Winners were announced today in the 2017 People’s Choice Stevie® Awards for Favorite Companies, a feature of The International Business Awards, the world’s only international, all-encompassing business awards program which is now in its 14^th year.

The worldwide public vote was conducted this summer, with the highest number of votes deciding the winners in a variety of industries. More than 14,000 votes were cast. All Stevie Award winners in the Company of the Year categories of this year’s International Business Awards were eligible to be included in voting for the People’s Choice Stevie Awards.

The crystal People’s Choice Stevie Awards will be presented to winners at The International Business Awards banquet on Saturday, 21 October at the W Hotel in Barcelona, Spain. Tickets for the event are now on sale. The winners of peer-adjudicated Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie Awards will be presented with their awards along with the People’s Choice Stevie Awards. Stevie winners were selected from more than 3,900 nominations received from organizations and individuals in more than 60 nations.

The winners of the 2017 People’s Choice Stevie Awards for Favorite Companies are:

• Advertising, Marketing & PR: MWWPR
• Banking: Odeabank
• Computer Services: Datapipe
• Computer Software: Syncron
• Consumer Products/Services: davero dialog GmbH
• Financial Services: Union National Bank
• Health Products/Services: NMC Healthcare
• Insurance: PJ Lhuillier Group of Companies
• Legal: Property Exchange Australia Ltd
• Manufacturing: Australian Innovative Systems (AIS)
• Non-Profit or Government: Dubai South
• Real Estate: Stockdale & Leggo
• Telecommunications: Globe Telecom, Inc.
• Transportation: IETT General Directorate
• Other: PT Petrokimia Gresik

The 2018 Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service are accepting entries. These are the world's top honors for customer service, contact center, business development and sales professionals. All organizations and individuals worldwide are eligible to submit entries to the 12th annual competition.

REVIEW THE ENTRY KIT HERE

The early-bird entry deadline, with discounted entry fees, is this October 18. The final entry deadline is November 15, but late entries will be accepted through next January 11 with payment of a late fee. 

• Best Sales Enablement Product - New
• Best Sales Enablement Product - New Version
• Best Sales & Marketing Mobile Application - New
• Best Sales & Marketing Mobile Application - New Version

A number of the existing sales and customer service categories have been split into multiple categories based on industry. These include:

• Sales Support Team of the Year
• Sales Training or Coaching Program of the Year
• Award for Innovation in Sales
• Back-Office Customer Service Professional of the Year
• Young Customer Service Professional of the Year
• Customer Service Team of the Year - Recovery Situation
• Customer Service Complaints Team of the Year
• Customer Service Training Team of the Year
• e-Commerce Customer Service Award
• Best Use of Technology in Customer Service

Learn more about what’s new and different in the 2018 edition of the awards.

Humble beginnings, staunch discrimination and a massively successful career—that’s the story of Jenny Q. Ta, cofounder of VCNetwork.co. It’s a startup funding network that has been described as a virtual Shark Tank meets eHarmony.

Its database of independent international venture capitalists (VCs) finds startups who have what it takes to succeed. Facilitating such connections, both large and small, entrepreneurs are given the opportunity to submit their business plan through VCNetwork.co for the chance to be considered by one of more than 1,000 VCs. They won the Silver Stevie Award in the 2017American Business Awards for helping deserved entrepreneurs achieve their goals.

Matchmaking Heaven

So how does VCNetwork.co work? Entrepreneurs create a profile on VCNetwork.co, which includes the founder's and team's information, as well as how much funding the startup is seeking. Once they submit a business plan and select the industry they're most closely related to, VCNetwork.co's intelligent system pairs them with the best business match for their funding needs.

Jenny Q. Ta is the cofounder of VCNetwork.co and former founder of two Wall Street broker-dealers and investment banks. She says VCNetwork essentially plays “the role of matchmaker, bringing together aspiring entrepreneurs who need funding and venture capitalists with the means to provide that funding.” Jenny took everything she learned from her experiences and teamed up with Shinta W. Dhanuwardoyo (founder/CEO of Bubu.com) to create VCNetwork.co.

The Price of Progress

As both tech and finances continue to grow dependent on each other, Jenny and Shinta are seeing huge returns and industry transformations as new companies grow and continue to be profitable. Jenny feels she has had to grow a lot in terms of overcoming unfortunate challenges that many women in her industry experience. She recounts the little to no support received whenever she came across repeated discrimination.

“I was told that as a woman it would take me years to advance and become a broker."

