Winners in the 13th annual Stevie® Awards for Sales & Customer Service, recognized as the world's top customer service awards and sales awards, were unveiled on Friday night at a gala ceremony in Las Vegas, NV, attended by more than 700 executives from around the world.

The complete list of Stevie Winners by category is available at http://www.StevieAwards.com/Sales.

DP DHL, with Gold, Silver, and Bronze Stevie Award wins for activities in Canada, Ecuador, Kenya, the U.S., Vietnam, and other nations, was the most honored organization this year, earning the top Grand Stevie Award trophy for the sixth consecutive year. Other Grand Stevie Award winners, in descending order, include IBM, HomeServe USA, Sales Partnerships, Inc., VIZIO Inc., Delta Vacations, ValueSelling Associates, Dell Technologies, GuideWell Connect, and Cvent.

DP DHL won 11 Gold Stevie Awards, the most in the 2019 competition among Stevie Award winners. Among other winners, winners of three Stevie Awards include: American Airlines, EFG Companies, Teleperformance D.I.B.S, and Holiday Inn Vacations. Winners of two Gold Stevie Awards are: Birevim, Bose, CarrefourSA, Chorus.ai, Comcast, Delta Defense, Employment Background Investigations, Inc., MarketBridge, Nextiva, Qurate Retail Group, RAIN Group, VXI Global Soluations, and WNS (Holdings) Limited.

Leaders among multiple winners of Gold, Silver, and Bronze Stevies include: Allianz Global Assistance, Autosoft, Inc, Cross Country Home Services, Delta Defense, Druva, Inc., Electronic Arts, First American Database Solutions, FIS, GoDaddy, iHeartMedia, Inc., John Hancock Financial Services, KT, Liveops, Mailchimp, Michael Kors, MRO Corp, Municipality and Planning Department, Nextiva, Nuance Communications, Offerpad, Overstock.com, Periscope Data, Pushpay, QNB Finansbank, Response, Rimini Street, TCL USA, TTEC, UPMC Health Plan, Visualize, Vivint Solar, VIZIO, VXI Global, Wells Fargo Treasury Management Client Delivery, and Wyndham Destinations.

Winners in the People’s Choice Stevie® Awards for Favorite Customer Service, as determined by more than 76,000 public votes were also presented at the event.

The presentations were broadcast live via Livestream and are available to watch online.

The awards are presented by the Stevie Awards, which organizes several of the world’s leading business award shows including the prestigious International Business Awards® and The American Business Awards®.

More than 2,700 nominations from organizations in 45 nations of all sizes and in virtually every industry were evaluated in this year’s competition. Winners were determined by the average scores of more than 150 professionals worldwide in seven specialized judging committees. Entries were considered in 93 categories for customer service and contact center achievements, including Contact Center of the Year, Award for Innovation in Customer Service, and Customer Service Department of the Year; 60 categories for sales and business development achievements, ranging from Senior Sales Executive of the Year to Sales Training or Business Development Executive of the Year to Sales Department of the Year; and categories to recognize new products and services and solution providers.

About the Stevie Awards
Stevie Awards are conferred in seven programs: the Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards, the German Stevie Awards, The American Business Awards®, The International Business Awards®, the Stevie Awards for Great Employers, the Stevie Awards for Women in Business, and the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. Stevie Awards competitions receive more than 12,000 entries each year from organizations in more than 70 nations. Honoring organizations of all types and sizes and the people behind them, the Stevies recognize outstanding performances in the workplace worldwide. Learn more about the Stevie Awards at www.StevieAwards.com.

Sponsors and supporters of the 13th annual Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service include HCL Financial Services, Sales Partnerships, Inc. and ValueSelling Associates, Inc.

