AIC Group of Funds has earned DALBAR’s 2005 Mutual Fund Service Award, marking the third consecutive year in which the Burlington-based company has won the award.

“Our congratulations go out to those at AIC responsible for ensuring that their clients are being well-served. They have demonstrated time and again that their business model places superior customer service on a very high pedestal,” said Mark McDonald, manager of client relations at DALBAR, in a release.

“Their clients have been in very good hands for a long time, showing that despite challenges that they have faced over the last few years in a number of areas, they have not lost sight of the importance of placing the customer first,” he added.

Honourable mention was given to Franklin Templeton Investments, BMO Mutual Funds, and Altamira Investment Services for placing in the first quartile in DALBAR’s year-end rankings.

DALBAR also announced that Franklin Templeton Investments has won the 2005 Mutual Fund Service Award for service to French-speaking clients. 2005 marks the first year that the company has captured this distinction, after several years of placing in the first quartile.

“Franklin Templeton is another company that has worked very hard to serve its clients, whether they are French-speaking or English-speaking, and they should be proud of this accomplishment,” said McDonald. Other top-quartile firms were Altamira Investment Services and BMO Mutual Funds.

The customer service award is given to the company which places first in DALBAR’s year-end customer service rankings, which are based on evaluations made over a calendar year in four categories: quality of telephone service representatives; effectiveness of e-mail communication; telephone wait times; and e-mail response times.

DALBAR is a financial services research firm with offices in Toronto and Boston, specializing in measuring the performance of institutions and financial professionals in areas such as service quality, customer satisfaction, and communications effectiveness.