Malcolm was passionate about quality tapware, had a dream about developing New Zealand’s best laundry tub and was looking forward to building a business, using his 13 years' experience in tapware. He was keen to develop products without the constraints imposed by corporate business practices. What Malcom and Christina both valued was the contribution that people make to a good business and they wanted to prove to themselves that it was possible to run an ethical family business, that cared about its staff, could model integrity in everything and could still be successful. These beliefs are the core values of Aquatica today, with around 50 hand-picked staff, committed to the business, to delivering quality, to helping customers and caring about one another. It’s still a family business, 100% owned, and one of the country’s major suppliers of tapware and laundry tubs. Most of the staff have been with the business since their job was first created and these staff are the chief assets of the business. This has meant that customers have access to a great deal of knowledge. The Sales Department alone has a combined experience of over 100 years in the plumbing industry. Their shared passion for what Aquatica is doing with innovation and service has resulted in some customers seeing them as their best supplier and end-consumers frequently raving about the service they receive. What does all this mean for you? It means that when we say we deliver customer service we don’t just pay lip-service – an entire culture of customer service has developed in the business since the beginning so that everyone knows that helping someone else in the business helps them to help the customer. We do fulfil unusual customer requests, if at all possible. We don’t use voicemail – we figure our customers ring up because they want to talk to us. We frequently service product even when it’s an installation fault. Within the business we have 5 staff in Engineering, 2 in Product Development and another 20 assembling and testing tapware and laundry tubs. It’s all very well buying a beautiful Aquatica product but it’s really comforting to know that, should something go wrong, you’ve got all that knowledge and a willing attitude to help, to fall back on. It’s also pretty cool to know that you’re supporting a business doing its level best to operate with integrity, be environmentally-conscious and at the forefront of product innovation.
