Car Pros Automotive Group has grown from a used car lot with two employees to an automotive group with over 500 employees and seven stores in two states, selling over 2,000 cars per month. According to the CEO, Stevie Award-winner Matthew Phillips, MBA, the success of Car Pros is directly related to its mission of changing lives through a high-performance, value-led dealership culture.

From Lot to Leadership
Matthew is a passionate automotive retail executive, growing the company from a used car lot with two employees into a company with annual sales of $1 billion, while at the same time breaking multiple molds in a tradition-bound industry.

Automotive retailing tends to be dominated by men, hierarchy, and traditional internal combustion vehicles. As an LGBTQ+ person, Matthew believes in empowering people, particularly under-represented groups. His 20-year journey from “lot to leadership” provides a real-world perspective on how to build high-performance workplace cultures, informing his personal brand of metric-driven accountability based on industry experience, leadership, and continued education.

He holds MBAs from Cornell University, NY, and Queen’s University, Ontario; an MA in Organizational Psychology from Teachers College, Columbia University; and a BA in Accounting from University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, WA. Matthew is also a graduate of the National Automobile Dealers Association’s Dealer Academy.

Not only is Matthew a maverick in showing the industry how it can evolve, but as a board member of the Washington State Dealers Association and of Kia’s National Dealer Council, he works from the inside to promote positive change and demonstrate that the franchised dealer system is ready to meet the needs of customers and communities now and in the future.

Powering Change
In the automotive industry, DE&I progress has been slow but steady: Hireology reports that while many dealerships say DE&I is an important issue, only 24% are aware of DE&I best practices at their dealerships — an indication of awareness but not enough action.

Matthew’s personal experience reflects this reality of evolving change toward inclusiveness and tolerance. He sees DE&I as the foundation of today’s high-performance retail operation and believes that diversity of experiences is mission critical to selling successfully: your customers are diverse, so your team better be as well.

“Inclusive leadership is about changing the paradigm,” says Matthew. “We sell cars by empowering people to sell cars. We were one of the first to provide insurance for domestic partners and adopt anti-discrimination policies. We’ve been at the forefront of training for inclusivity and have worked to make our dealerships welcoming places for everyone.” What has been most rewarding for Matthew, he says, is when his commitment to authenticity has given others the courage to be successful in their most authentic way.

Matthew continues to drive real change for the betterment of car buyers. He seeks to represent the future of automotive retail, shifting to meet the needs resulting from the adoption of technology, assessing economic realities, and broadening consumer expectations.

Car Pros Automotive Group CEO Matthew Phillips won a Silver Stevie Award for Maverick of the Year in The 2023 American Business Awards®. 

Interested in entering The 2024 American Business Awards®?

Stevie-winner Otus is an educational technology company helping K-12 educators to harness and act on educational data to improve learner outcomes.

Otus provides educators with one platform to gather, visualize, and act on data. With an integrated suite of assessment and grading tools, educators can easily determine where students are now and use data to drive instruction and personalized learning plans forward.

Otus was created and built for teachers, by teachers. It saves educators time through the streamlined integration of assessment, performance tracking, and third-party data, while its gradebook and dashboard reports make it easier for teachers, administrators, and families to understand each student’s growth.

Since its conception in a Chicago middle school classroom in 2013, Otus has been adopted by over 2,500 schools across the United States and has delivered improved results for more than 1 million learners. Recently passing its 10th anniversary, Otus continues to improve and expand its team, its product, and its support of educators nationwide.

Developing the All-in-One Platform
Chris Hull—or “Chull” as his colleagues refer to him—is the Co-Founder and President of Otus. While the team has grown to include over 50      passionate members, Chris is still just as involved in the direction of the product and is as passionate about helping improve K-12 education as he was on day one.

Since Otus made its first sale to a public school system in 2016, the product and the company have both evolved in a myriad of ways, but Chris remains focused on putting educators first, viewing everything the company does from an educator’s perspective.

While most ed-tech solutions address one area of learning, such as assessment or grading, Otus addresses and enhances every step of the learning process. As an all-in-one, integrated platform, Otus eliminates the issue of scattered, siloed student data that plagues K-12 education, as well as the issues that come with implementing and maintaining multiple different ed-tech platforms.