She decided to open her own firm, and promised colleagues better pay if they worked for her instead. It worked—Jenny launched Vantage Investments in 1998 at age 27 with 30 brokers.

Recognition

Both Jenny and Shinta have been recognized for their work in huge ways. Jenny mentions their 2016 win for the Women In Business Award from the Los Angeles Business Journal, and this year they're expected to win in a similar category from the OC Business Journal. She comments on why it’s important to be recognized for their hard work:

“Recognition demonstrates our dedication to quality and innovation in the internet, new media and financial services industries.”

When you’re trying to bridge a gap to dissolve barriers traditional funding models place between VCs and entrepreneurs, if done right, chances are entrepreneurs and companies can avoid common pitfalls of venture funding. Investment banks are always looking for ways to venture into the investment arena due to lucrative fees they stand to collect from investors. These difficult bargaining tactics used by today's investment banks are what VC Network is looking to change, and they’re making a name for themselves wherever missed opportunities need better solutions.

We know, summer's almost over and you're getting back into the swing of things. Whatever the reason, you didn't get around to submitting entries to this year's Stevie Awards for Women in Business. But you've gotten a reprieve. We have some tips on how you can submit your nominations in as little time as possible. 

The last day final entries wil be accepted is Wednesday, September 20.

If your women-owned organization deserves to be recognized, surely you can find 10 free minutes. Because in 10 minutes you can prepare and submit an entry to the Stevie Awards for Women in Business and potentially win a Stevie®, one of the most coveted trophies on the planet.

Here are a number of ways you can do that:

Repurpose Nominations From Other Awards Programs
The submission requirements are fairly open-ended, and there's a wide variety of categories to choose from. If you've entered any other awards programs this year, simply repurpose the nominations you wrote for those competitions, as long as they qualify as being run by women. Most categories require only the submission of an essay of up to 525 words and an optional collection of supporting files and web addresses to support your entry and provide more background information.

Repurpose Your Press Releases and White Papers
It's likely you've already done the heavy-lifting of describing your organization's achievements, your innovations, your new products and services, your marketing and PR campaigns, etc. Throughout the year you've been trumpeting your successes through press releases and white papers. Simply comb through your output over the past year and cobble together the text you've already written into a short essay. Note that the 2017 Stevie Awards for Women in Business will recognize your achievements since the middle of 2016.

Repurpose Your Press Clippings
With every nomination you have the option to attach any number of press clippings, work samples, video clips, photographs, etc. to your essay, to help paint the picture for the judges. Does one or more of your press clippings feature a compelling story that can be the basis of the essay for your Stevie Awards for Women in Business nomination? There's no need to reinvent the wheel if it already exists and you can reuse it.

Hire a Consultant
Did you know that there are a number of consultancies that specialize in preparing and submitting awards nominations on behalf of their clients? There are quite a few in the U.S.A., and internationally and they've been remarkably successful over the years in winning Stevie Awards for their clients. Contact us if you'd like a referral to one of them who can take the process of getting entries into the Stevie Awards for Women in Business off your hands this week.

Submit Media Work
Sometimes you hope to win a Stevie for a specific reason - for a major achievement, or a member of your team - but you can also win a Stevie Award for specific media work. If that's the case, take a look at the categories for videos, apps, websites, publications, and live events. It's really easy to enter these categories. These categories generally require only a short essay of up to 200 words, describing the nominated work's purpose and results to date, and the nominated video or app, etc., itself.

Resubmit a Nomination From Another Stevie Awards Program
Did you have success with a nomination in the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service, or The American Business Awards? One Stevie Awards competition has nothing to do with another, and resubmitting a nomination from one program to this year's Stevie Awards for Women in Business is a valid strategy followed by many organizations.

Contact Us for Help
You'll save a lot of time by letting us do some of the important work for you. We'll save you the trouble of plowing through our category lists to find the category that's right for you, for example. Contact us, by email at help@stevieawards or telephone at +1 703-547-8389. Tell us what your organization wants to be recognized for, and we'll suggest the best category for your nomination.

Whichever strategy you choose to get your nominations written and submitted this week, do get them submitted by the final entry deadline of Wednesday, September 20.

Ready to Enter the 2017 Stevie Awards for Women in Business?

Today’s enterprises are more spread out than ever, often consisting of multiple office buildings spread across the United States—and even the globe.

The challenge: finding a way to make those facilities and the people who work there more efficient. That’s exactly what iOFFICE Corporation, a fast-growing software-as-a-service provider, is doing for some 1,400 corporate clients.

