PERSONAL APPROACH: From promptly answering phones to solving issues--Sciencix befriends its customers, ensuring they both succeed.

• Position: CASE STUDY: CUSTOMER SERVICE

Call laboratory parts provider Sciencix, and you'll never wait on hold, listening to an automated recording that attempts to reassure you that your call is important.

Instead, you'll speak with a person in short order. "When that call comes in, it's important," says Lisa Bamford, Sciencix's director of global marketing and business development. "If a part is $20 or $ 10,000, each caller is considered royalty. You don't have to go through nine or 10 prompts to get someone. Nothing against those companies, but that will never be us. We invite customers to tell us what they need. If it's not on our website, give us the specifics, and we can probably make it for you."

Sciencix was founded in 1985 as CTS. Its high-quality maintenance and repair parts are comparable with original equipment from manufacturers. It has a 28,000-square-foot test lab at its Minnesota headquarters and an office in Cary, where it serves pharmaceutical and medical companies in and near Research Triangle Park. Its worldwide network stretches around the world. Its annual sales are more than $15 million. And it takes customer service seriously.

Sciencix's list of high-pressure liquid chromatography consumables, which are used to manufacture pharmaceutical and biological products, includes tubing, vials and caps, filters, fittings and tools. Each is comparable to 10 name brands, including Hitachi and Waters. Customers order parts at all hours. "What's interesting is we serve customers in more than 100 countries, and we take orders from all over the world, and we have customer relations employees that speak more than one language," Bamford says. "So, even if it takes more time or more effort, it's OK. We'll take that time to be more personal."

New employees are educated about company expectations. And while there is no formal handbook for interactions with the public, Bamford says there is a philosophy. "Part of our onboarding is across the board," she says. "Some is specific to the role that person is coming into. But on Day One, we tell you about the company and the culture. While we don't give them scripts to speak, their job is to make friends, first and foremost. How do you talk to your friends ? How do you want your friends to talk to you? And we will place a new employee in a position where they're shadowing and learning through osmosis, so they understand the experience we're trying to create. When you call us, you're not going to talk to someone who's been...