With over 80,000 education apps available in the United States, educators have an abundance of options when it comes to choosing tools to help them in the classroom. Many tech giants such as Google and Microsoft have also released products that compete with Otus. For a company that just began selling to school districts in 2016, Otus has done an exceptional job of breaking into what is a vast and competitive ed-tech market.

In recent years, inflation has impacted school budgets, which has forced administrators to take a hard look at the software they use and, if need be, eliminate subscriptions to services that no longer serve them. For the year 2022, Otus had a net retention of 109.5%, which the company attributes to the quality of the product, service to users, and the reasonable price point per student.

During a time when tech companies across the board are letting employees go in droves, Otus has not only retained its staff but continues to grow its teams. This is an indication not only of the financial vitality of the company but also of employee satisfaction and their belief in Otus’ mission and vision.

As a company comprised largely of former educators, the team at Otus knows exactly what tools educators need and what quality ed-tech looks like. Their belief in the future of the company indicates that Otus is providing a service that speaks to educators and their ever-evolving needs.

Continued Evolution
Thanks to Otus’ continued commitment to listening to customer voices, the product has evolved into a comprehensive suite of integrated tools that truly benefits educators each day in the classroom.

Otus is constantly working to improve its offerings to better serve educators and students, not only through new enhancements to the platform and growth of its support teams but also by partnering with leading education organizations and integrating with other world-class ed-tech products. For example, in the last year, Otus has built new partnerships with respected ed-tech providers such as CenterPoint Education Solutions and Skyward, meaning more integrations that enhance users’ experience in the platform and, in some instances, make Otus easily accessible to users of partner platforms.

But while new partnerships and improvements to the platform can be indicators of success, there is no better source of truth than the customers themselves. According to a recent survey of Otus users, 98% say that Otus makes them more efficient educators—saving them an average of two hours every week. Additionally, Otus boasts a 98% chat approval rating and a response time of under three minutes. 

Otus is invested in the success of its users—from the district administrators and teachers to the students and families they serve. Otus says they are determined to provide a service that not only improves the K-12 education system but maximizes outcomes for the students who rely on it.

Otus's Co-founder and President Chris Hull won a Silver Stevie Award for Technology Executive of the Year; and Otus won two Bronze Stevie Awards for Customer Service Department of the Year and Company of the Year - Computer Software - Medium in The 2023 American Business Awards^®.

Interested in entering The 2024 American Business Awards^®?

Stevie-winner Prudential Financial Inc., is a global insurance company with operations spanning the United States, Asia, Europe, and Latin America.

Offering a diverse range of products and services, including life insurance, annuities, retirement-related services, mutual funds, and investment management, Prudential has positioned itself as a driving force in the financial industry.

In response to an increasing demand for financial advice, Prudential launched "Stages for Retirement," an initiative driven by customer needs and designed with a customer-centric approach. The platform combines digital tools with access to a team of seasoned advisors, allowing users to receive personalized advice at their convenience. The online experience not only helps users envision their ideal retirement but also provides a proprietary confidence score to benchmark their readiness.

Recognizing the changing landscape where more Americans seek financial advice with varying preferences (i.e., online, virtual, or face-to-face), Prudential has reimagined its direct-to-consumer business model to stay relevant in an industry experiencing newfound flexibility.

The platform's agility and responsiveness to customer needs were evident in the rapid launch of "Stages for Retirement" in less than a year. This venture followed a meticulous three-phase approach, involving validation, discovery, and building the minimum viable product. The strategy included comprehensive testing, interviews, surveys, and prototype iterations, ensuring a harmonious alignment between customer needs and Prudential's expertise.

In a departure from traditional corporate approaches, Prudential embraced an agile startup mindset, seeking co-creation with customers through extensive testing and research. The Retirement Confidence Score, a unique differentiator, evaluates users' retirement readiness across key drivers and allows them to track their progress.

Prudential Financial won a Gold Stevie Award for Best Mobile Web & App in the Financial Services category and a Bronze Stevie Award for Achievement in Product Innovation in The 2023 American Business Awards^®.

Interested in entering The 2024 American Business Awards^®?

Prudential Stages is an umbrella marketing name for Pruco Securities LLC, (sometimes referred to as “Pruco”) under the marketing name Prudential Financial Planning Services (PFPS), pursuant to a separate agreement.  Investment advisory products and services are made available through Pruco, a registered investment adviser.

