Advocating genuine care for your staff and investing in their happiness can sometimes be seen as a “nice to have”. In the fast-paced business of professional services, such values occasionally slip to the bottom of the priorities list.

But at Victoria-based conveyancing firm Genuine Conveyancing, the firm’s investment in staff has always taken a front seat. To the extent that this focus on employee happiness has become an award-winning formula for success.

Genuine Conveyancing won the title of Best Conveyancing Firm (<$30m revenue) for the third year in a row at the 2023 Client Choice Awards. Director and licensed conveyancer Cyndal Reumer put the consistent wins down to “treating staff well, allowing them a good work/life balance and ensuring they are happy and content”.

“I hope that all businesses start to recognise that staff happiness and a good team culture is the key foundation for delivering good customer service,” she said. She added a great employee experience was “key to delivering a great customer experience”.

“I don’t believe a business can be successful with unhappy staff,” she said.

The Client Choice Awards are annual awards celebrating the best of Australian and New Zealand professional services firms. They uniquely reward firms after a rigorous research process in which Beaton benchmarks feedback ratings of firms by tens of thousands of clients across the professions. Unlike other judge-based award programs, it is thus the clients who determine winners. They are arguably the most important judges in professional contexts.

Reumer said her team was “absolutely thrilled” to win an award for the third year in a row.

“It shows how consistent we are with our high level of customer service,” she said.

She also noted that receiving objective client feedback through the awards process was important to her team. Feedback entered as part of the judging process is collected and benchmarked by a third party (Beaton) to prevent any potential influence on the clients’ judging, so offers a unique opportunity for firms to receive honest, unmitigated ratings and verbatim comments.

“We regularly ask client for feedback so we can identify any areas needing improvement,” Reumer said. “We encourage clients to let us know if they are unsatisfied so we can gain an understanding of where to focus on improving our level of service.

“We discuss client feedback as a team and collectively discuss and decide on any course of action.”

Reumer noted that the conveyancing market was facing a challenging economic environment – namely client pressures from interest rates and inflation. However she emphasised full confidence in her team to weather the storm and continuing excelling.

“We have a strong team of skilled and experienced conveyancers,” she said.

“Several of our team members previously ran their own businesses so they truly understand the importance of all the ins and outs of running a business and set a great example to others.”

Genuine Conveyancing was named Best Conveyancing Firm (<$30m revenue) at the 2023 Client Choice Awards. This award is presented in partnership with FeeSynergy and with association partner Australasian Legal Practice Management Association.

Enter your firm for the 2024 awards here.