Riviera NZ service manager goes the extra mile to serve his customers

Auckland, New Zealand:   While camping with his family at Cape Brett in New Zealand’s north, Riviera Service Manager, Steve Domigan took time out from his holiday to help a Riviera owner in need, and for this he has been awarded New Zealand’s leading talk back radio station’s Awesome Service Award.

Newstalk ZB is New Zealand’s premier source of news and is one of the supporters of the KiaOraMai Awesome Service Award recognises and salutes those people who look after their customers by celebrating their ‘awesome service’.

Each monthly winner, including Steve, receives a framed KiaOraMai Awesome Service Award certificate as well as recognition on Newstalk ZB and their profile posted on the KiaOraMai Awesome Service Award website.

Riviera owner Chris Price nominated Steve for the award because of his exceptional customer service.

Chris said that he and his wife who were both in their late 60s had just begun their 10 day cruising holiday to the Bay of Islands when they lost one engine.

“I was in somewhat of a quandary as to what to do.  My options were very limited.  Unable to even attempt to fix the problem myself, my only course of action would have been to take the boat to the Opua Marina on one engine and try to find someone over the holiday period to fix the problem.  The strong tide and wind at Opua makes this difficult with two engines at the best of times so quite frankly I was not looking forward to trying to do this on one.  We decided that we would anchor for the night and tackle the problem in the morning, virtually accepting our holiday was at an end,” Chris said.

“After we anchored a rubber-ducky approached and a voice called out ‘Hi Chris’.  At first I did not recognise him until he introduced himself.  Steve was camping with his family on the other side of the bay and had noticed us approach the bay and anchor on one engine so he came over to see if he could be of assistance.”

Chris said Steve spent an hour pulling up the floorboards, checking diesel lines and getting sprayed with diesel in the process and then he fixed the problem, which was a fault with a fuel solenoid.

“Steve refused payment, apart from a glass of wine, saying it was all part of Riviera New Zealand’s service.  He even phoned the next day to check everything was okay.  Awesome service.”

However, for Steve Domigan, he was just doing his job and it is all part of the service offered by R Marine New Zealand.

“I was quite surprised to win this award because we do what we do because we enjoy the boating lifestyle and the people we meet through doing our job,” he said.

“It is nice to be recognised for something that anyone of us here at R Marine New Zealand would not think twice about doing in similar circumstances.”

Steve has worked for R Marine New Zealand for more than six years and has been in the Marine engineering industry since 1986.

“Before I started working in the Marine industry, I was exposed to boating as most Aucklanders are, such as fishing and water skiing in small tinnies or fibreglass boats, and I also did a couple of seasons of winter yacht racing,” Steve said.

“I like the varied work we do at R Marine New Zealand, it’s not just physical work, but also always something to get the mind working with different issues and owner requests.  I also look forward to the Annual Riviera Sime Derby Invitational fishing competition.”

Riviera dealer principal Bruce McGill commended Steve on his achievement and said that his commitment to customer relations reflected on the entire service team at R Marine New Zealand.

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