Awards to Be Presented at Gala Ceremony on June 20 in NYC

Cirkled in is the top winner in the 2017 People's Choice Stevie® Awards for Favorite New Products, a feature of The American Business Awards, the U.S.A.’s top business awards program, which are now in their 15th year.

The nationwide public vote was conducted last month, with the highest number of votes deciding the winners in a variety of product categories. More than 38,000 votes were cast.  To win, a category’s leading vote-getter had to have received at least 100 votes.

Cirkled in, the Redmond, WA based company won the most People’s Choice Stevie Awards in two categories, Education - Classroom Mgmt and Education - Cloud-Based. 4LifeTransform Burn collected the most votes of any nominee.

The crystal People’s Choice Stevie Awards will be presented to winners at The American Business Awards’ banquet on Tuesday, June 20 at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York, NY. Tickets for the event are now on sale. There, the winners of peer-adjudicated Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie Awards will also be presented their awards. More than 550 nominees and their guests are expected to attend.

All new products and services recognized as winners in the new product awards categories of this year’s American Business Awards were eligible to be included in voting for the people’s choice awards.

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

B2B Products: Qstream's Coaching Hub
B2B Services: Arise Starmatic Scheduling System
Computer Hardware: IGEL UD Pocket
Consumer Electronics: Anki's Cozmo
Consumer Products & Services: 4LifeTransform Burn
Content - Content Marketing: Thomson Reuters' Checkpoint Marketing Social Media Solutions
Content - Other: AT&T Global Video Player
Content - Reference/Legal: Enquiron
Content - Sales/Marketing Intel: Ignite Sales Customer Engagement Management Platform
Education - Classroom Mgmt: Cirkled in School Offering
Education - Cloud-Based: Cirkled in School Offering
Education - Game/Virtual/Other Curric: Advantexe Learning Solutions Drivers of Business Performance Business Simulation
Education - Other: United Way Worldwide, NFL, Verizon and Everfi: Character Playbook
Health & Pharmaceuticals: Makers Nutrition's Private Label Product Line
Industrial: Magline LiftPlus
Software - Big Data: CareerBuilder's Customer Health Score Tool
Software - Cloud App/Service: FieldEdge
Software - Cloud Backup/Storage: Quest Rapid Recovery v6.1
Software - Cloud ERP: Intacct Contract and Revenue Management
Software - Cloud Infrastructure: Wind River Titanium Control
Software - Content Mgmt: Built.io Contentstack
Software - Data Visualization: Lucky Orange Dynamic Heatmaps
Software - Ecommerce: Ve Interactive VePanel
Software - Endpoint Security Mgmt: Dell Data Guardian
Software - FinTech: Ingo Instant Payments
Software - Human Capital Mgmt: RiseSmart Insight
Software - Identity/Access Security: IdentityForce's UltraSecure+Credit (Version 5.1)
Software - Infrastructure/Platform AAS: FIS Merchant Processing System
Software - Integration Solution: West Video Meeting Gateway
Software - Learning/Workforce Dev: Articulate 360
Software - Marketing/PR: Digital Air Strike's Mission Control
Software - Mobile On-Demand App: Equo by Runzheimer
Software - Network Security: Cisco Stealthwatch 6.8
Software - Other: MindTickle
Software - Payments: BluePay?s Premier Payment Gateway
Software - Relationship Mgmt: Vlocity Communications
Software - Supply Chain Mgmt: PRO Unlimited's Wand VMS
Telecommunications - Product: Nextivity's Cel-Fi GO

Making student finances more affordable and easier to manage in a sea of “loan sharks” is no easy task, but Stevie Award-winner CommonBond does it sucessfully. CommonBond is a reimagined student loan experience offering low interest rates with great customer service. Their customer satisfaction rates have been overtly positive, which is one of the many reasons why they received $1 billion in funding this year. Learn more about CommonBond to see how they won customer service awards in the 2017 Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service.

Crunching Numbers That Don’t Crunch Students

Over 40 million Americans are affected by student loan debt. On average, CommonBond members save $24,046 by refinancing their student loans. They also cover MBA student loans, and recently launched student loan benefits for today’s workforce – giving their partners the resources to stand apart from the competition, and giving their employees the tools to achieve financial wellness.