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Stevie-winner Black Knight, now part of ICE, is a leading provider of technology for the mortgage and real estate sectors. They offer a range of solutions that support the entire lifecycle of the mortgage loan process, including loan origination, servicing, and default management.

In September 2021, the company launched the LoanCatcher® loan origination system (LOS) to give independent mortgage brokers quality origination tools that could rival those used by even large financial institutions.

LoanCatcher Cloud-based Solution
To fully appreciate LoanCatcher, some context is needed. Mortgage brokers work with multiple wholesale lenders to help borrowers find the best loan products for their individual situations. As independent agents, mortgage brokers have the unique challenge of acting as an organization unto themselves—simultaneously juggling the responsibilities of loan advisor, customer service, marketing, operations and IT—with limited resources.

LoanCatcher solves mortgage brokers’ many challenges by folding multiple award-winning lending technologies into an all-in-one, easy-to-use LOS. Entirely cloud-based, LoanCatcher gives brokers affordable access to the same caliber of technology used by the nation’s largest and most successful lenders. In addition to a top-tier LOS, other core components of LoanCatcher include:

Point of sale
LoanCatcher’s white-labeled digital lending portal makes it easy for borrowers to complete their applications, uploading and eSigning documents from anywhere. The user-friendly interface is and helps create a positive consumer experience from the first step.

Customer relationship management (CRM) and marketing platform
LoanCatcher is integrated with Surefire^SM, the mortgage industry’s most-used CRM and marketing automation platform. Adding Surefire to LoanCatcher’s origination workflow means brokers can automatically send borrowers reminders and milestone updates as the loan progresses. Surefire also contains a library of creative content, with automated marketing campaigns designed to nurture leads, educate borrowers about the financing process and maintain client relationships after their loans have closed to improve recapture efforts down the line.

Product pricing engine (PPE)
LoanCatcher saves brokers the hassle of combing through loan product pricing sheets with seamless integration of the Loansifter® PPE. With Loansifter, brokers can instantly compare rates and product pricing across 120 wholesale investors to execute competitive, profitable lending strategies.

Workflow and Document Management
Pre-defined and configurable workflows allow brokers to work smarter and create an end-to-end origination process. Its easy-to-use document repository and communication tools support effective collaboration across teams.

After a broker’s loans are originated, LoanCatcher will automatically transfer files to wholesale lenders with supported integrations. System-agnostic, standardized files can also be downloaded and delivered to any wholesale lender, no matter their platform.

LoanCatcher is a single, cost-effective platform that puts brokers back in charge of their business. It helps them turn loans faster, provide a better consumer experience and grow their customer base.

Since Winning a Stevie^® Award
In the past 18 months, LoanCatcher has enhanced its borrower-facing point of sale with lead generation tools and automated marketing workflows designed to nurture leads, educate borrowers about the financing process, and maintain client relationships after close. Brokers now have access to interactive interest rate comparison tools and mortgage calculators to engage prospective homebuyers as they research financing a home.

Also new to LoanCatcher are plug-and-play automated marketing campaigns that let brokers elevate their brand and achieve major marketing impact with minimal hands-on effort. Multichannel workflows that include interactive video, graphic, and narrative content distributed over email, text, phone, and direct mail to drive borrower interest and engagement.

Black Knight won a Silver Stevie Award for Best FinTech Solution in The 2023 American Business Awards^®.

Interested in entering The 2024 American Business Awards^®?

Stevie-winner BB Imaging is a large independent provider of high-risk obstetrical ultrasound.

BB Imaging was founded in 2005 to bring high-quality, compassionate, and complete ultrasound care to patients across a spectrum of needs. Through the development of working relationships with healthcare providers, BB Imaging services patients in a variety of settings and circumstances, including rural locations across Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Florida, Washington, Virginia, and Texas.

BB Imaging’s mission is to improve health outcomes by making high-quality ultrasound services accessible to all women regardless of their zip code or economic status. To do this, they partner with physicians, clinics, and hospitals to provide full-service, turnkey ultrasound departments that provide the highest level of ultrasound care and diagnostic accuracy.

They also developed TeleScan^®, a SaaS offering that brings expert sonography care to even the remotest of locations. Teleultrasound, or telesonography, refers to the use of telemedicine technology to perform and analyze ultrasounds remotely. A healthcare professional in one location performs the exam, and a telesonographer in another location provides diagnostics and a preliminary report. The report will be passed to a provider, who relays results to the patient.

