Customer Service Awards Blog

Maggie Gallagher

Recent Posts

The Bottom Line for Customer Growth, from a Stevie Awards Judge

Posted by Maggie Gallagher on Thu, Aug 27, 2015 @ 12:12 PM

Jeanne Bliss, president of CustomerBLISS in Los Angeles, California, USA, is often a judge for the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. Entries to the 2016 competition are now being accepted. 

REVIEW THE ENTRY KIT HERE.

Earlier this year, Jeanne Bliss published her third book, Chief Customer Officer 2.0, so we talked with her about her book, the publishing process, and how she'll find the time to judge the 2016 Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service, especially the new categories for Customer Service Success.

Hello1508BlissJeanne Bliss is happy to share her experience of being a judge for the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service in past years. “Judging the Stevie Awards is a tremendous experience,” she told us.  “It keeps me relevant and engaged with practitioners. And the ideas and enthusiasm I read in the submissions continues to fuel my optimism and passion for this field of work!”

Jeanne also has words of encouragement and advice for others who might be considering being a Stevie Awards judge: “Commit to the process.  Put aside time for dedicated reading and research the companies and people.  Give time to take it in and celebrate the entrants!”

The Business of Publishing

Having just published her third book, we asked Jeanne for her views on the business of publishing these days. “It's changed a lot since 2006 when my first book was published,” commented Jeanne. “Now, in a wonderful way, we get to bring the reader along throughout the entire process, from engaging on topics; to content; to titles and covers; and more,” Jeanne told us. “In the process of launching a book, it’s extremely important to engage in social media in a way that will add value to people's lives: the message of the book and what it will do for the reader are important to presell a book.”

“PR is no longer traditional in any sense of the word—and I love that,” added Jeanne.

“I've worked with the most wonderful group of people over the past 15 years, engaged in hosting webinars and tweets and book reviews.  The whole process is now about community, adding value, and earning the right to the readers' time.

Following is a shortened excerpt taken from Jeanne’s latest book, Chief Customer Officer 2.0, available now.

The Influence of Customer Reviews

When you deliver a reliable experience, you earn the right to your customers’ story through word of mouth. And your customers will come back because they want to have the experience again.

There are three points that customers repeatedly talk about through social media, which will earn you the right to new customer growth without the acquisition costs, and to organic growth of your existing customers. These are:

  • Was their experience consistent and reliable?
  • Did their relationship with you improve their life or business? Did your actions prove your commitment to them?
  • How did it feel to do business with you? Honored, distrusted, ignored?

All these points come out again and again in tweets, reviews, and message boards. What we know is that the power of social listening—meaning either in person or online—has an increasingly high impact on purchase decisions.

Word of Mouth

In both business-to-business and business-to-consumer organizations, customers yield to the reviews and feedback of others who have experienced your business to drive nearly 80% of their buying decisions. Your promises and messaging only account for about 20% of what customers and clients consider when they are making a buying decision. (These statistics comes from The Keller Fay Talk Track Report, whose information I have used regularly when chipping away at the importance of reliability.)

When your customers’ experience is unreliable, the most powerful way to grow your company—positive word of mouth—will suffer. If the experience you deliver to customers is not consistent and reliable, no matter what channel or silo or location they interact with, then customers won’t vouch for you.

This will impact recommendations and organic growth, because if your customers can’t tell another customer what they get from you, how they get it, how it improves their life, and how you make them feel as a result, then you won’t earn their recommendation. You don’t own the moment–and at any time the customer may go shopping for one that’s more reliable. More important, a lack of reliability will drive them away.

The Wow Moment

With social media becoming a shiny object, along with a lot of Customer Experience tactics, the tendency is for leaders to want to go out and implement the “wow” moment. But reliability has to come first, otherwise money spent on the “wow” is a wasted investment.

When I give keynotes, I tell a story about the hotel experience which resonates: You check into a hotel, and they ask you what type of pillow you’d like, and the kind of chocolate you’d like at turndown; then, when you walk in to your room, there’s hair in the sink and dirt under the bed—and all that “wow” is lost.

Think of reliability as the foundation. For many complex businesses such as healthcare, financial services, or insurance, just moving to reliability will make them stand out. You will differentiate when you are consistent and reliable.