The iOFFICE platform allows facility managers and executives to, for example, visualize floor plans and analyze space usage across all their properties. They can use available data to plan for future usage of those spaces in the most cost-effective way possible.

With a separate module, users can pull data from a building’s HVAC, lighting and refrigeration systems to monitor and curb energy use at the site.

But it’s not just the building that iOFFICE is trying to make more efficient. The firm also offers applications designed to streamline the work that employees perform. One of those offerings is a project management tool that enables improved collaboration throughout the enterprise.

Growing client list

The Houston-based firm has been able to expand its offerings through a series of partnerships with other specialized SaaS (Software as a Service) providers. This “Marketplace,” as iOFFICE refers to this network, includes technology companies that offer expertise in areas like space utilization, energy management and occupancy planning.

iOFFICE provides the user-friendly, mobile-ready backbone that helps users seamlessly search workspace and project data, as well as plan for future needs. The company calls their network “the first app ecosystem for the 21^st-century workplace.”

Corporations in a variety of industries are latching onto the idea. The company’s clients now include the likes of Adobe, Sephora and Under Armour—all trying to build efficiencies into their work environment.

“iOFFICE works hard to ensure that its clients have the technology to support their employees,” the company’s outside spokeswoman, Bethany Morris, says.

Currently, about 2.4 million users around the globe rely on iOFFICE software to gain visibility into their operations.

The business had much humbler roots when Don Traweek and Elizabeth Dukes, both former executives with Pitney Bowes Management Services, founded the business in 2002. But over the past several years, the company has gone through a period of remarkable growth, emerging as one of the leaders in the integrated workplace management system, or IWMS, sector. 

What was once a staff of just two employees has exploded to 49 and counting. Traweek continues to serve as the company’s president and CEO while Dukes holds the title of executive vice president, helping to drive the firm’s sales and marketing strategies.

An evolving workplace

iOFFICE’s solutions are particularly suited for today’s changing corporate environment, where so-called “activity-based working” is becoming more the norm. More and more, employees have the freedom to perform tasks in the type of space that best suits their needs— that could be at their desk, in a meeting room or even in a designated quiet space.

Enterprises see this as a way to increase collaboration and innovation within the organization. By moving away from a static, closed-in environment, they believe it also increases employee satisfaction and helps with retention.

The organization recently released Hummingbird, a software solution that according to a company statement, offers employees “an elegant and user-friendly way to add critical activity-based work functions to find, request, use and reserve the spaces, information, people and events they need every day.”

In The 2017American Business Awards, the company was rewarded for its innovative approach to workspace needs by securing a Bronze Stevie Award for “Most Innovative Tech Company of the Year” in the under-100-employees segment.

For a company that’s followed the Stevie Awards for several years, Morris says the designation was a major shot in the arm for the entire staff. “Since winning the Stevie Award, iOFFICE and its employees have enjoyed a boost in morale,” she says.

When your windshield is suddenly chipped or cracked, it can quickly become a nuisance and a distraction from the road. A crack larger than a dollar can obstruct the road in front of you, endanger others and lower the integrity the overall safety of your vehicle.

That’s where Safelite AutoGlass comes in—they are the largest provider of vehicle glass repair and replacement services in the United States. In 2017 they won the Gold Stevie Award for Customer Service Innovation in the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service for its new one-stop solution to calibrate ADAS cameras after a windshield replacement.

Over Six Million Lifetime Guarantees

With more than 7,800 mobile glass shops and stores in all 50 states, Safelite AutoGlass is the nation’s largest provider of vehicle glass repair and replacement services. Safelite spokesperson Katie Salvator recalls their previous year’s success in regards to speedy service.

“Last year, six million customers chose Safelite AutoGlass for its 24/7 national contact centers, advanced online scheduling, superior repair and replacement systems and the industry’s only nationwide lifetime guarantee.”

Safelite AutoGlass is a member of the Safelite Group family of brands, which together make a difference in the lives of 10 million customers annually.

Unbreakable Reputation

As the country’s largest service provider, their new one-stop solution to calibrate ADAS cameras after a windshield replacement made a huge impact in road safety across the nation.

“Winning a Stevie Award offers third-party credibility and recognition of our efforts to create a better customer experience.”

Katie also acknowledges Ed Sprigler, Safelite AutoGlass VP for Strategic Initiatives,, who has largely contributed to Safelite’s success.