The last few years have seen a spread of digitalization and a subsequent disruption of nearly every corner of the economy. However, vintage clothes and consumer products have been on the rise. As Western economies and professional mind-sets became increasingly future oriented, popular culture and trends simultaneously became more concerned with the styles of bygone eras. Furthermore, some consumer products that embodied this age of rapidly accelerating digitalization—arguably, Apple devices—were seemingly inspired by the simple elegance of consumer products from past eras.

In a time of rapid progress, simplicity is at the heart of this attraction to all things vintage. Professional lives are growing ever more demanding; industries are becoming more complex and are changing at an increasing pace; and the same is true of the skill sets required of workers, as well as the tools available to them. Even as the tech-driven post-crisis recovery saw unemployment eventually decline dramatically across the West, fears about job security were exacerbated, not alleviated.

While politicians grabbed the headlines, this nostalgia for simpler days was expressed in a primarily aesthetic manner. Individual items of retro clothing, including fedoras, were imbued in their day with controversial political meaning. Today, however, most consumers simply associate those bygone eras with personal style and culture, and they prefer to think of items from the past as culturally (rather than politically or socioeconomically) historical. Widespread interest in the social upheavals of the 1960s, for example, continues, but that interest is still mainly manifested through a fascination with the era’s music and fashion.

Adapting to this trend was easy even for the makers of high-tech consumer products, who simply had to cover their innovative technologies in vintage-looking cases. For service providers, such as marketing specialists, marrying a tech-based, innovative approach to vintage style proved more difficult. After all, advertising and marketing characters are more difficult to dissociate from their broader historical contexts than consumer products.

For these service providers, they soon found choosing an era to focus on was a delicate balancing act. A vintage approach to marketing events and campaigns required careful, detailed deliberation. As with consumer products, the idea is to use an appealing vintage look and feel that harks back to an earlier age but conceals the decades of development and insights gained under that veneer.

Such a concept has to be created from the ground up, as exemplified by the vintage “Lady Betty” brand from Chili Concept. Chili Concept is a blue-chip marketing company with an eye on digitalization and innovation, which was demonstrated by their 2018 Gold Stevie® Award for Best Product Launch Event and 2018 Bronze Stevie Award and Best Brand Experience Event in the German Stevie Awards. The company won for its work with celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal and the launch of his Shriro Everdure barbecue grill in Australia.

The company is future-oriented, and founder Christine Clemenz is aware of the significance of digitalization. Chili Concept is also evidently capable of contemporary direction and program management at the highest level. This makes their unique Lady Betty brand all the more noteworthy.

The brand places a heavy emphasis on sound, using primarily German swing and German-language pop music to evoke that country’s economic miracle era from the late 1940s and 1950s. The era is expertly chosen.

While the 1950s are remembered in the Anglosphere as the pre-60s era of social repression, those years are mostly remembered in Germany for a rapid ascendance from the country’s bleakest political and socioeconomic phase. Lady Betty encapsulates both the era’s style and entertainment while it conducts complex, tailored events, such as “Lady Betty’s Evening of Dance.” This included casino-like events and tastings of different foods considered treats during that time, including the obvious candidates, cheese and wine, as well as beer and lemonade.

All these items were recently marketed by their industries as fresh and interesting rather than staid and boring. With small-batch craft beers becoming increasingly popular in recent years, this approach exemplifies how marketing events can be both vintage in outlook and perfectly attuned to contemporary trends, as well as high-level corporate expectations and standards.

 By all outward appearances, Jeanne Allert had everything going for her in the mid-2000s: a successful career as an internet consultant, an elegant home, and a sizable income. Inside, however, she remembers feeling an emptiness.

“I reached a point in my life where I said, ‘Is this all there is?’” Allert recalls in an online video.

Little did the American businesswomen know her life would forever change when she met a group of volunteers who were performing outreach to women caught up in prostitution. It was there, on the streets of Baltimore, Maryland, United States, that Allert saw the magnitude of the sexual exploitation crisis—and the power of a helping hand.