Senior Communications Manager Bethany Hill gave us the CommonBond perspective, “We’re creators, movers, shakers, numbers geeks, and finance freaks. We’re people just like you, who were frustrated by the high rates and poor service that came with our student loans. We knew there had to be a better way. So we created one.”

More Than Just Student Loans

CommonBond helps their community gain access to complimentary tickets to CommonBond-sponsored events, dinners, panel discussions with entrepreneurs and other companies. This is most apparent in their industry-first program called “CommonBridge.” It’s a service that matches members in between jobs with a consulting opportunity at CommonBond, making it easier to earn money, gain experience and spend a little more time on the job hunt.

A Social Promise

CommonBond has been committed to giving since they funded their very first loan – and it's still a driving force behind everything they do. Here's how their “Social Promise” program works:

• 1-for-1: For every loan funded, they also fund the education of a child in need.
• Education for all: Loans give kids unprecedented access to schools, teachers, and technology
• Pencils of Promise: Ensures that funds go to those who need them most

CommonBond is constantly finding ways to fill a void in the student lending space. David Klein, Co-Founder and CEO believes their success is best explained by what they’re always taking aim at.

“We strongly believe that business can - and should - be a positive force for change”

 Wins for Third Year in a Row;
Other Grand Stevie Winners are Yongin City (South Korea) and Toyoko Inn Co.,Ltd. (Japan)

The Stevie® Awards, organizer of the world’s premier business awards programs, announced the winners of three Grand Stevie Award trophies in its fourth annual Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards. The Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards are the only awards to recognize innovation in the workplace throughout the entire 22-nation Asia-Pacific region. All organizations in the region are eligible to submit nominations.

Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie Award winners in the various categories were announced on 19 April. Those awards were determined by the average scores of more than 50 executives worldwide earlier this year.

All awards will be presented to winners during a gala event at the Hilton Hotel in Tokyo, Japan on Friday, June 2. Tickets for the event are now on sale. 

The three Grand Stevie Award winners announced are:

• Telkom Indonesia, winner of the Grand Stevie for Organization of the Year for the third year in a row. The leading telecommunications and network services provider in Indonesia won the most award points in the competition this year with eight Gold, five Silver, and eighteen Bronze Stevie wins in a variety of categories for innovation. Each Gold win earns three points, each Silver win two points, and each Bronze one and a half points for the Grand Stevie-winner calculation.
• Yongin City won a Grand Stevie for Highest-Scoring Nomination of the Year in the competition this year. The one million population metropolitan city of ‘People-centered Yong-In’ won for its nomination of the city's mayor, Chan Min Jung, who also won the Gold Stevie Award for Innovative Management in Non-Profit or Government. 
• Toyoko Inn Co.,Ltd. of Tokyo, Japan, which submitted the highest-scoring nomination from the host nation of this year’s awards ceremony.

The 2017 Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards have recognized organizations in 15 nations including Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Myanmar, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, the United Kingdom, the U.S.A. and Vietnam. More than 700 nominations about innovative achievements in the 22-nation APAC region were considered by the judges this year.

“We are very pleased with the results of the 2017 Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards, with the growth in the number of entries and the depth and breadth of the stories of business innovation that we received,” said Michael Gallagher, president and founder of the Stevie Awards. “We are very much looking forward to greeting and celebrating this year’s winners in Tokyo on June 2.”

Details about the Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards and the list of Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie Award winners are available at http://Asia.Stevieawards.com.

* Sponsors and partners of the 2017 Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards include PR Newswire Asia, the official news distribution partner of the awards, and the Korea Business Communicators Association.

How does a company cultivate future success when many of its sales leaders are nearing retirement age?

That’s a question The Horton Group, like a lot of insurance firms, has wrestled with lately. Their solution: make sure that new, young hires have the skills they need to develop a productive, lasting career.

According to one report, half of the industry’s current workforce will retire within 15 years. “The No. 1 challenge facing insurance agents and brokers is attracting and developing talent for the future,” says Beth Ottolini, a member of Horton University, the company’s educational arm.

The Horton Group created a customized, diverse learning program to help ramp up the skills of new employees. Over a six-month period, its instructional team developed a sales training program called “Journey to Validation” that’s already made a difference.

