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Award Winners

We salute the following winners of The Customer Communicator Frontline Spotlight Awards. These individuals have been recognized for making a positive contribution to their organizations by maintaining the highest levels of service quality and professionalism.

Below they share a few of their secrets to service success.

Jessica Lohse
Premier CSR
Mercola.com

Anticipating customers’ needs is just one way Jessica Lohse provides premier customer service. She notes that it is in everyone’s best interest to take care of as much as possible on the first call. Her goal is to eliminate time-consuming call backs, especially for international customers.

Brenda Sigler
Office Assistant
Mobile Area Water and Sewer System

Brenda Sigler might work for a public utility, but she doesn’t want customers to feel that they are being treated less than professionally because it’s the only game in town. This is a key point Sigler stresses in her rep training and quality assurance work, where she focuses first and foremost on problem-resolution.

Christina Bonvillain
Customer Service Supervisor
AOSS Medical Supply Inc.

For Christina Bonvillain customer service is all about teamwork, even when it extends beyond the service department. During the first swine flu pre-pandemic the staff often worked until midnight putting together packages of face masks. Christina volunteered to help, so that the company would be prepared to meet customers’ needs.

Estelle Skipper
Level 2 Help Desk Specialist
Darden Restaurants

Estelle Skipper credits a love of learning for her success in service. And even with 13 years on the job she’s still learning. “I honestly learn something every day,” she says. “And you find over the years that patience, listening, and putting yourself in the customer’s shoes is a learning experience, because the problems change every day.”

Grace Hisatake-Gardner
Customer Care Lead
AlohaCare

For Grace Hisatake-Gardner of AlohaCare, the third-largest health care plan in Hawaii, maintaining teamwork and team spirit are among the most important aspects of her job. Her attitude helps. “I try to approach every situation with a positive attitude, because if you go into it with a positive attitude, you will have a positive outcome.”

Marcus Carrillo
Certified Phlebotomist
Antelope Valley Hospital

Service recovery is important in every organization. And when there’s a patient who has had a negative experience, Antelope Valley Hospital calls in Marcus Carillo. He explains the keys to his approach as: talking to people on a person-to-person level, adjusting your approach to each patient, listening carefully, and always being honest.

Kara Buckley
Customer Service Associate
Institute for Supply Management

Kara’s positive outlook helps everyone on the service team stay motivated. Senior Associate Amy Shaw explains, “If we are busy or having a bad day, we can count on her to get us going.” On the other hand, Buckley is soft-spoken about her skills. “I just try to treat everybody the way I would want to be treated if I called in to customer service,” she says.

Nicole Scott
Client Advocate
VIA Data & Marketing Services

Going above and beyond is no exception for Nicole Scott. So when she drove two hours through rush hour traffic to meet a customer’s special request, her boss was delighted, but not surprised. He says, “I don’t know if everyone here would get in their car without talking about it and drive into Manhattan, but they would be trying to find a way to resolve the issue.”

Cathleen Fisher
Account Manager
Loesel-Schaaf

At Loesel-Schaaf, the service goal is not just meeting customer expectations but exceeding them. And how does Fisher recommend new employees embrace that goal? She advises getting to know customers and coworkers, staying positive and most importantly, “every day trying to do one or two percent better than the day before.”

Margaret Bielecki
Solutions Advisor
Harmon Solutions Group

What makes Margaret Bielecki special? In 10 years working in customer service for Harmon Solutions Group, she’s never missed a day of work. Bielecki attributes this to the fact that she loves her work, enjoys working at Harmon, takes care of her health, and keeps her attitude upbeat by “always thinking positively, and never thinking negatively.”

Jackson Gentry
Senior CSR
GIS

Lack of internal communication often gets in the way of serving customers. Not so for Jackson Gentry. In fact, developing good relationships with other departments and individuals has been key to his success. How does he do it? Taking the time to sit down and learn about other’s work and, of course, a friendly smile in the hall goes a long way.

Thea Smith
Senior Support Center Analyst
CLECO

Thea Smith’s department provides technical support to 1,000-plus employees across the state. With the range of issues that come up, it’s hard to have all the answers. The key she says is to assure clients that she will, “research the information and get back to them. And then, of course — to follow up.”