TeleScan is focused on high-risk obstetrical care. While remote ultrasound solutions exist for cardiovascular care, the complexity of scanning a "body inside of a body" has garnered few competitors. Even fewer competitors have solved for the complexity of maternal-fetal ultrasound, the sonographer shortage, and the accessibility of equipment.

Both these care models connect underserved or understaffed areas with expert sonographers, flex to meet patient demand, and improve patient outcomes through early detection. Both models also rely on partnerships with physicians, clinics, and hospitals.

Seventeen years ago, their journey began with a single obstetrician. Starting services in Austin, Texas, in 2006, they have since expanded. In 2013, they ventured into the Indian Health System in Oklahoma, later adding Kansas and Missouri in 2019. Recently, New Mexico joined the list, and they then expanded into four new states: Florida, Washington, Oregon, and Virginia.

In July 2022, Sonoquick, a cardiac ultrasound service provider, partnered with BB Imaging. They have since added expert cardiac sonographers to the Texas team. This exponential growth positions BB Imaging as a prominent independent provider of high-risk obstetrical ultrasound services on a national scale.

BB Imaging won a Silver Stevie^® Award for Minority-Owned Business of the Year in The 2023 American Business Awards^®.

Interested in entering The 2024 American Business Awards^®?

Stevie-winner 5W Public Relations (5WPR), based in New York City, is a full-service public relations (PR) agency renowned for its comprehensive and results-driven approach.

Specializing in strategic communications, the agency covers a wide spectrum of industries, including consumer goods, technology, healthcare, beauty, lifestyle, and more. With a commitment to delivering impactful campaigns, 5WPR leverages its expertise in media relations, influencer marketing, digital strategy, and event planning to craft compelling narratives that resonate with target audiences.

The agency prides itself on its ability to navigate the ever-evolving media landscape, securing placements in top-tier outlets and effectively managing crisis communications when needed.

Boasting a client-centric philosophy, 5WPR tailors its strategies to meet the unique needs and goals of each client, ensuring a customized and dynamic approach to PR that drives brand visibility, enhances reputation, and ultimately contributes to business success.

As an employer, 5W believes in the power of giving back to the communities in which we live and work. They encourage and support employees in their philanthropic efforts by providing PTO specifically to volunteer, as well as matching monetary donations to a variety of charities.

Through their 5W University training program, they also strive to ensure employees are always learning and growing, from enhancing PR skills to leadership development. Senior leaders guide employees at all levels through a range of training sessions.

Nurturing Tomorrow's Leaders
5WPR Co-CEO Matthew Caiola has been a driving force since joining the agency—especially since 2021—transforming 5WPR, alongside Co-CEO Dara Busch, into a company built for the future with significant strides in Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DE&I) in workplace culture, employee benefits, and career support.

Matthew quickly moved through the ranks, and after 13 years, was promoted to Co-CEO in February 2022, making him the youngest CEO of a Top 10 PR agency in the United States. Matthew has been a key leader of teams responsible for the reputation of some of the most sophisticated companies and visible public figures in the world, along with emerging brands and technologies.

A hallmark of Matthew’s career has been leading and scaling teams. As he progressed quickly through the staff ranks into leadership, Matt took over 5WPR’s emerging technology practice, leading that team to 50%+ growth each year, for three years. As a result, 5W attracted marquee brands like Amazon, Samsung, and VIZIO.

Matt has spearheaded numerous initiatives to enhance 5W's commitment to DE&I. These efforts include forging recruiting partnerships with Historically Black Colleges and Universities, establishing a DE&I staff committee to assess 5W's performance, revamping the approved-vendor list to include minority and women-owned businesses, elevating the charitable donation match for DE&I-focused causes, and introducing a new leadership role within the company for Head of People & Culture to drive further transformation.

5WPR won a Gold and Bronze Stevie Awards for Best Communications or PR Campaign of the Year - Marketing – Consumer Products; Public Relations Agency of the Year; and 5WPR's Matthew Caiola won a Silver Stevie Award for Best Communications, Investor Relations, or PR Executive of the Year in The 2023 American Business Awards^®.

Interested in entering The 2024 American Business Awards^®?