The Journey to Validation, received a Gold Stevie Award in the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service for the Sales Training or Coaching Program of the Year. The Journey to Validation consists of four stages of learning that provide rookie sales executives with the knowledge base and skills necessary to successfully progress from their first day in the program to ultimate validation with the company.

A New Learning Paradigm

Founded in 1971 as a small, family-owned insurance agency, The Horton Group now provides insurance, employee benefits and risk advisory services to a wide range of business clients. Based in the Chicago suburb of Orland Park, Ill., the organization employs more than 350 employees working out of 10 locations, most of them in the Midwest.

Prior to the development of Journey to Validation, most of the company’s training was done through apprenticeships and job shadowing. Whatever formal training the new hires needed was provided by external vendors.

But company leaders realized that in order to overcome the unmistakable demographic changes within the industry, they needed a more robust approach. Journey to Validation was the company’s first internally-developed tool for making sure that every new hire had the knowledge and foundational skills he or she would need to launch a successful career.

In 2016, the company hired a four-member team to help build the program from the ground up. That was a definite departure from the way holistic learning programs ‒ often the byproduct of large development teams and consultants ‒ are typically designed.

And in this case, the development team, led by Director of Training and Development Jay Fortuna, wasn’t much older than the rookie salespeople who would eventually use their modules. The average age of the members was just 30.

But what the group brought to the table was a fresh perspective and forward-thinking approach to the way younger associates digest information. Developed in just six months, the Journey to Validation program would ultimately incorporate newer ideas like gamification and micro-learning ‒ a system in which learners concentrate on small, focused lessons ‒ along with proven techniques like shadowing.

The program consists of four steps, which combine online learning as well as in-person training. One of its strengths is the ability to track the progress of brokers to make sure they’ve developed the basic industry knowledge and sales skills they’ll need in their new role.

Along with the Gold Stevie for “Sales Training or Coaching Program of the Year”at the Las Vegas awards ceremony, The Horton Group also walked away with two Bronze Stevies, including one for “Sales Training or Education Leader of the Year” for Fortuna.

Continuous Improvement

Ottolini says the program was the result of a highly collaborative atmosphere that puts a premium on continuous improvement. “The pride that the team takes in its work and the extreme ownership of training strengths and shortcomings has led to a recognition that is both humbling and motivating,” Ottolini says.

One of the ways the team helps establish a sense of trust is by sitting down for lunch together every day and bouncing ideas off one another, explains Ottolini.

The group also makes it a point to put themselves in the shoes of new hires. Towards that end, all Horton University team members participate in monthly team-building events with rookie sales executives as part of the training program.

So far, the team, which initially had some trouble achieving buy-in for its novel approach, has won plaudits throughout the organization.

“The infectious enthusiasm and passion emanating from the Horton University team has set a new standard within the company and continues to positively influence the culture of the corporation as a whole,” she says.

Now, the organization is building on its success by developing other learning initiatives, like a service training module and a continuing education program that enables employees to hone their leadership skills.

The internal expertise they’ve demonstrated could also provide a benefit to other members of Assurex Global, the network of commercial insurance, risk management and employee benefits agencies to which Horton belongs. “In the coming months, the team is expected to provide consulting services to other Assurex-affiliated organizations,” Ottolini adds.

These latest Stevie accolades will only help give the program further credibility, she notes. Fortuna originally learned about the Stevie Awards while working at a previous employer. When he joined The Horton Group, one of his goals was to help create a sales training program that merited recognition from Stevie panelists.

In a matter of months, their goal has already come to fruition. “Horton University’s recognition at the 2017 Stevie Awards has done wonders to bolster The Horton Group’s culture of learning,” says Ottolini.

Interested in submitted nominations for the top sales awards and customer service awards in 2018? Request the entry kit for the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service and it will be emailed to you in July 2017.

Online marketing moves at the speed of light. Customers, prospects and partners can be the lifeblood of a business, which is a sentiment that TopSpot Internet Marketing has set their sights on to differentiate themselves from other search marketing firms. As they become one of the fastest growing firms in Houston, Texas, their focus on accountability, transparency, collaboration, education and delivering meaningful results helped them win the Interactive Agency of the Year Award in The 2016 American Business Awards.