One particular victim moved Allert so deeply that, in 2007, Allert decided to launch the Samaritan Women, the mid-Atlantic region’s first residential care program for females ensnared in the domestic sex trafficking industry. It meant selling her lucrative business, putting her home on the market, and dipping into her savings to buy an abandoned 23-acre estate in Baltimore, Maryland, United States.

The organization started providing around-the-clock shelter, counseling, and medical care to women and girls who had been coerced into prostitution or other forms of sexual exploitation. As a Christian-based entity, it also began fostering spiritual healing in its residents, many of whom were suffering emotional trauma as a result of their experiences on the street.

Allert says the people who work at the homes often serve as the positive role models who have been lacking in the residents’ lives.

“When we show forgiveness, grace, and compassion, the women are observing our behavior,” says Allert.

According to Shared Hope International, girls as young as 14 to 16 are among the most commonly exploited. Traffickers prey on the most vulnerable, including those who have suffered child abuse or grew up in broken homes. They often find their victims through social media platforms and internet sites, as well as at schools and local hangouts.

Traffickers then offer the girls false promises of shelter and protection; instead, these girls face a cycle of physical and emotional abuse. By one estimate, roughly 100,000 American children are exploited in this manner every year. While getting accurate data is always difficult, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime makes it clear that sex trafficking is very much a global problem.

“People in all walks of life know that freedom is a basic human right, and human trafficking is modern-day slavery,” says Linda Thomas, a spokeswoman for the Samaritan Women.

Addressing a Shortage in Care

Despite the enormity of the problem in the United States, Thomas says 17 states don’t have a single shelter program to serve this population. Another 11 states have only one residence. Allert, who earned the 2018 Silver Stevie® Award for Most Innovative Woman of the Year in the Stevie Awards for Women in Business, is trying to fill that vacuum.

She and her team opened up two more homes for trafficking victims, enabling the group to create a full continuum of care for young women. Though limits exist to how many people the organization can impact directly, it’s trying to help other nonprofits meet this need across the country.

Toward that end, the group created the National Trafficking Sheltered Alliance, which serves as a trade association for shelter programs across the country. Its goal is to improve the effectiveness of shelter care nationally through advocacy, networking, agency accreditation, and an annual conference.

Another new initiative, the Institute for Shelter Care, serves as a research, training, and equipping entity to help establish new shelter programs, to stabilize and to improve current programs, and to facilitate qualified research in order to advance national standards of care and best practices.

“Human trafficking is a problem both internationally and domestically,” says Thomas. “We have only scratched the surface of providing care and healing for victims across the world.”

Winners of the 2019 People's Choice Stevie® Awards for Favorite Customer Service, a worldwide public vote, were announced today.  Voting was conducted from January 17 through February 8, with the highest number of votes deciding the winners in 12 industry categories. More than 76,000 votes were cast this year.

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 Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service, now in their 13^th year, are the world’s top honors for customer service, contact center, business development, and sales professionals.

More than 2,700 nominations from organizations of all sizes, in virtually every industry, in 45 nations were evaluated in this year’s competition. Finalists were determined by the average scores of more than 150 professionals worldwide in seven specialized judging committees and were announced last month.

This year’s people’s choice winners, who will each receive the coveted crystal People’s Choice Stevie Award, are:

• Computer Hardware: Dell Technologies | APJ Consumer - Premium Tech Support
• Computer Services: Linode
• Consumer Products/Services: Birevim
• Distribution & Transportation: DHL Express Bangladesh
• Financial Services: ReSource Pro
• Healthcare & Pharma: TSI Healthcare
• Other Industries: CubeSmart
• Public Services & Education: Curriculum Associates
• Retail: Qurate Retail Group
• Software < 100 Employees: Bonfire
• Software 100+ Employees: Periscope Data
• Telecommunications: Comcast
  
  Nicknamed the Stevie® for the Greek word “crowned,” the awards will be presented to winners at the 13^th annual Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service awards banquet on Friday, February 22 at Caesar’s Palace Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. Tickets for the event are now on sale. More than 600 executives from around the world are expected to attend.  The presentations will be broadcast live via Livestream

