Success is Built on Relationships
As we embark on a new year, I wanted to take this opportunity to say “thank you” to our valued clients, our important partners, and our dedicated associates. According to Mark Sanborn, an international bestselling author and authority on leadership, success is built on relationships. I couldn’t agree with him more.

The relationships we have with our clients and with each other in our day-to-day work environment have made it possible for us to be where we are today.

We strive to keep your voice close to everything we do. From surveys and your day-to-day interaction with us, to your presence at our Art of Success Conference and the CU Users Group Conference, we have been able to create a 360-degree feedback experience so that we can continuously learn what you need and value.

I’m pleased to say that over this past year, we’ve made considerable progress in reaching out to you and incorporating your suggestions. This has helped us to improve client care, enhance our products, and gain ideas on how to serve you even better.

We are committed to strengthening our relationship with you.

Listening and Responding to You
One of the highlights from 2006 was the re-introduction of our client conference – Art of Success. This was a suggestion made by many of you and I was pleased to invite you to our “home” here in Vancouver, Washington in September. It meant a great deal to us to meet in person those of you who we work with each day. There was a very positive response from you on the breadth and depth of the courses, the keynote speaker, and the networking sessions.
This year we also launched our annual Client Relationship Survey. The survey was conducted with the goal of understanding how you view your relationship with us and why, your satisfaction level, and how we can transition to be your partner.

Based on the overwhelming amount of feedback, we implemented a number of changes and introduced several new programs and tools during 2006.

In regards to client care and communications, we have made many improvements including conducting additional follow up on incidents and changing the protocol on how incidents are assigned to specialists.

I hope you have noticed a difference.

We also introduced our new Client Care plans, UltimateCare and UltimateCare Plus, which provide expanded hours, enhanced response times, and additional software and services at no extra charge to you.

Over the past several years, we have often heard from small collection agencies the need for a collection software package that could be purchased on a subscription or monthly basis. As a result, we introduced Collector Express, a software package designed for start-ups and small agencies seeking fast installations and quick returns with their collections. We are pleased to welcome our new Collector Express clients to the Columbia Ultimate family.
As an update regarding our government clients, RevQ, our sister company, has also made significant enhancements to its Revenue Results software this year, and continues to enhance RPCS with the recent release of RPCS 2006. RevQ continues to hold the Government Collections Conference (GCC) for clients annually as well.

As part of our ongoing mission to foster internal learning and education, we launched The Learning Center in our Vancouver, Washington office to provide an environment for our associates to “sharpen the saw,” so to speak. We also introduced an associate excellence organization that will help Columbia Ultimate associates continue to grow their knowledge and skills. These programs are designed for our associates to learn more about your business and encourage their professional growth.

Moving Ahead With You
Moving forward into 2007, we will continue to focus on areas of client care and communications. A Client Advisory Board will launch in 2007 as a way to generate additional feedback and ideas from you on the future and strategic direction of the company.
We also plan to introduce even more training programs, including Web-based training sessions. Based on a client training survey, the responses indicate that A) only 27% of clients used formal training as a primary method, B) hands-on training is preferred, C) training needs and content suggestions include AFM, Recall, Dialers, Easy Out and Reporting, and D) 17% of responders cite the need for communication skills training. What this means for us is the need to offer you even more options and flexibility in how we deliver our training. It also signals interest that you would like to be offered training tools in addition to core software training.

We recognize it is your people using our software that will ultimately differentiate you from your competition and add value to your agency. We are committed to helping you be even more successful with your people.

At the same time, we will continue to focus our efforts on enhancing The Collector System and ManageMed, and continue to invest in developing business analytics, information security programs, and additional products and services that are increasingly critical to your future successes.

Last but not least, the 2007 Annual CU Users Group Conference will take place April 2 - 4, 2007 in Las Vegas, Nevada and the Art of Success client conference will be held on October 22 - 24, 2007 in Portland, Oregon. I hope to see many of you at these events this year.

Again, thank you for being our valued client and partner. I am very much looking forward to what we can and will achieve in 2007. Most importantly, I’m excited to continue growing and exploring with each of you, and what we will accomplish together.

Cheers to a prosperous 2007.