“Ed is a problem solver, and no challenge is too big or too complex for him to eagerly roll up his sleeves and tackle it. It’s that kind of can-do attitude that helps make Ed an exceptional customer service award winner for leading the ADAS solution.

People Powered and Customer Driven

Safelite's core success can be attributed to their People Powered and Customer Driven strategy. “Being people powered means that we power our performance by thinking ‘people first’ and by having talented, happy and engaged people who deliver extraordinary results, Katie explains.”

Katie lists their four cornerstones to People Powered:

• Leadership
• Focus
• Talent
• Caring

Their Customer Driven success focuses on achieving extraordinary results by looking at their business through the eyes of their customer, making it easy for them to ensure their experience is memorable. Katie relays the four elements to being Customer Driven:

• Listen
• Focus
• Create
• Delight

With nearly 14,000 people employed across the United States, these two core mindsets have helped them continue to create memorable experiences for customers every day by demonstrating their Safelite Spirit.

Greater Than the Task at Hand

Having a greater purpose matters to people. At Safelite, their purpose is to make a difference and bring unexpected happiness to people’s everyday lives. Katie believes their purpose isn’t about what they do; it’s about the way they do it.

“It is something that motivates us to strive to achieve something greater than the task at hand ... and it influences the way we do it. When it comes to our customers, there’s a quote: ‘I may not remember what you said or even what you did, but I’ll always remember the way you made me feel.’"

Customers today can interact with organizations across multiple platforms. So how do you track the unique and complex experience of every customer? NICE Customer eXperience Analytics (NICE | cXa) created the digital and analytical transformation necessary for organizations to monopolize the global consumer-centric economy.

Their commitment to end-to-end visualizations of the customer journey has greatly helped organizations recognize pain points and engage insights to transform customer experiences. This is how they won the Silver Stevie Award for Best Cloud Contact Center Technology and the Bronze Stevie Award for Sales Performance Management Suite in the 2017 Stevie Award for Sales & Customer Service.

Elevating the Standard of Customer Journeys

Attempting to elevate the standard of customer journeys more broadly, using both innovative technologies and practical thought leadership, is a real challenge. Robert Zoch, head of Customer Journey Solutions, believes their ‘Total Voice of the Customer and Customer Journey Solutions’ are the most capable tools now available for helping large businesses optimize their customer experiences. Zoch shares why winning a Stevie matters in their industry.

“We can make our case loudly and continuously, but the judgment of professionals through the Stevie Awards will always mean more for a great many enterprise technology users.”

Keeping Up with Continuous Change

It's become imperative for brands to have technologies keep up an expanding array of channels by which customers interact with brands. NICE knows customers want low-effort experiences that are enabled by capable self-service tools; but NICE also knows they need to ensure brands can live up to these expectations. Zoch says NICE is proud of how long they’ve been able to meet these demands.

“NICE celebrated 30 years as a global brand. Our particular division finished 2016 with a bang, forging contracts to provide several global brands with Customer Journey Solutions. Among other highlights, we were able to demonstrate an annual ROI surpassing $130 million for five such brands, which include telecommunications, healthcare and financial services. That type of performance is hard to ignore, and these awards represent another rung in our climb to market dominance.”

People are Key to Our Business Success

NICE believes their client relationships are "partnerships," and not only does this help ensure they achieve their goals, but also provides insights to continuously refine solutions to serve the needs of their marketplace. Zoch explains how placing a strong emphasis on customer success with a special team ensures their technologies’ best practices and strategies to accomplish their goals.

“Our value proposition lies in helping brands understand their customer journeys, and fittingly, we apply that same principle to the way we interact with our customers.”

Zoch continues to say they also have a strong commitment to their own people and they're proud to offer benefits to their employees that “many companies do not have.” Just some of the benefits they offer include: paid travel insurance, legal and pet insurance, generous paternity leave, benefits for children with disabilities and much more.

“As a collective body we are deeply committed. So, we respect and listen to each other, drawing from our experiences and learning from our respective skills and backgrounds. That’s why people want to work at NICE.”

The Stevie® Awards have announced the winners of the Best of the IBA Awards in The 2017 (14^th annual) International Business Awards, the world’s premier business awards competition.

Nominees in the 2017 IBAs were not able to apply for the Best of the IBA Awards directly. Winners were determined by a points system based on the total number of awards won in the IBAs with a Gold Stevie win counting for three points, a Silver Stevie for two points and a Bronze Stevie win for one-and-a-half points. 