About the Stevie Awards
Stevie Awards are conferred in seven programs: the Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards, the German Stevie Awards, The American Business Awards®, The International Business Awards®, the Stevie Awards for Great Employers, the Stevie Awards for Women in Business and the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. Stevie Awards competitions receive more than 12,000 entries each year from organizations in more than 70 nations. Honoring organizations of all types and sizes and the people behind them, the Stevies recognize outstanding performances in the workplace worldwide. Learn more about the Stevie Awards at www.StevieAwards.com.

Sponsors of the 13th annual Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service include Sales Partnerships, Inc. and ValueSelling Associates, Inc.

After raising more than $40 million in January during a series D funding round led by Al Fahim Group, a Berlin, Germany-based, automotive and travel conglomerate, 2018 was going to be a make-or-break year for Blacklane GmbH as it continued its expansion.

Jens Wohltorf, CEO and co-founder of Blacklane, highlighted the high-end chauffeur service’s vision and ambitions, declaring that “this investment accelerates Blacklane’s ability to bring end-to-end peace of mind onto the road and into airports around the world.”

Blacklane GmbH is taking an alternative approach to capital-intensive transportation start-ups, such as Uber and Didi. While those companies target growth and demonstrate scant regard for losses, Blacklane aims to create a highly efficient back-end system for managing rides and customer care. The system is a proven success, winning a 2018 Gold Stevie® Award for Technology of the Year. The system will ultimately allow Blacklane to beat its competitors on utilization rates and, therefore, prices.

While its funding levels and recorded losses pale in comparison to larger rivals, frugality and efficiency are of great importance in its domestic German market. By emphasizing these characteristics, Blacklane offers an attractive alternative to investors who are eager to give money in the transport innovation sector but are wary of the all-or-nothing strategies of other start-ups.

With its emphasis on ensuring sustainable growth, investors expected tangible deals and value-adding investments from Blacklane. The company delivered on this while demonstrating its potential. It earned the aforementioned Gold Stevie Award for its back-end technology, as well as a Gold Stevie Award for Transportation Company of the Year and a Bronze Stevie Award for its carbon-offset program in the Corporate Social Responsibility category in April. The company, however, did not simply rest on its laurels. In May, Blacklane announced its integration with the SummitLink booking tool provided by SummitQwest. This put Blacklane at the disposal of the platform’s corporate clients, who even have the option to choose it as a preferred service provider.

The company’s official goal for 2018 was to expand its services to 300 cities worldwide. It achieved this in early September when 32 more cities were added to its roster. According to Blacklane representatives, Limerick, Ireland, became the 300th city the company served. The remaining 31 cities were located in countries all over the globe, including France, Germany, Switzerland, India, Japan, and Malaysia. The careful selection of targeted regions again speaks to the company’s discerning approach, underscoring that Blacklane enters markets suited to its service rather than entering them simply to boost growth rates.

An August announcement swiftly followed wherein Blacklane introduced a “Green Class” to its services. Tesla BEVs became available for booking in 20 cities the company covers, including locations in North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.

“We welcome battery-electric, chauffeur-quality vehicles from all premium automakers to our fleet,” Wohltorf says. “Supporting business and leisure travelers with green travel options is essential to a healthy planet.”

While unlikely to generate significant extra revenue alone, the availability of a green option is of great importance to the company’s reputation in its domestic market, as well as any other markets that value environmental sustainability. As more people and countries grow concerned about the impact of climate change, a green transition is inevitable. By considering environmental concerns early on, Blacklane puts itself in a prime position to take advantage once that tipping point is reached in any given market.