Winners in The 2017 American Business Awards were recently announced. Interested in submitting nominations for 2018? Request your entry kit here.

15 Wins and Counting

TopSpot first submitted Stevie Awards nominations in 2015, winning 15 Stevie Awards including last year’s Grand Stevie Award for the 2016 Interactive Agency of the Year. The Grand Stevie Award is the highest honor.

“Winning multiple awards for our work on websites we’ve designed and developed and then going on to win the Grand Stevie Award for Interactive Agency of the Year further solidified the fact that our efforts are meeting and exceeding industry standards in addition to driving leads for our clients.”

At TopSpot, their focal point is delivering meaningful results for their clients.

“Our culture is built around a quality-focused approach, both in our work & our customer service. Our team takes tremendous pride in having a positive impact on our clients' businesses.”

Big Changes for 2017 and Beyond

TopSpot expects to see many changes in their industry. As mobile search continues to increase and with Google’s announcement of the mobile first index, more websites built and optimized for mobile devices will take precedence.

“We are also seeing a rise in voice search because of devices like Amazon Echo and Google Home. This is something we must take into consideration more and more when optimizing websites, making sure they are optimized for conversational searches.”

They also anticipate a greater importance on user experience with, “continued site speed monitoring, getting page load times down on all sites, which contributes to both user experience and organic rankings.”

It’s Not Just Digital Marketing

Director of SEO, John Varghese highlights a story about a client’s thankfulness that shouldn’t be overlooked, even when everything runs smoothly.

“He spoke to the entire company with a lot of thankfulness and communicated to us that we do more than just build websites, develop paid search campaigns or SEO, and that we helped him, his family, his employees and his employees families build their dreams. He went on to say that he was able to spend more time with his family and the charitable work he is involved in, employ more people, give raises, that his employees were able to send their kids to college, sometimes for the first time in their family history.” He said that, “Since that time we have an internal standard of asking if we are building dreams for our clients.”

Cisco Systems, FleishmanHillard and SHIFT Communications also among best-of-competition prize winners

The Stevie® Awards today announced the Grand Stevie Award winners in The 15th Annual American Business Awards, the top business awards program in the USA. Winners will be presented their Grand Stevie trophies at the ABA gala event on June 20 in New York.

The Grand Stevie Award trophies are best-of-competition prizes that are awarded to the organizations that submit the best body of nominations to the competition, in their own name or in the names of one or more clients.  

Winners are determined by a points system based on the total number of awards won in the ABAs, with a Gold Stevie win counting for three points, a Silver Stevie for two points, and a Bronze Stevie counting for one-and-a-half.  Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie winners in the 2017 ABAs were announced on May 2.

CallidusCloud, the Dublin, CA software developer has received the Grand Stevie for Organization of the Year for the second year in a row, with a record 111.5 points. Stevie-winning organizations are accorded three points for each Gold Stevie win, two points per Silver Stevie win, and one-and-a-half points for each Bronze Stevie win.

Other Grand Stevie winners include:

• Most Honored Interactive Agency: Blue Wheel Media, Troy, MI, with 19 points earned for projects for clients including Billhighway, SHEEX and WellNet, among others.

• Most Honored Marketing Agency: Momentum Worldwide, New York, NY, with 34 points earned for campaigns and projects for clients Allergan, American Express and Lockheed Martin.

• Most Honored Public Relations Agency: SHIFT Communications, with offices nationwide, with 37.5 points earned for nominations submitted on behalf of 12 client companies.

Grand Stevies will also be presented to the 10 other organizations with the most points in the 2017 competition. They are:

• #1: Cisco Systems, San Jose, CA (94 points)
• #2: Melissa Sones Consulting, a New York-based awards consultancy, with 38 points earned for Stevie-winning nominations submitted for eight clients
• #3: FleishmanHillard, the multinational communications consultancy with offices across the U.S.A., earned 35 for Stevie wins on behalf of seven clients
• #4: PAIRELATIONS LCC, an awards consultancy in Centennial, CO with 31.5 points for Stevies won for five clients
• #5 (tie): FIS, St. Petersburg, FL (25 points)
•             John Hancock Financial, Boston, MA (25)
• #7: Makovsky & Co, New York and Washington, DC (22)
• #8: Jeunesse Global, Orlando, FL (20)
• #9: Navicor, LLC, Westerville, OH (18.5)
• #10: Cirkled in, Redmond, WA (18)

