Making IT personal for 25 years

Matthew Day

Staff

November 11, 2024

WAUSAU – Where some might say the tech industry is all about evolution, Jeff Dirks – owner of The Dirks Group – said he credits his company’s quarter-century of success to an evergreen concept: friendship. 

“Our philosophy is, really, treat our customers like friends,” Jeff said. “You make sure you’re there for them when they need you.” 

For The Dirks Group, Jeff said staying sharp with top-tier technical knowledge has been a must – offering organizations operational system analysis and consultation, equipment recommendations, cloud data storage, disaster recovery, remote monitoring and managed IT services. 

At the heart of the company’s approach, however, is heart itself, as all its technical considerations start with care – a philosophy he said he and his wife Michele have carried since founding the company in 1999. 

“One of the things from day one that I’ve thought, and my team understands, is if you take care of the customer, everything else will take care of itself,” he said. “No matter what the size of the customer is, we try and make sure they feel important and valued in each of our interactions. If it’s the first time we talk to them or the 125th time we talk to them, we want to make sure that they feel like they’re being taken care of, and they’re being heard.” 

Jeff said The Dirks Group’s clients represent a variety of verticals, including manufacturing, financial, legal, government, education and automotive for organizations with networks ranging from 10 users to 500. 

No matter the industry or size, he said the company has built a staff of more than 30 experts across its two locations (Wausau and Eau Claire) by fostering friendliness internally as well. 

“We have an awesome team of people, and if our people are taken care of, they’re truly going to take care of the customers,” he said.  

Jeff said this approach to the tech world may not match what’s common in bigger cities, but it works for The Dirks Group.  

“In a smaller community – as I will consider Central Wisconsin and Western Wisconsin – relationships mean a lot,” he said. “We have about a 98% customer retention rate. We have some long-standing customers… When we started, we started with five customers and as of today, we still have three of those five – the other two have since been sold or closed – so that’s a little bit of a testament to us trying to do the right thing for our customers.” 

A growing group 

After spending the early portion of his career as a network consultant near Minneapolis, Jeff said he and his wife Michele decided to move to Central Wisconsin (where he is from) to raise their children. 

Though he gained vast technical experience working at various organizations, Jeff said he was never able to feel aligned with his employers’ customer service philosophies – or lack thereof. 

“(I) didn’t truly agree with how the customers were being taken care of or treated, and felt that we could do a better job,” he said. “That’s where it kind of precipitated from – just seeing that there’s a better way to take care of customers.” 

For perspective, when he and Michele started The Dirks Group from their home in 1999, Jeff said “IT was just in its infancy,” as the now-defunct Novell Netware was predominant and “Microsoft was just coming out with NT.” 

Among the company’s services, he said, were PC break/fix, firewall and antivirus. 

The tech was relatively primitive, Jeff laughed, and he and Michele had their own lighthearted bugs to work out as spouses-turned-co-founders. 

“In the first year, she quit and I fired her 10 times, but praise the Lord, she’s been at my side the whole time,” he said. “She’ll say it was more than 10 times – we go back and forth.” 

The close couple said they found their stride and outgrew their home office in Marathon, moving to a business incubator in Wausau in 2000 and eventually their own building in 2001. 

“We had our own data center in the early days (2006) – that was something that you didn’t find a lot,” Jeff said. “We were one of the first ones to have (a data center in the area)… so that kind of gave us an advantage – but that’s only one of the things that we had.” 

The Dirks Group stayed true to its customer-first mission throughout its growth, he said, as the company’s service evolved beyond a business model primarily focused on IT into “business consultants who do IT… more integrated into individuals’ businesses to help them.” 

Continually adding qualified staff, Jeff said the company moved to a larger Wausau facility in 2010, one larger still in 2019 and about two years ago, added its second location in Eau Claire to accommodate clientele as well as team members based further west. 

More recently, Jeff said The Dirks Group’s Wausau facility was remodeled to add a gymnasium and lounge (with a golf simulator) for employees to enjoy. 

He said the company sponsors events throughout the year for the sake of team building, rewarding hard work and breaking up “the monotony” – such as NCAA bracket tournaments, chili cook-offs and costume contests.

An annual Christmas costume contest, Jeff said, also involves dressed-up team members delivering presents to local customers. 

“It’s been going on so long,” he said of the holiday gift tradition. “(Customers) will email us or call us and say, ‘Hey, which day are you coming – so I can make sure I’m (there to receive it).’” 

Jeff said The Dirks Group is not only looking to expand on its team building and amenities at its Eau Claire office, it is also considering other potential locations and acquisitions – but never at the risk of diminishing the company’s values. 

“Growth is always good, if it can be done right,” he said. “We still want to maintain the family atmosphere that we’ve come to have at this point.” 

‘IT’s Personal’ 

The sense of community The Dirks Group supports is further evident, Jeff said, in the company’s collaborative manner of staying ahead of the curve in its industry. 

“It is (not easy) trying to keep up and keep pace, but having great people work as your teammates makes it a lot easier,” he said. 

Motivated to make sure the company is providing its customers with the top technological solutions, Jeff said team members consistently attend industry events and engage with other experts. 

“As many years as we’ve been doing this, we’ve developed friendships as part of those peer groups,” he said. “So that’s core to some of it – to figure out which tools work, which processes work and kind of having a sounding board – and not necessarily just inside these four walls. You develop friendships and partnerships with people in the (tech) community to help bounce off ideas.” 

Jeff said the effective utilization of artificial intelligence (AI) is one such subject of communal discussion. 

Another, he said, is the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC), which he said “allows us to interact with any of our customers that want to work with the Department of Defense.” 

“There are always improvements that you need to make, but there are certain ones that are going to be game changers to keep you relevant, and (CMMC) is going to be one of them,” he said. “And who knows – six months from now there could be a new one that we have to look into.” 

Between the close-knit relationships with customers, the chemistry fostered among team members and the engagement with the broader tech community, Jeff said when The Dirks Group sought to rebrand its marketing this year, they adopted a new tagline: “IT’s Personal.” 

“I really think they hit the embodiment of what we try and strive for,” he said of the marketing agency they hired. “Taking care of each and every customer, but in the same breath, each and every one of our teammates, so if they feel like they’re safe and they’re being taken care of, they’re going to do the same thing for our customers – which probably turns into the 90-plus% customer retention rate.” 

Looking back on The Dirks Group’s first 25 years, Jeff said there have been plenty of character-building challenges, but the greatest reward always comes back to the people. 

“That’s kind of the thing that gets me up in the morning – the interactions and the friendships,” he said. “It’s nice to come into work every day when you enjoy the people who you’re working with.”