In November, Blacklane then reached an agreement with the Shangri-La, an Asian luxury hotel chain. The agreement stipulated that members of the hotel chain’s Golden Circle loyalty program would receive incentives, including fare discounts and extra loyalty points for using Blacklane. This news coincided with the announcement that Blacklane opened an office in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Following the significant investment made by the Al Fahim Group in January, Blacklane then announced Emirates Airlines had selected Blacklane to provide its complimentary chauffeur service to first-class and business-class passengers in Bangalore, India; Bologna, Italy; Chennai, India; Delhi, India; Hyderabad, India; Milan, Italy; Mumbai, India; Rome, Italy; Stockholm, Sweden; and Venice, Italy. Both deals seem likely to give a significant boost to the company’s revenue.

In reflection, 2018 was a very successful year for the multiple-Stevie-Award-winning company. The funds raised at the beginning of the year were deployed gradually and strategically, and the company rigorously followed its strategy of sustainable growth. Investors are happy to see the funds allocated to Blacklane are being used to grow revenue and market presence, as well as to bolster the company’s green credentials. It remains to be seen whether Blacklane can manage to reduce its losses—or even to turn a profit—in 2018, let alone gain the upper hand over its larger competitors.

However, by seeking to differentiate itself from and to improve upon their rivals’ business models and by consistently pursuing its strategy of sustainable growth, day-one efficiency, and strategic partnerships, Blacklane certainly created an impressive foundation upon which it can build.

With the influx of electric car companies, automobile functionality and design are finally becoming smarter, but are car-related rules and regulations keeping up? Artificial intelligence capabilities are migrating from our phones and finding new ways to be helpful behind the steering wheel, but these advances in computers, sensors, and software mean legislation needs to address new problems and situations. Simply put, these laws must provide a more nuanced and modern take on what today’s drivers need.

Automobile Club d’Italia (ACI) is a public institution dedicated to promoting and safeguarding the interests of Italian motorists. They carry out their mission to promote road safety, to act for a sustainable mobility, and to support and to develop motorsports by enhancing their positive attributes. The company also aims for all Italian citizens to have equal access to mobility-related services. To that end, they provide the necessary support to ensure social programs are never negatively affected by any kind of private profit.

Over 100 Years of Service

ACI and motorists want new measures aimed primarily at eliminating older and obsolete vehicles. This will contribute to decreased pollution, as well as less vehicular accidents (in number and severity).

Luckily, ACI is a governmental institution. Ludovico Fois, the external relations and institutional affairs advisor at ACI, speaks to that.

“It’s our duty to provide all citizens with proper, correct information and assistance concerning all mobility-related matters, regardless of the interests from various business players.”

ACI has been working for mobile Italian citizens for over 100 years, guiding and assisting Italian motorists, as well as supporting the development of a new mobility culture. As a result, Italian road users recognize ACI as their reference point for many mobility-connected matters.

“Public policy considerations clearly guide all our activities, and we commit ourselves to establishing a concept of mobility that’s smart, sustainable, accessible, and inclusive.”

Electric Challenges

Intelligent transport systems and services, digital applications, electric-powered engines, and a litany of unforeseen changes all look to contribute to future mobility challenges. Deep technological changes in the automotive sector will require more dynamic, rational, flexible, and environmentally friendly responses to sustain this new mobility culture.

ACI spent years creating a wide network of field offices, acting as a model for other companies looking to create concrete change through legislative bodies. They eventually covered the entire national territory and had a main office based in Rome, Italy. This led to widespread cooperation with governmental Italian institutions, trade associations, and European organizations, a critical synergy for progress.

ACI also organizes a wide range of activities, including road safety and driver education classes, roadside assistance, vehicle paperwork, traffic information services, and motorsport events. The breadth of offerings is indicative of the complex needs of the industry which will have to be monitored as the technologies evolve.

Just like ride-sharing companies, such as Uber and Lyft, and countless tech firms trying to eliminate or to mitigate driving-related annoyances with new technological advances, ACI is traversing this wild west of mobility. For their campaign to promote a new mobility culture, ACI won a Bronze Stevie for Communications or PR Campaign of the Year in The International Business Awards®.