This year’s Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie Award winners in The International Business Awards were announced on 10 August. The winners of the Best of the IBA Awards will be presented with Grand Stevie Award trophies at The 14^th Annual International Business Awards banquet at the W Hotel in Barcelona, Spain on 21 October. 

Winners of the 2017 Grand Stevie Awards are:

Most Honored Organization: With 120 award points earned by Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie-winning entries submitted by affiliated agencies and offices around the world, the global communications consultancy MSLGROUP is the winner of the Grand Stevie Award trophy for Most Honored Organization of the year. MSLGROUP earned Stevies for the work done by offices from Canada, China, India, Japan, the USA and other nations, for clients as diverse as home improvement retailer Home Depot, Chinese electronics giant Huawei, and Indian consumer goods manufacturer Marico Ltd., among others.

Most Honored Public Relations Agency: With a total of 77 points earned by Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie-winning entries submitted by their agencies and offices in Latin America, Spain and the USA, communications consultants LLORENTE & CUENCA is the winner of the Grand Stevie Award trophy for Most Honored Public Relations Agency of the year.

Most Honored Marketing Agency: With a total of 38.5 points earned by Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie-winning entries on behalf of clients, South Korean marketing agency HANAROADCOM is the winner of the Grand Stevie Award trophy for Most Honored Marketing Agency of the year.

Most Honored Interactive Services Agency: With 23.5 points for Stevies won on behalf of clients including L’OCCITANE, Sino Hotels and Watsons Water, Hong Kong-based PRIZM is the winner of the Grand Stevie Award trophy for Most Honored Interactive Services Agency of the year for the second year in a row.

Top 10: These are the top Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie winners among all other organizations honored in the 2017 IBAs. They’ll also be presented with Grand Stevie Award trophies.

1. CallidusCloud—Dublin, CA, USA (84 points)
2. Telkom Indonesia—Jakarta (72.5)
3. Cisco Systems—worldwide (67)
4. ASDA'A Burson-Marsteller—Dubai, United Arab Emirates (56.5)
5. Deutsche Post DHL—worldwide (55.5)
6. Weber Shandwick—worldwide (53)
7. PT Petrokimia Gresik—Gresik, Indonesia (42.5)
8. PJ Lhullier Group of Companies—Makati City, Philippines (35)
9. Odea Bank A.S. —Istanbul, Turkey (31)
10. Ooredoo—worldwide (30 points)

“Of all the outstanding organizations and achievements that were recognized among this year’s record-breaking number of IBA nominations, these 14 organizations stand out as the ones with the widest breadth of achievement,” said Michael Gallagher, president and founder of the Stevie Awards. “The Best of the IBA Awards are intended to honor organizations that show an especially strong dedication to honoring the work of their employees, the commitment of their clients, and a sense of innovation, and we look forward to celebrating these firms with Grand Stevie Award trophies at our gala event in Barcelona on 21 October.”

The International Business Awards feature a wide variety of categories to recognize achievement in every facet of work life, including management awards, new product awards, marketing awards, PR awards, customer service awards, website awards and more.

Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie Award placements in the 2017 IBAs were determined by the average scores of more than 200 professionals worldwide in the three-month judging process.

For more information about The International Business Awards, including a complete list of all Stevie Award winners in the 2017 competition, visit www.StevieAwards.com/IBA.

We all benefit when a child succeeds in school, when someone finds a job that will help them provide for their family or when more people are able to access quality, affordable healthcare. United Way Worldwide fights for the health, education and financial stability of every person in every community.

United Way is the world’s largest privately-funded nonprofit, supported by 2.8 million volunteers, 9.8 million donors worldwide and more than $4.7 billion raised every year. So it’s no surprise they received the Gold Stevie Award for Best Annual Report and for “New Product of the Year, Education, K-12 Course or Learning Management Solution” in The 2017 American Business Awards.

Anyone Can Help Everyone

Providing a platform to make a bigger, deeper difference is what Southerlyn Worsham, Director of Public Relations at United Way Worldwide, says is a top priority when getting involved with United Way Worldwide.

“We’re engaged in nearly 1,800 communities across more than 40 countries and territories worldwide to create sustainable solutions to the challenges facing our communities.”

United Way partners include global, national and local businesses, nonprofits, government, civic and faith-based organizations, along with educators, labor leaders, health providers, senior citizens, students and more.