Headquartered in New York, NY, Stevie Award-winner LivePerson is a global technology company that develops conversational commerce and AI software. Their software enables businesses to engage with their customers in real time through various channels such as messaging, chat, and voice. Customers can easily reach out to companies through these channels, and businesses can respond to them in real time.

LivePerson’s Conversational Cloud helps brands of all kinds make Conversational AI the digital “front door”: their first point of contact with customers, setting the tone for their entire relationship. Essentially replacing in-store greeters, these virtual assistants and automation not only welcome and start customers down the path to what they need but often solve problems outright or even convince them to purchase more. And just as the best salespeople know when to go to managers, they seamlessly escalate to human counterparts as needed.

LivePerson makes life easier for people and brands everywhere through this Conversational AI. Its products empower consumers to stop wasting time on hold or on websites and, instead, message their favorite brands just as they do with friends and family. LivePerson has 1,200 employees globally and serves over 18,000 customers, including leading brands like HSBC, Orange, and The Home Depot.

Making AI More Than a Buzzword
In 1995, the company invented online chat for brands, disrupting communication by removing the need for 1-800 numbers, hold times, and endlessly scanning websites. Later, the company made it easy for consumers to connect with brands on their own time on their favorite messaging platforms, then introduced Conversational AI to automate these conversations, making massive scale possible while still providing outstanding experiences.

Enterprise brands across the globe now use LivePerson’s AI-powered customer engagement solutions to have conversations with millions of consumers as personally as they would with one. With LivePerson, brands have reduced customer care costs by up to 50% and increased annual sales by hundreds of millions of dollars.

2022 was a year of massive AI hype and customer experience (CX) failures. Consumers saw both the chaos that ensues when brands don’t keep up (e.g., Southwest Airlines’ holiday debacle) and the promise of AI to make better experiences (e.g., ChatGPT’s mind-blowing text generation). But between the CX fails and overblown prognostications about AI taking over, LivePerson delivered actual business outcomes that improved real life for brands, agents, and customers.

To keep on the bleeding edge, LivePerson’s team pioneered new AI capabilities that deliver and automate even more meaningful, natural-feeling conversations. These innovations drive the state-of-the-art in Conversational AI forward by improving bot and agent performance, boosting customer engagement, and accelerating time to value — all while cutting costs.

For example, Repeat Intent Rate better measures modern ways of delivering CX, replacing outdated metrics built around human-to-human interactions on legacy channels. This is a leap forward in measuring how brands use AI, like the leap from measuring a newspaper's print circulation to measuring digital performance.

Significant 2022 enhancements and integrations making their platform more potent than ever included:

• AI Search: immediately answers questions without escalating to humans, right out of the box
• On-Demand Recommendations: helps human agents quickly find better answers and bots
• "Small Talk": brings more human feeling to automated conversations
• Repeat Intent Rate: analyzes customer inquiries to identify opportunities for automation and optimization
• Integration Hub: a central place to discover, activate, and optimize thousands of LivePerson integrations through a self-service, no-code interface
• Sales Attribution: credits cross-channel sales to agents or bots who participated in conversations
• Integrations with Afiniti, Cisco, and Celonis to better match agents to customers, extend LivePerson’s CRM integrations into new channels, and combine process and conversational data.

Generating these business results is only possible with deep partnerships with brands, proper integration into their back-end systems, and the data and expertise underpinning outcomes-oriented AI.

Unlike simple chatbot providers that handle superficial cases and language generators like ChatGPT, which pull information from the public internet, LivePerson’s AI is laser-focused on improving conversations between brands and consumers. It is built upon a historical record of billions of CX conversations, with an additional ~1 billion conversational interactions added monthly.

Among the Global Fortune 500, LivePerson now counts 55% of telcos, 25% of retailers, 50% of airlines, 31% of banks, and 40% of technology companies as customers. While Gartner predicts chatbots will become the primary customer service for ~25% of organizations by 2027, LivePerson clients are well ahead, with many already running 40%+ of contact center volume through its platform. This puts LivePerson at Tier 1 partner status.

Since its inception, pioneering the invention of web chat for brands, LivePerson has continually pushed the limits of human and computer connection. Its AI innovations have been recognized by the world's leading awards and recognition programs for customer care, sales, marketing, and technology.

LivePerson won two Gold Stevie Awards for Sales or Customer Service Solutions Technology Partner of the Year and Best New Version of a Contact Center Solution in the 2023 Stevie® Awards for Sales & Customer Service.