“We’ve worked very hard to achieve a deep culture shift, and we’ve definitely learned it needs the generalized involvement of decision makers, designers, and technicians, as well as road users.”

The nomination window for the 2019 (13^th annual) Stevie® Awards for Sales & Customer Service has closed, but one special category sponsored by Sales Partnerships will continue to accept nominations through February 1.

The Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service are recognized as the world’s top honors for business development, customer service, and sales professionals.  Sales Partnerships, Inc., which provides turnkey, outsourced selling solutions and is a sponsor of the awards for the fourth consecutive year, is sponsoring a category called the Sales Partnerships Award for Ethics in Sales. 

There is no entry fee for nominations to this category, which will be accepted through February 1.  The category recognizes organizations for best practices and achievements in demonstrating the highest ethical standards in the sales industry. Entrants can submit specific examples, case studies, practices, etc. that illustrate why the organization being nominated should be considered an excellent example of best practices in sales. This award is based on activities over the past five years (since July 2013). 

Sales Partnerships’ founder and CEO Fred Kessler says, “The Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service has grown to be the premier honor for sales professionals worldwide, and it’s proven to be an outstanding platform on which Sales Partnerships can interact with sales leaders in a wide variety of industries.  When we were approached about sponsoring an award for ethics in sales – we immediately accepted. The Sales Partnerships’ Award for Ethics in Sales recognizes companies which, like us, understand that being the best performing sales force also means having an uncompromising focus on selling ethically.”

Submission requirements for nominations to this category include a written essay of up to 650 words, plus any number of supporting materials to provide additional information to the judges.  To submit nominations to this category, nominees should first create an entry-submission account on the awards website, then email their nominations to help@stevieawards.com.

Nominations in the category will be judged the week of February 4 by members of the awards’ Sales Individual & Sales Team jury, and its Finalists announced the week of February 11.

Finalists in all other categories in the program were announced on January 17.

Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie Award placements from among the Finalists in all categories will be revealed at the program’s 13^th annual awards gala on Friday, February 22 at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. Finalists are not required to attend in order to win.

Sponsors of the 13th annual Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service include Sales Partnerships, Inc. and ValueSelling Associates, Inc.

For older businesses that began in the pre-digital era, there’s a race to get up to speed technologically to meet new security and regulatory standards in a data-driven world. Regardless of the service offering, a company needs to design and implement innovation that helps that organization reach its full potential and profits.  

Accedia is a professional IT services company that specializes in technology consulting, software development outsourcing, and development of end-to-end IT solutions for businesses across the globe.   The company’s aspiration is to be a leading IT solutions company where technology experts are inspired to create.

Yana Doshkova, the marketing manager for Accedia, details how much growth the Bulgaria-based firm has seen since they started in 2015.   “Since its establishment, the company has grown to a team of more than 150 people, and it has achieved 388% revenue growth from 2015 to 2017. In August 2018, Accedia also moved into a new office, which has opened so many doors for us.

We’ve doubled the team’s size and implemented a number of new initiatives. The company’s vision for the future is to keep up the fast-paced development, expand in to new locations, and launch its own software solution to help businesses excel in the technology ecosystem.”   They also take part in interactive nature groups, which inspire various kinds of team growth, including developing advanced technology expertise, cultivating product-to-market knowledge, and unleashing analytical and leadership potential.  

What Does It Take?  

Regardless of the company, sector, or industry, maintaining a business focus that supports the organization's values can drive progress. Although Accedia is a relatively young company, its success speaks volumes about how professionally mature it is. Accedia shared six characteristics that they believe are the best predictors of how successful teams or individuals will be:  

1. Reaches for the stars. Strives for continuous personal and professional improvement.

2. Enjoys variety at work. Involves oneself in a sea of different tasks and      responsibilities.

3. Takes initiative. Brings game-changing ideas to the table.

4. Adapts quickly. Jumps headfirst into the unfamiliar without hesitation or fear.

5. Shares know-how willingly. Eagerly shares the exciting things learned.

6. Is always up for a beer. Prizes being friendly and making social connections, whatever the circumstance. Whichever sector you work in, building your career on these tenets will provide you with a solid foundation.