The Importance of Celebrating Lasting Change

It’s hard to quantify the value of helping people around the world, especially at United Way’s scale. But lives being changed for the better can be acknowledged and celebrated with awards that represent the hard work people do day in and day out. Southerlyn enjoys sharing these stories as testaments to the difference that communities can make when we come together to create lasting change.

“Our team is awed by the awards and the double victory. Our entire office is so proud of the two awards and have been congratulating each other. It has been amazing for morale and pride. These victories have reignited our passion to fight for the health, education and financial stability of every person in every community.”

The Gold Stevie Award in The 2017 American Business Awards for Best Annual Report was given to United Way Worldwide for their multi-media annual report about their efforts and results, including 1,800 locations, 40 countries, six continents, served by 2.8 million volunteers and 9.8 million donors. The annual report details individual efforts, collective results and large-scale impact in childhood success, youth success, financial stability and access to healthcare.

The Versatility of Giving

Giving money to fuel community solutions, volunteering your time or lending your voice to a cause that matters to you are just some of the ways people can get involved. United Way also allows people to gift stock with stock transfer instructions provided.

In keeping with the times of constant innovations for sending money, you can now even donate using Bitcoin, by giving to the United Way Worldwide’s Innovation Fund. The Innovation Fund drives the development of new technology and new strategies to expand their reach and impact in communities around the world. Also, every year, millions of employees around the world launch campaigns to support local United Way solutions that improve education, financial stability and healthcare.

Do a web search for custom signage, and you’ll find a multitude of businesses from which to choose. Needless to say, it’s an industry where separating oneself from the pack can be a difficult proposition.

Since its inception in 2012, the management team behind Signs.com has believed an unparalleled level of customer service is a big part of the answer. From the beginning the company has guaranteed 100% satisfaction to its customers, many of them individuals and small businesses.

By 2015, the Salt Lake City-based organization decided to take things a step further. Internally, the team posed a central question: “If we had the best customer experience in the world, what would we do?”

The answer to that question was creating a new mindset that put the customer experience front and center. In order to help make that happen, the customer service department was renamed the “customer experience department.” Instead of focusing on individual interactions, the staff would focus on the entire consumer relationship.

Shortly thereafter, the company hired Madison Page, its first Customer Experience Officer, to oversee the department and make that transformation a reality.

A Recipe for Success 

Among the new key decisions was opting to use live agents for its customer interactions, rather than following the trend for automated solutions. That approach made it easier to provide consumers with the level of service they sought.

To maintain a customer-first philosophy, the company has also formulated four habits for success that its team tries to uphold:

1. Easy

“Nothing is worse for our customers than going through a hard, cumbersome process to order signs,” says Page. “The customer experience department tries to make things as simple as possible so customers want to keep coming back.”

2. Helpful

One of the team’s priorities is consistently providing accurate, useful information. Representatives logged more than 50 hours of training in 2016, even learning about graphic design so they can aid clients on the fly with basic design issues.

3. Fast

Page has helped Signs.com achieve a company-wide chat response time of less than 10 seconds and an email response time of about 2.5 hours. That’s more than seven times faster than the industry average.

4. Friendly

“Part of giving clients a great Signs.com experience includes being kind and friendly no matter what outlet you’re using,” Page explains.

One of the keys to staying upbeat is maintaining a close-knit team that doesn’t take itself too seriously. After weekly meetings, for example, staffers can be found playing games like trying to eat donuts from a string or playing a fierce game of Spoons. The group even has gold and silver medals that get handed to the winner.

High Customer Satisfaction

The result of that emphasis on the consumer experience has led to overwhelmingly positive feedback on social media that helps attract even more customers. Of the 27,000 reviews it tallied as of December 2016, the average reviewer gave the company a 4.7 out of 5.

The company’s philosophy reflects a growing body of research suggesting that better customer care leads to increased loyalty, thereby lowering the cost of customer acquisition. For example, the research firm Access Development found that as many as 79% of customers would shop elsewhere within a week of receiving subpar customer service. 

At Signs.com, a consumer-centric strategy has clearly helped fuel the company’s rapid growth. Last year, Signs.com earned the No. 6 spot on the Utah Venture Entrepreneur Forum’s list of the top 25 companies in the state under five years old.

In February, the company added to its plaudits by grabbing the Gold Stevie^® Award for “Customer Service Department of the Year” in the 2017 Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. In addition, Page received a Silver Stevie for “Contact Center Manager of the Year.”

“It is so nice to win, but it reminds and motivates us to keep innovating, helping and serving our customers,” Page says.