All organizations operating in the U.S.A. – large and small, public and private, for-profit and non-profit - are eligible to submit nominations to the ABAs in a wide range of categories, honoring achievement in every aspect of work life, from customer service and management to public relations and product development. More than 3,600 nominations were reviewed in the judging process this year by more than 190 professionals, whose average scores determined the winners. The presentations will be broadcast live via Livestream.

For a complete list of the 2017 Stevie Award winners, visit www.StevieAwards.com/ABA.

Tickets for the June 20 awards gala in New York are now on sale.

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 Women in Business, the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service, and the new Stevie Awards for Great Employers. Stevie Awards competitions receive more than 10,000 entries each year from organizations in more than 60 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.

The Stevie® Awards is accepting entries for the second annual Stevie Awards for Great Employers, which will honor the world’s best companies to work for and the HR teams and professionals, HR achievements, new products and services, and suppliers that help to create and drive great workplaces.

Other Stevie Awards programs such as The American Business Awards and The International Business Awards offer human resources categories, but The Stevie Awards recognized the demand for specialized HR awards categories. Today we will highlight the HR Achievement categories in the 2017 Stevie Awards for Great Employers.

The final entry deadline is June 5, but late entries will be accepted through July 19 with payment of a late fee. Entry details are available at www.StevieAwards.com/Hr

REVIEW THE ENTRY KIT HERE

The HR Achievement categories recognize specific achievements - individual, team, or organizational - since the beginning of 2016.

The information requirements for entries in these categories in the 2017 competition include:

a.  An essay of up to 625 words describing the nominated achievement(s).  Describe for the judges the genesis, development, deployment, and results of the achievement(s) to date.

    Summarize in up to 10 bullet points (up to 150 words) the chief features and results of the nominated achievement(s).
    Add to your entry up to 10 webpage links and up to 10 document uploads to support your case to the judges.  These might be press articles, press releases, videos, work samples, internal or external reviews, or employee feedback, for example.

B01     Achievement in Benefits Design and Administration       
Recognizing notable single achievements, or a series of achievements, related to benefits design and/or administration since the beginning of 2016.

B02     Achievement in Compensation Design and Administration       
Recognizing notable single achievements, or a series of achievements, related to compensation program design and/or administration since the beginning of 2016.

B03     Achievement in Diversity and Inclusion    
Recognizing notable single achievements, or a series of achievements, related to workplace or workforce diversity and/or inclusion since the beginning of 2016.

B04     Achievement in Employee Engagement    
Recognizing notable single achievements, or a series of achievements, related to employee engagement or motivation since the beginning of 2016.

B05     Achievement in Employee Relations          
Recognizing notable single achievements, or a series of achievements, related to employee relations since the beginning of 2016.

B06     Achievement in HR Technology     
Recognizing notable single achievements, or a series of achievements, related to the design, development, deployment, and/or administration of HR-related systems or technologies since the beginning of 2016.

B07     Achievement in Human Resources Administration         
Recognizing notable single achievements, or a series of achievements, related to the administration of an organization's total HR organization since the beginning of 2016.

B08     Achievement in Internal Communications
Recognizing notable single achievements, or a series of achievements, related to internal communications programs or campaigns since the beginning of 2016.

B09     Achievement in New Employee Onboarding        
Recognizing notable single achievements, or a series of achievements, related to the onboarding, assimilation, and training of new employees since the beginning of 2016.

B10     Achievement in Recruitment          
Recognizing notable single achievements, or a series of achievements, related to an organization's new-employee or executive recruitment efforts since the beginning of 2016.

B11     Achievement in Workforce Development and Learning
Recognizing notable single achievements, or a series of achievements, related to workforce learning or training since the beginning of 2016.