Interested in entering the 2024 Stevie® Awards for Sales & Customer Service? 

Stevie-winner Legal Resources is a legal services provider in the employee benefits space. Legal Resources offers an exclusive network of local primary care law firms to assist employees with all life's legal matters. Legal Resources has been the leading provider and administrator of group legal services for almost 30 years.

Their Business Development team is comprised of Executives, Sales, and Marketing leaders. As a joint effort, these team members collaborate, develop, and deploy strategies that are essential to continual growth in the market. Since the legal services industry remains a niche in nature, unique and effective approaches to product and service creation and marketing are a must; therefore, their marketing and sales strategies are generated in-house.

The Business Development team targets partners like employee benefits consultants, and plan administrators (typically Human Resources professionals) at mid- to large-sized organizations. For growth, the Business Development team markets to multiple channels: benefit consultants to recommend them to their clients, Human Resource professionals to offer their benefit to their workforce, and, eventually, employees to enroll in the plan via payroll deduction.

Increased Growth and Rates of Retention
In response to COVID-19, the Legal Resources Business Development team created and deployed multiple strategies that yielded incredibly favorable growth and retention results. For example, in June 2020 Legal Resources created and launched a Guidance and Assistance program that was open to all of their clients’ employee populations, not just members.

This program offered unlimited guidance and assistance with their Certified Paralegals regarding lifestyle matters; for example, dealing with identity theft, how to file a consumer complaint with the Attorney General’s office, getting in touch with a law firm to get essential documents executed, etc.

Additional projects deployed were centered on education to provide a value add for all growth channels. For example, they created mini seminars that were held virtually and touched on COVID-19-related challenges and how to address them; like consumer issues, COVID-19 scams (like vaccine and employment scams), and information on essential legal documents (like medical directives and power of attorneys).

The Business Development team also executed valuable forecasting on COVID-19 impacts and compiled those forecasts in a COVID-19 Impact newsletter that was sent out to broker partners and clients to be deployed to their workforces. For instance, their team forecasted that the courts being shut down for a period would result in a tremendous backlog in non-emergency hearings and would significantly delay resolutions for open family law cases.

Results
Through collaboration, research, and strategizing as a team, the Legal Resources Business Development team was able to position its products and services strategically; that is, in lieu of being viewed as an expense during an uncertain time, Legal Resources instead positioned itself as a necessary tool that provided peace of mind. The approach was well received.

Providing broker partners and clients with invaluable resources during the thick of the pandemic not only reinforced Legal Resources’ value as an existing partner and vendor but also yielded an 8.6% increase in net membership, which was double the increase from the prior year.

Brokers were happy to be able to forward forecasting information to their clients, helping them reinforce their value and perception of being plugged in. The increase in proposal requests from broker partners soared compared to years prior, validating that their business development efforts were successful with existing and prospective broker partners. Another benefit to their business development response to COVID-19 was clients’ renewed interest in educating their workforces about Legal Resources' plans and services.

Legal Resources won a Gold Stevie Award for Most Valuable Response by a Business Development Team in the 2023 Stevie® Awards for Sales & Customer Service.

Interested in entering the 2024 Stevie® Awards for Sales & Customer Service? 

Stevie-winner Pronto Marketing is a WordPress management agency for ambitious businesses around the world. From WordPress builds, maintenance, and support, to SEO and Google Ads services, Pronto offers a full-service approach to getting clients' websites and online marketing presence into high gear.

Founded in 2008, American-owned, and based in Thailand and the Philippines, they have a team of over 100 developers, designers, copywriters, SEO, advertising, and customer support specialists.

Pronto Website Support Team
Pronto provides a variety of website and marketing services to small businesses throughout the world, but their core offering is their Website Support service. In this service, clients pay a monthly fee to receive unlimited access to Website Support team of project managers, support specialists, developers, designers, and copywriters.

They currently manage over 1,200 websites and the Support Team handles between 1,500 to 2,000 support requests per month. These requests range from small tasks such as replacing an image on a client's homepage to very large tasks like writing, designing, and developing a new landing page from scratch.

Despite handling such a large volume and variety of requests, the Support Team has historically been able to send a first response to clients in less than eight business hours, and the team and their work is well-liked by customers, with an average ticket satisfaction rating of 98% and an NPS that typically hovers in the mid-40s.