Striving for continuous personal and professional improvement, for example, can help employers notice you, as well as inspire fellow employees to work harder.   Driven by these ideals, Accedia won the Silver Stevie® Award for Company of the Year in Computer Software in The International Business Awards.

Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie® Winners to Be Announced in Las Vegas on February 22

Finalists in the 13th Annual Stevie® Awards for Sales & Customer Service, an international competition recognizing excellence in disciplines that are crucial to business success, were announced today.    

A diverse group of organizations and individuals around the world are among those recognized in the customer service awards, contact center awards, business development awards, and sales awards categories. Organizations with five or more Finalist nominations include Allianz Global Assistance (Richmond, VA USA), Birevim (Istanbul, Turkey), Chorus.ai (San Francisco, CA USA), Comcast (Philadelphia, PA USA), Cross Country Home Services (Fort Lauderdale, FL USA), Cvent Inc (McLean, VA USA), Dell Technologies (Roundrock, TX USA), Delta Vacations (Minot, ND USA), DHL Express Vietnam (Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam) DHL Express Bangladesh (Dhaka, Bangladesh), DHL Express South Africa (Johannesburg, South Africa), DHL Express Kenya (Nairobi, Kenya), Druva Inc. (Sunnyvale, CA USA), EFG Companies (Irving, TX USA), Electronic Arts (Austin, TX USA), FIS (Jacksonville, FL USA), GoDaddy (Scottsdale, AZ USA), GuideWell Connect (Jacksonville, FL), Holiday Inn Club Vacations (Orlando, FL USA), HomeServe USA (Norwalk, CT USA), IBM (Armonk, NY USA), John Hancock Financial Services (Boston, MA USA), Offerpad (Gilbert, AZ USA), Response (Lindon, UT USA), Rimini Street, Inc. (Las Vegas, NV USA), Sales Partnerships, Inc. (Broomfield, CO USA), TCL USA (Corona, CA USA), TTEC (Englewood, CO USA), UPMC Health Plan (Pittsburgh, PA USA), ValueSelling Associates (Rancho Santa Fe, CA USA), Vivint Solar (Lehi, UT USA), VIZIO Inc. (Irvine, CA USA) Wells Fargo Merchant Services - Account Management (Concord, CA USA), WNS (Holdings) Limited (Mumbai, India), and Wyndham Destinations (Orlando, FL USA).

Visit www.StevieAwards.com/Sales for a full list of Finalists by category.

Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie Award placements from among the Finalists will be revealed during a gala banquet on Friday, February 22 at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada. Tickets are now on sale.

The awards are presented by the Stevie Awards, which organizes several of the world’s leading business awards shows including the prestigious International Business Awards® and American Business Awards®.

More than 2,700 nominations from organizations of all sizes, in virtually every industry, in 45 nations were evaluated in this year’s competition. Finalists were determined by the average scores of more than 150 professionals worldwide in seven specialized judging committees.

Entries were considered in 93 categories for customer service and contact center achievements, including Contact Center of the Year, Award for Innovation in Customer Service, and Customer Service Department of the Year; 60 categories for sales and business development achievements, ranging from Senior Sales Executive of the Year to Sales Training or Business Development Executive of the Year to Sales Department of the Year; and categories to recognize new products and services and solution providers.

Beginning today through February 8, the general public may vote for their favorite providers of customer service in the People’s Choice Stevie® Awards for Favorite Customer Service. Voting is open at http://peopleschoice.stevieawards.com. Winners of the People’s Choice Stevie Awards in multiple industries will be determined in mid-February and honored at the awards gala in Las Vegas on February 22.