B12     Achievement in Workplace Design
Recognizing the design of workplaces that promote engagement, productivity, and employee wellbeing.   There is no eligibility timeframe for this category - it doesn't matter when the workplace's current design or configuration was established.

    for up to 10 employees
    b. for up to 100 employees
    c. for more than 100 employees - single location
    d. for more than 100 employees - multiple locations        

B13     Achievement in Workplace Health & Wellbeing  
Recognizing notable single achievements, or a series of achievements, related to an organization's efforts to promote and protect workforce health and wellbeing since the beginning of 2016.

B14     Achievement in Workplace Safety & Compliance           
Recognizing notable single achievements, or a series of achievements, related to an organization's programs to promote workforce compliance and workplace safety since the beginning of 2016.

 

When a company launches 23 newly engineered and redesigned e-STUDIO multifunction printers before the annual dealer meeting even kicks off, you'll likely turn a lot of heads.

Such was the case with Toshiba, when they won the Gold Stevie Award for 'Best Sales Meeting of the Year'  in the 2017 Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service, in recognition of its 2016 LEAD (Learn Engage Act Deliver) conference.

The LEAD conference included record attendance and stylish new machines that bolstered technology, customization, and training for attendees to try out.

Connect, Integrate, Simplify

Joe Contreras, Global Marketing Executive at Toshiba, revealed that the machines represented a value statement that could be summed up in three words: connect, integrate, and simplify.

“The machines don’t just connect to the network, they can connect customers with their businesses and workflows...to become an integral part of a customer’s business, and they can simplify tasks and operations.”

Politics and Party Tricks

Toshiba made sure to pull out all the stops for LEAD. In addition to hosting LEAD at one of the more luxurious properties on the Las Vegas Strip, graffiti artist business guru Erik Wahl was the featured evening keynote speaker to close LEAD’s first day. Toshiba’s second day lineup featured a variety of entertainment, including keynote speakers James Carville and Mary Matalin (who gave the now classic quote “If you have ADHD, are over 30, and like a glass of wine - you probably shouldn’t have a Twitter account”.) Closing-night entertainers, The B-52s, with such hits as “Rock Lobster,” “Party Out of Bounds,” and, of course, “Love Shack.”

Surpassing Expectations

In addition to the large Toshiba booth, their floor space had been doubled to complement the exhibit hall that featured 60 companies from across the industry looking to do business with Toshiba’s dealer community.

"LEAD 2016 was a definitive success from every perspective and surpassed expectations," said Bill Melo, Toshiba America Business Solutions chief marketing executive. "Our new products were met with enthusiasm from every segment of our diverse audience and are generating new business for our resellers, business partners and Toshiba."

Interested in applying for the 2018 Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service? Request the entry kit and it will be emailed to you in July when nominations are accepted.

The Stevie® Awards, organizers of the world’s premier business awards programs, today announced the Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie winners in The 15th Annual American Business Awards.

All organizations operating in the U.S.A. – large and small, public and private, for-profit and non-profit - are eligible to submit nominations to the ABAs in a wide range
of categories, honoring achievement in every aspect of work life, from customer service and management to public relations and product development. More than 3,600 nominations were reviewed in the judging process this year by more than 190 professionals, whose average scores determined the winners.

2017 Stevie winners will be celebrated and presented their awards during a gala event on Tuesday, June 20, at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York. Tickets are now on sale. The presentations will be broadcast live via Livestream.

CallidusCloud (Dublin, CA) and Cisco Systems (San Jose, CA) are the leaders among Stevie Award winners, with wins in a wide range of categories, including 14 Gold Stevies. CallidusCloud and Cisco Systems are sure to be among the winners of the Grand Stevie Award trophies, the top overall winners in this year’s ABAs, who will be announced next week.

Among the other top winners of Gold Stevies are Momentum Worldwide (New York, NY) with eight, Cirkled (Redmond, WA) with five, Aflac (Columbus, GA) and Signifyd (San Jose, CA) with four, and BlueWheel Media (Troy, MI), Creative Lodging Solutions (Lexington, KY) and GTT Communications (McLean, VA) with three each.