In the summer of 2020, their Support Team was overwhelmed by incoming tickets. Unfortunately, this resulted in their response time to growing exponentially. Clients were sometimes waiting multiple days to get an initial response, which, of course, also led to a decrease in client satisfaction.

Throughout the remainder of 2020 as well as 2021, the Support Team worked through a series of improvements which included restructuring the team, creating new standard operating procedures for common requests, and perhaps most importantly, adding a night shift to handle requests 24x7.

Today, their average first-response time is under five hours, and first-response time for requests marked as "urgent" is typically less than 20 minutes.

There are two aspects to this improvement that make it significant. First is the magnitude of change. Reducing their first-reply time on all tickets by 80% and by 98% on urgent tickets is an absolutely massive improvement. Over the past six months, they have regularly gotten messages from clients on the improvement and how happy they are. 

Second is the consistency of the improvement. This wasn't a one-time project to improve response time during an emergency, but rather an ongoing series of projects to improve the ability to support clients in the long run. Faster response times have been sustained over the past several months.

Pronto Marketing won a Bronze Stevie^® Award for Customer Service Team of the Year - Recovery Situation - Business Services Industries in the 2023 Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service.

Interested in entering the 2024 Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service?

Stevie-winner Belkins Agency was forged on a common idea: predictable and scalable growth achieved through transparency, perseverance, experience, and creativity.

Belkins was founded by Vladyslav Podoliako and Michael Maximoff back in 2017. Shortly before, they worked together at a small product company. They both shared an extensive background in B2B sales that produced a compatible synergy and would later be transformed into an equivocal business partnership.

The start-up humbly began with Michael and Vlad generating leads for small businesses, committing 100% of their time and efforts to their "side hustle." Soon their creativity and passion paid off.

A startup blossomed into a full-scale digital marketing agency producing $10 million ARR and serving 1000 customers worldwide. In just five years, Belkins grew into the #1 ranked leading provider of lead generation and appointment-setting services despite their decision to forgo any outside investments.

Belkins has now helped 400+ clients transform their presales and sales processes. They have worked with clients from 30+ countries in 60+ niches to help them build and transform their sales workflow. The goal was not only to help companies define their ICP (ideal client profile), build a pipeline of qualified leads, and drive sales for the fastest possible ROI but to make it digital, scalable, and as predictable as possible.

Helping Business Scale Quickly
Belkins empowers businesses of any scale to grow fast through cutting-edge technologies and innovative marketing and sales solutions.

Their primary offering is lead generation and appointment-setting, but they offer much more. If they can’t find a worthy solution in the market, they create it. Since 2020 they have launched several products and a new service line. Now their clients can count on 99% inbox deliverability and a 60% increase in their email open rate using Folderly, streamline their cold outreach with Frostbite.ia, and acquire endless qualified leads using the Leadsforce service. Additionally, with Charge for Outlook, clients can seamlessly send bulk outreach, enhancing their email campaigns further. 

Over the last 12 months, their approach generated over $50 million in new sales for 200 of their clients. Furthermore, on average, the amount of new deals is $50,000 USD. From the kick-off meeting to the first email sent, they get the client’s campaign running in six days or less. The number of leads their team has generated by now is close to 5 million, and emails that reached prospects’ inboxes are about 3 million.

The technological products and services they create are tightly interconnected, creating a sort of MarTech ecosystem inside the company. This way, clients can satisfy all their needs in boosting their business growth with digital marketing and sales services from Belkins Group.

Some of the industries Belkins worked with were quite conservative prior to their partnership: solar & renewable energy, food catering, healthcare, agriculture, waste management, janitorial services, etc. As a result of partnering, clients now receive a faster-than-expected ROI, and a vault of best-kept "secrets" to generate leads by means of email outreach, LinkedIn, HubSpot, and by using dozens of data sources combined with their own proprietary software.

They say they are most proud of the cases where they’ve been able to completely transform a customer's sales process and cycle, showing their customers that digital and scalable solutions for business growth can be predictable.

Belkins won two Silvers and a Bronze Stevie^® Award including the Sales Ethics Award, Achievement in the Digital Transformation of Sales Operations, and Sales Outsourcing Provider of the Year, respectively, in the 2023 Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service.

Interested in entering the 2024 Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service?