-mail, text, or a phone call we try to answer and respond immediately. We have three office staff that are here 9-5 on weekdays but our cell phones are also listed on our web site and clients are welcome to contact us whenever they have a need. We also set up auto triggers to e-mail you as your status of jobs assigned to us changes, if it’s a job going from open to completed, or an address change, if skip trace assistance is needed. There are several triggers we can set up to notify you of changes, or if you don’t like to be bothered we can remove all triggers. Communication is critical in relationships, personal or business and we want to communicate in a way that our clients like.
These are some of the things that we have learned about in the industry and that we have done at Statewide to improve our clients experience. We have not always been 100% but we do have a great system in place that helps us get very close. This has developed over the years since we first started in 2002. We continue to watch and fine tune what we do. If we ever fail at any steps along the way or do not meet a customers expectations we will correct the matter and improve our policies. We sincerely hope that your experience in choosing us as your Utah Process Server is a great one, and if we ever need to improve please just let us know what your needs are and let’s work out a plan to be sure it happens, from custom reports to ensuring your file numbers are on the billing statement we are happy to accommodate your needs.
So Can you get a Cafe Rio burrito on a Taco Bell budget? We think you can in the process serving industry here in Utah. Black or pinto beans? Let us know!