Company president and owner Dave Koshinski stayed at a Ritz-Carlton and left an important document behind, but didn’t realize it until he was at the airport. The hotel found his document and sent it to him overnight. That’s the kind of service he wants his company to provide, and he asked the Ritz-Carlton to help him teach that to his own people.

“We went through a process of how we wanted to proceed,” Koshinski said. “The mission, values and goals describe what we want to be about as a firm.”

Customer service is their main focus, he said, and doing what’s best for the client, not for the company and not for their financial advisers. It’s not about selling products, he said, it’s about providing peace of mind and security for customers.

The company has advisers all over the United States and holds an annual conference. At the most recent one, a representative from Ritz-Carlton taught them the customer service model used by the hotel, and weekly meetings in the Decatur office reinforce those lessons.

“We are trying to transition to a customer service excellence model similar to the Ritz,” Koshinski said. “We’re more concerned about the client than the product.”

Donna Hines,  from Investment Planners West Virginia adds, “Today, our clients can go to any company, but what they like about Investment Planners is the fact that we take what we do for them to a higher level.” Donna continues, “We show that we’re concerned from the time they call in, if there’s a problem, until the solution. And that draws people.”

Investment Planners is two businesses in one, a broker dealer and a registered investment adviser. The company formed 22 years ago as a financial planning company, with independent advisers to whom clients are referred.

“Everything we do needs to come from a client focus first,” Koshinski said. “We have found that many clients, as they approach retirement, don’t know what they want to do in retirement.”

The company partnered with Halftime out of Dallas, Texas, run by Bob Buford, author of a book of the same name. With a faith-based outlook, HalfTime seeks to help people discover where their passion and abilities intersect and then use those to help change the world and, as Koshinski phrases it, “achieve significance and peace of mind.”

The concept, said Cathy Schafer, a member of the administrative team at Investment Planners, is to go the extra mile and give the customer an exceptional experience.

Companies teach their employees about sales or how to do their job, but not how to treat people, she said.

“I think so many companies are just trying to figure it out or they just don’t care,” said Julie Hovis of the business development department. ” We try and make the emphasis on every day being about them and not taking (them) for granted.”