Reliability = Revenue Gain

The London School of Business says that there is a 300% revenue gain to be had by focusing on reliability versus the wow moments. That does not mean that your version of reliability is mundane. Apple is reliable: they have their own way of doing reliability and that differentiates them. Amazon is a reliability engine. Amazon sold their first book in 1995. If they had not sold, shipped, and delivered that book in a reliable way, they would not have earned the right to the over 200 categories that they sell now. Reliability, not wow drives them.

Bottom line, Jeanne’s advice is: Grow your company by improving customers' lives!

About Jeanne Bliss:

Jeanne Bliss pioneered the role of the Chief Customer Officer, holding the first ever CCO role at Lands’ End, Microsoft, Coldwell Banker, and Allstate Corporations over a period of more than twenty years. Reporting to each company’s CEO, she moved the customer to the strategic agenda, creating transformational changes to each brands’ customer experience. She has driven achievement of 95% loyalty rates, improving customer experiences across 50,000-person organizations.

Jeanne is now the president of CustomerBliss, where she guides C-Suite executives and Chief Customer Officers around the world on earning business growth by improving customers’ lives. Her clients include: AAA, Johnson & Johnson, Brooks Brothers, Bombardier Aerospace, and Kaiser Permanente. She is a sought-after speaker and thought leader, the author of three best-selling books, and co-founder of the Customer Experience Professionals Association. For more information, go to www.customerbliss.com/

Winners Announced in People’s Choice Stevie Awards for Favorite Customer Service

Posted by Maggie Gallagher on Tue, Feb 17, 2015 @ 10:00 AM

More than 51,000 votes were cast in the 2015 People's Choice Stevie Awards for Favorite Customer Service, part of the 9th annual Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service, the world’s top honors for contact center, customer service, business development, and sales professionals. 

SASCS-peoples-choiceThis worldwide public vote was conducted between January 22 and February 13, with the highest number of votes deciding the winners in 11 industry categories. All organizations honored in the Customer Service Department of the Year categories of this year’s Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service were eligible to be included in voting for the people’s choice awards.

The winning organizations, which will each receive the coveted crystal People’s Choice Stevie Award at the gala ceremony in Las Vegas on February 27, are:

  • Airlines, Distribution & Transportation: DHL Express International (Thailand) Ltd.
  • Computer Hardware and Services: Rackspace
  • Computer Software (<100 employees): Photodex
  • Computer Software (100+ employees): Paycor
  • Financial Services: AllClear ID
  • Healthcare, Pharmaceuticals & Related Industries: PetRays
  • Hospitality, Leisure & Tourism: Marriott Vacation Club Owner Services
  • Public Services & Education: Fujairah Police General Head Quarters
  • Retail: Tchibo Kahve Mam. Dag. Paz. Tic. Ltd. Sti.
  • Telecommunications: Avea Iletisim Hizmetleri A.S.
  • All Other Industries: CubeSmart

Nicknamed the Stevie® for the Greek word “crowned,” the awards will be presented to winners at the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service awards banquet on Friday, February 27 at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, Nevada.  Tickets for the event are now on sale.  More than 450 executives from around the world are expected to attend.

Sponsors and supporters of the 9th annual Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service include ValueSelling Associates.

One Week Left to Vote for Your Favorite Providers of Customer Service

Posted by Maggie Gallagher on Fri, Feb 06, 2015 @ 04:46 PM

February 13 is the last day to vote in the People's Choice Stevie Awards for Favorite Customer Service, a feature of the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service.

CAST YOUR VOTE HERE.

PCSAFCSAwardImage_mediumAll companies named as Finalists in the Customer Service Department of the Year categories in the 2015 Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service, the world's top awards for contact center, customer service, business development, and sales professionals, are automatically included in people's choice voting.  You're invited to vote for your favorites in the following 11 categories:

  • Airlines, Distribution & Transportation
  • Computer Hardware and Services
  • Computer Software
  • Financial Services
  • Healthcare, Pharmaceuticals & Related Industries
  • Hospitality, Leisure & Tourism
  • Public Services & Education
  • Retail
  • Telecommunications
  • All Other Industries

Winners of the crystal People's Choice Stevie Awards will be celebrated at an awards gala at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, on February 27, 2015.

