Boston Voyage Interview with Steve Grace
The following is a excerpt from a Boston Voyage interview with Steve Grace, president of AVH Technology Partners. Read the full article here.
Today we’d like to introduce you to Steve Grace.
Steve, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
We founded AV Helpdesk in 2003 to bring a new approach to audiovisual technology consulting. We had spent many years working as system designers and engineers, and we had seen that clients were often left frustrated by a lack of accountability in the traditional consulting process. The existing division of roles and responsibility between consultants, clients, and integrators was broken, and we decided to come up with a better way. We went back and interviewed clients to better understand the source of their frustration, then designed our business model to address the issues we had identified. In an industry with more than its fair share of customer service disasters, we pride ourselves on the many strong relationships we have built with our clients over the years.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Our biggest challenge has always been communicating our approach to prospective clients. Our process is unique in the industry, and it can be tough to appreciate without seeing it in action. When we sit down with a potential client that has already had some negative experiences with AV, we can usually show how their past issues could have been avoided with our help. When we work with an inexperienced client, we often need to convince them of the existence of a whole set of pitfalls that they had never even considered before we can really show them what we bring to the table.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about AV Helpdesk – what should we know?
AV Helpdesk designs audiovisual systems and oversees their implementation, from basic conference rooms to million-dollar video walls and auditoriums. We specialize in developing standards for conference room and meeting space technology that meet our client’s business objectives and budgets, and doing what it takes to implement those standards locally and around the world. Over the past 14 years we’ve developed and maintained a team of highly skilled employees, through our focus on interesting projects and superior work/life balance.
Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
Clients. We have had the opportunity to work with some amazing client representatives over the years. We integrate as part of their teams and work on multiple projects over the years together. This type of client relationship has been instrumental in getting to know how our clients work and what they really need for technology to collaborate in their unique environments. This close personal relationship means that our clients share insight with us that simply cannot be gleaned from traditional cursory relationships. We’ve used the information we’ve received to improve our own processes and better tailor solutions to the individual client organizations.