One category in the awards will continue to accept entries through February 1.  It’s called the Sales Partnerships Award for Ethics in Sales, and it will recognize organizations for best practices and achievements in demonstrating the highest ethical standards in the sales industry.  Entry requirements for this category are outlined at https://stevieawards.com/sales/categories-1#SalesAchievement.  Nominations in this category will be reviewed the week of February 4, and its Finalists announce the week of February 11.

Sponsors of the 13th annual Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service include Sales Partnerships, Inc. and ValueSelling Associates, Inc.

Even early in the development process, Irish inventor Jane Ni Dhulchaointigh believed she was onto something special: a moldable glue that sticks to virtually any surface and forms a strong, rubber-like material overnight.

With the help of entrepreneur Roger Ashby, she launched FormFormForm Ltd. (based in London, England) and started marketing her flexible new product, dubbed “Sugru,” to retailers in 2009. The challenge was convincing big-box stores they needed yet another glue product on their crowded shelves.

Ni Dhulchaointigh, though, had a compelling way to show just how versatile her product was: thousands of user-generated YouTube videos and pictures on the company’s website. The company even devised a Twitter hashtag (#MySugruFix) for customers to share their creative solutions.

There’s the homeowner who resealed his torn swimming pool liner, the guy who fixed his tattered laptop charger, and even an adventurer who used the silicone-based glue on his ski poles during a trek in the Arctic Circle. In one case, a motorcycle enthusiast used Sugru to stick a camera on his helmet, which he used to film his journey on the open road. To stimulate participation, the company provides discounts to the most impressive social media submissions.

The uniqueness of the product—a pliable glue that can withstand moisture and extreme temperatures and cling to any number of surfaces—was a powerful selling point, but the social media strategy helped showcase Sugru’s usefulness in tackling a broad range of everyday projects. What’s more, it created much-needed buzz around the adhesive during its start-up phase.

Over the past few years, the company’s customer base has swelled. To date, the company has sold more than 14 million single-use packs of Sugru to people in over 175 countries and territories worldwide. Time magazine went so far as to include it on their “50 Best Inventions of 2010” list (12 spots ahead of the iPad.)

“Start Small, and Make It Good”

The idea for Sugru dates back to 2003, when Ni Dhulchaointigh was working toward a master’s degree in product design at the Royal College of Art in London, England. Rather than attempting to develop a whole new product, she decided to work on something that could extend the lives of things people already owned.

Her first prototype for a moldable glue—a substance she describes as foul smelling and slimy—was well short of the mark. She was convinced, however, the idea itself was valuable.

“I knew that by tapping into people’s innate creativity, all kinds of products could be fixed and reimagined,” she writes.

In addition to hiring Ashby, she enlisted two former Dow Corning scientists who served as consultants on her project. Ni Dhulchaointigh set up a small lab to help refine the formula, and she relied on family and friends to provide real-world feedback.

“The company motto has always been to start small and to make it good,” she says.

In 2009, she offered samples to several journalists. When one of them gave the product a glowing review on a popular U.K. news site, it turned the company’s fortunes around immediately. The first product run sold out in a mere six hours. More importantly, she and her business partner, Ashby, started to gain interest from investors who could help them ramp up the operation.

Eventually, the company won over product buyers from national chains, such as Target and the Container Store, moving the entrepreneur closer to her lofty goal of getting Sugru into every kitchen drawer.

The company’s tinkering didn’t stop with its original product, though. FormFormForm Ltd., which now employs a team of 70 people, later introduced a family-safe formula that’s gentle enough for even younger users to try. This latest iteration also proved a winner, earning the 2018 Bronze Stevie® Award for New Consumer Product.

Ni Dhulchaointigh hopes the ability to get kids involved will lead to even more creative ideas for users to share on platforms like YouTube and Twitter.

“Repair inspires creativity," she says. "People are more creative than they think, especially when it comes to saving things they love—and potentially some money at the same time.”