Attitude is Everything A `Normal' Approach to Customer Service WHEN IT COMES to getting his customers what they need and want, Charles Freiberger, owner of Hudson, N.H.-based Advent Medical, doesn't take no for an answer and in not doing so treats his customers the way he thinks they should be treated ... like normal people.

"We're very aggressive in what we do," Freiberger says. "We have a serious commitment to finding out what the customer needs and then doing it. A primary factor in this is attitude - that would have to be key. We're going to treat [customers] as normal as possible and have a good time with them while we do it. We've got a unique, positive atmosphere here, I think."

To illustrate his company's can-do attitude, Freiberger tells the story of a man who recently brought in his sister, a foot amputee, to get a power chair. Her physical needs weren't particularly difficult, but she was deeply depressed and hadn't been out of her apartment for almost nine years. Just getting the woman to talk was a struggle, but she finally warmed to the Advent staff, Freiberger says.

"If I could just go shopping ... that would give me my life back," she finally said. That was all Freiberger says he needed to hear. He and his staff came up with the idea of installing a shopping basket on the chair's elevating legrest, which she didn't need.

According to Freiberger, the patient won't let her brother go shopping for her anymore. "She's literally cruising up and down the streets of Medford [Mass.] in her chair and out playing bingo," he says. "This woman has a life again just because we welded a basket to an elevating legrest. It was such a little thing, and yet it had such a tremendous impact on her life. That, to me, is all we're looking to do: Find out what these people need to give them their flexibility and mobility back again."

The opportunity to help customers such as that woman is why Freiberger quit his retail design job and purchased Advent Medical from a business broker in 1996.

"As with most people, you go through a time when you question what you're doing. You want significance in your work, and that's what I've found in this," Freiberger says. "Designing stores to separate people from their money was nice, but this is improving the quality of life for people. This is an industry where we're never going to get wealthy, but we go home feeling good at the end of the day because we know we've done something good for somebody."

This sense of accomplishment is what inspires his company's customer-focused attitude.

"Customer service in this industry is crucial. Yes, number one, I run a business, but number two, [this work] is something of a ministry to me," Freiberger says, laughing. "It really is. We're striving to give people the life they want."