Among all winners of Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevies, leading winners of multiple awards include Accenture (New York, NY), Amobee (Foster City, CA), BMO Capital Markets (Chicago, IL), FIS (St. Petersburg, FL), Jeunesse Global (Orlando, FL), John Hancock Financial Services (Boston, MA), LABOV Marketing Communications and Training (Fort Wayne, IN), Makovsky & Co (New York, NY), Merkle (Columbia, MD), Mitsubishi Electric Cooling & Heating (Suwanee, GA), Navicor, LLC (Westerville, OH), New American Funding (Tustin, CA), Rimini Street (Las Vegas, NV), Scout Exchange (Chicago, IL), SoftPro (Raleigh, NC) and TopSpot Internet Marketing (Houston, TX), among others.

For a complete list of the Stevie Award winners announced today, visit http://www.StevieAwards.com/ABA.

Every new product or service nominated in The 2017 American Business Awards is included in voting for the People's Choice Stevie Awards for Favorite New Products, a worldwide public vote. Voting is now open at http://peopleschoice.stevieawards.com and will conclude on June 2. People’s Choice Stevie winners will be announced the week of June 5, and will be honored during the June 20 presentations.

“Entries to the ABAs grew substantially this year in both quantity and quality.  We thank the judges for their time and interest in determining the winners, and we look forward to celebrating the winners during our gala event in New York on June 20,” said Michael Gallagher, founder and president of the Stevie Awards.

Most of the time, the engineers and other professionals at software firm Olark are busy manipulating code as they try to push their product forward. But once a month, those computer gurus tackle a much different task: handling customer service inquiries from their users.

The company calls it their “All Hands Support” policy, intended to keep staffers throughout the organization in tune with the needs of clients. “Everyone in our 40-person company continues to contribute to our customer service efforts in some way,” says Karl Pawlewicz, the company’s spokesman.

Customer service is, in fact, at the very core of the San Francisco-based company. Founded in 2009, it offers a live chat platform that businesses large and small can use to address the real-time needs of their buyers. Today, more than 12,000 organizations around the globe use Olark’s easy-to-implement solution in order to address customer needs.

By giving all of its employees a taste of the customer service experience, they’re able to create a better product, Pawlewicz suggests. “It keeps our entire company in close contact with our customers' successes and frustrations, and ensures each department is aligned on customer priorities,” he says.

The idea originated from the early days when Olark’s four founders were living together in Palo Alto and developing the software platform. “They each took turns on customer service so they wouldn't burn out and so they could stay close to customer feedback,” according to Pawlewicz.

At a time when a lot of customer service is being automated through artificial intelligence and bots, Pawlewicz says it was important for Olark’s principals to create a solution that was simultaneously economical and person-oriented.

“We’re looking for ways to develop a hybrid approach, ensuring technology makes humans more efficient, rather than replacing them,” he notes.

Building Empathy

Creating a better customer service experience is about more than spreading the workload around ‒ it’s also about developing a culture that turns employees into advocates for the company. That can can be a challenge for a geographically-diverse organization, where many employees work from home throughout North America, South America and Europe.

To develop that cohesiveness, the company, which recently won the Gold Stevie Award in the 2017 Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service for Customer Service Department of the Year ‒ Computer Software, hosts in-person retreats once a year. There, the company leaders preach Olark’s core values. Among them: “assume good faith,” “practice empathy” and “help each other grow.”

But the most unconventional of the company’s axioms is “chill out.” As its website describes, Olark  wants its employees to “seek activities that recharge you and allow you to bring your best self to work.” So it’s no accident that the company has amateur musicians and even a couple of part-time farmers among its ranks.

Olark has some off-beat customs, to be sure. Its employees join in to sing Darius Rucker’s  “Wagon Wheel,” the firm’s unofficial anthem, whenever they get together. And they have secret, gift-giving gnomes to celebrate birthdays, since they’re apart for the other 51 weeks each year.

“Creating this positive environment helps our team maintain a healthy work/life balance and come to work every day refreshed and renewed,” explains Pawlewicz. (L1)

That balanced approach has paid off in the form of excellent customer service, decided by Stevie Awards judges. Pawlewicz says the honor has been a major shot in the arm for workers at the burgeoning company.

“It's a testament to the hard work that our customer service team puts in every day, and we hope it will be a compelling proof point for future candidates who consider working at Olark,” he says.

• Learn more about Olark
  
  
• Learn more about the 2018 Stevie Award for Sales & Customer Service