Past winners include Apple, CardioVet, Constant Contact,Cvent, Marriott Vacation Club, PetRays, Rosetta Stone, and Vonage.

Vote Now for Your Favorite Providers of Customer Service

Posted by Maggie Gallagher on Mon, Jan 26, 2015 @ 06:05 PM

Voting for the 6th edition of the People's Choice Stevie® Awards for Favorite Customer Service is now open. Voting will conclude at 11:59 pm ET on Friday, February 13.

VOTE NOW

Peoples_Choice_Cus_ServiceAll companies named as Finalists in the Customer Service Department of the Year categories in the 2015 Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service, the world's top awards for contact center, customer service, business development, and sales professionals, are automatically included in people's choice voting.  You're invited to vote for your favorites in the following 11 categories:

  • Airlines, Distribution & Transportation
  • Computer Hardware and Services
  • Computer Software
  • Financial Services
  • Healthcare, Pharmaceuticals & Related Industries
  • Hospitality, Leisure & Tourism
  • Public Services & Education
  • Retail
  • Telecommunications
  • All Other Industries

Nominees will have the opportunity to win two awards: a Gold, Silver, or Bronze Stevie Award, as determined by professionals on the sales awards, customer service awards, and contact center awards peer-review judging committees, and a crystal People's Choice Stevie Award, as determined by the public vote.

Winners of the crystal People's Choice Stevie Awards will be celebrated at an awards gala at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, on February 27, 2014.

Tags: customer service awards, stevie awards

Customer Service Awards Winner Goes the Extra Mile for His Clients

Posted by Maggie Gallagher on Fri, Aug 08, 2014 @ 03:46 PM

Kashif Rasheed of dinCloud in Los Angeles, California, USA won a Gold Stevie® Award for Front-Line Customer Service Professional of the Year in the 2014 Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service, the top customer service awards and sales awards.

The 2015 Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service are now accepting entries.  Learn more how submit your entries here.

dinCLOUDKashif Rasheed is a high-energy, goal-driven individual who has created a dynamic services organization capable of consistently delivering high-quality services and creating customer loyalty at dinCloud, a cloud services provider.

Customers have dubbed dinCloud’s help desk, the “Kashif Care Program”. It has been said that Kashif combines the Boy Scouts’ Law—A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent—with the unofficial USPS creed—“Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds”—with the availability of a 7-Eleven.

“Kashif happens to be one of the most dedicated members on our team,” said Shannon Severijn, IP Engineer at telecommunications carrier Airespring. “Kashif works tirelessly days, nights, and weekends. He is an outstanding troubleshooter and problem solver. He also happens to manage three different departments on two different sides of the world. Kashif is a great contributor and we are grateful to have him on our team.”

Helping Resolve Future Challenges

We asked Kashif what winning the Gold Stevie means to him. "We are honored to be recognized by one of the world's top customer service awards, as this further validates dinCloud's focus on providing customers with great value and service to make sure they can achieve a great deal more in their day-to-day business activities," Kashif told us.

We asked Kashif what he thought about the future. "dinCloud has a dynamic services organization, capable of consistently delivering high-quality services,” he explained. “We will remain proactive in our customer service approach and commitment to providing exceptional service and support for our customers."

Bringing Value to Customer Service

As operations manager for the company’s Global Service Desk (GSD), Kashif supervises and manages all help desk staff and projects. Additionally, as Implementation Manager, he designs and builds customers virtual environments, then works with each customer’s IT staff to implement the technology.

Kashif ensures quality execution throughout these service touch points, including implementation services (with superior white glove treatment during the onboarding process), training, education, and ongoing account management.

Kashif brings a great deal of value to dinCloud’s customer service division with his multi-faceted talent and unmatched dedication. His colleagues, partners, and customers have all achieved a great deal more in their day-to-day business activities because of his involvement and the personalized touch he provides. Kashif always goes the extra mile.

In 2013, for example, dinCloud was planning a rollout of its Hosted Virtual Desktops (HVDs) in Los Angeles.  At the same time, a client purchased new physical desktop systems. To address a shortage of resources, Kashif took technicians onsite, setting up hardware and software for 80 systems in just two days. Kashif also worked nights on the hosted desktop configurations.

Excellent Customer Retention

Customers receive a monthly report detailing how many help desk tickets have been opened or closed and which issues are still open or pending.

Kashif holds quarterly calls with each and every customer to review open tickets, to resolve outstanding issues, and, more importantly, to help the end user resolve future challenges on their own. Additionally, Kashif holds daily meetings with his team to discuss the status of any tickets generated that day.

When the company started a few years ago, its first call resolution ranged from 25-30%. Today, that number has grown to 80%, with almost all customer issues handled successfully on the first call. At the close of each ticket, customers are sent an optional survey. On average, dinCloud scores 4.3 out of 5, and has a near perfect customer retention rate. They credit much of this to Kashif and his team’s help desk operations and customer support program.

About Kashif Rasheed

As operations manager for the Global Service Desk (GSD) at dinCloud, Kashif Rasheed supervises and manages all help desk staff and projects (customer specific, managed services, etc.). This includes customer specific projects and those relevant to managed services (managing employees’ Exchange Server, Active Directory, additional application servers, etc.). He is also the Implementation Manager, responsible for designing and building a customer’s virtual environment, and working with the customer’s IT staff throughout implementation.

Kashif holds many certifications including: A+, N+, MCP, CLA, and CLE, and has a Master’s Degree in Computer Science. Over the past year, Kashif earned four additional certifications: ITIL (ITIL V3 Foundation), MCITP and MCSE (Microsoft), and VCP (VMware). In addition to his Gold Stevie® Award he also received the Continuous Support Award from En Pointe Technologies (a dinCloud reseller) at one of its National Sales Meetings.

About dinCloud

dinCloud is a cloud services provider that helps both commercial and public sector organizations rapidly migrate to the cloud through business provisioning, provided via its strong channel base of VARs and MSPs. Each customer’s dedicated private virtual data center provides hosted virtual desktops, hosted virtual servers, and cloud storage services, which are controlled by the customer through dinManage, dinCloud’s web-based management tool. dinCloud provides subscription-based services tailored to fit a range of business models resulting in reduced cost, enhanced security, control, and productivity.  For more information, go to www.dincloud.com.

Tags: customer service awards, business awards, excellent customer service, customer service excellence, dincloud

Vote Now in the People's Choice Stevie Awards for Favorite Customer Service

Posted by Maggie Gallagher on Mon, Jan 27, 2014 @ 05:22 PM

Voting is now open for the 5th edition of the People's Choice Stevie® Awards for Favorite Customer Service, a feature of the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service, the world's top customer service awards and sales awards.

Vote now for your favorite providers of customer service at http://peopleschoice.stevieawards.com.

The People's Choice Stevie Awards for Favorite Customer Service is a worldwide public vote in which the general public get to choose their favorite provider of customer service in 11 industry categories including:

  • People's Choice Stevie Awards for Favorite Customer ServiceAirlines & Transportation
  • Computer Hardware & Services
  • Computer Software (Up to 100 Employees)
  • Computer Software (100 or More Employees)
  • Financial Services
  • Healthcare & Related Industries
  • Hospitality, Leisure & Tourism
  • Public Services & Education
  • Retail
  • Telecommunications
  • All Other Industries

All companies named as Finalists in the Customer Service Department of the Year categories are automatically included in voting for the People's Choice Stevie Awards for Favorite Customer Service. Thus Finalist organizations will have the opportunity to win two awards: a Gold, Silver, or Bronze Stevie Award, as determined by professionals on the sales awards, customer service awards, and contact center awards peer-review judging committees, and a crystal People's Choice Stevie Award, as determined by the public vote.

Winners of the 2014 crystal People's Choice Stevie Awards will be announced at the awards banquet at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, on February 21.

Voting closes at 11:59 pm ET on February 14.  Vote now for your favorite providers of customer service at http://peopleschoice.stevieawards.com.

Tags: customer service awards, stevie awards, peoples choice awards, favorite customer service, peoples choice voting