James Watts
Lead Concierge
Baystate Medical Center

When new members join the hospital’s concierge staff, James Watts offers this advice: “Work very hard while you are here, because you have a chance to affect someone’s life. Be open and compassionate, and look for those who might be falling through the cracks.” That’s good advice for anyone working in customer service.

Vicki Muschinske
Customer Service Rep
Potawatomi Bingo Casino

Vicki Muschinske has handled it all — everything from bomb threats to requests to be married at a casino table. What keeps her smiling? “I think what I like most about the job is the different people that you meet,” says Vicki. “And as many customer service experts say, even if they can’t see you over the phone, customers can hear you smile. I believe that.”

Carolyn Shore
Customer Service Rep
Miller’s Office Products

Being available to management, coworkers and customers is key to Carolyn Shore’s success. How does she do it? On the rare occasion when she calls in sick, she calls her manager, changes her voice message to refer callers to another rep, calls the salespeople she supports, and finally calls customers who are waiting to hear from her.

Christine Doyle
Participant Service Rep
CitiStreet

When a customer mentions a problem they’ve had with a prior service call, many reps just shrug it off — not Christine Doyle. In fact, her reaction to a recent problem was to dig in, research the problem, work with management, and ultimately solve a problem that could have affected many customers and had a significant impact on the service department’s performance.

Barry Himes
Customer Service Rep
Black & Decker

Many reps find working with performance metrics difficult and stressful — but not Barry Himes. He takes a decidedly customer-focused approach to those metrics. “I try to worry about the customer first, then I worry about the metrics later,” he says. And it seems to be working; Himes’ metrics are consistently second to none.

Raymond McDonald
Technology Support Center Supervisor
Katy, TX Independent School District

This support center answers to a lot of people — nearly 60,000 students, teachers and administrators. And callers can be frantic when they have technical problems with a classroom of anxious children looking on. To lighten the atmosphere, McDonald makes sure that everyone on the team shares “a little laugh or joke between calls.”

Tracy Reihe
Service Team Leader
Liberty Mutual Insurance

As a team leader, Reihe does a lot of training. Some of it via conference call. She uses real-life examples and humor to keep everyone involved. For example, when she asks if everyone understands a point, and she gets total silence, she will say, “I can’t see your heads nodding over the phone,” and that gets everyone to laugh and participate more.

Lorena Velasquez
Customer Service Specialist
Lee County Tax Collector

In a department where procedures are changed and updated daily, it’s very difficult to keep up-to-date. Velasquez acknowledges that while she may not know every procedure, she does know where to find answers when she needs them — and that’s the key to serving customers in a rapidly changing environment.

Wanda Barber
Quality Assurance Coordinator
Mayo Collaborative Services, Inc.

When it comes to keeping stress in check, Barber says, “I like to walk after work, that’s a good way for me to wind down. I try to leave things at the office that should stay there. And winding down in the evening helps me to have a clear head for the next day.”

John Stumpf
Space Planner
NASA

A part of Stumpf’s job is saying “no.” But he tries not to let “no” be the last word. “Often we can’t do exactly what a person wanted, but we work with them within the confines of what we can do to find a happy ground where they are satisfied,” says Stumpf.

C.J. Perry
Volunteer CSR/Usher
North Carolina Performing Arts Center

C.J.’s simple but straightforward service philosophy is "to make the patron’s visit as exciting and pleasurable as possible," she says. “And I’m going to look for opportunities to do that. I love when I can sit in the theater, look around at all the people, and think I had something to do with their having a great time.”

Martha Kelly
Records Clerk
Harrisonburg Police Department

Kelly believes that her listening skills are one of her greatest strengths. “I’m a good listener, and I think that’s really a critical part of customer service — to be a good listener, even though you might disagree [with the customer].”

Maureen Lipari & Janet Reicherter
Customer Care Specialists
City & Suburban Delivery Systems

The most important part of the job, says Maureen Lipari is follow-up. “It’s follow-up with a smile. A smile in the voice lets the customer know that you’re happy to do whatever it takes to help resolve their problem.”

A full profile of each award winner appeared in the pages of the monthly frontline training and motivation newsletter The Customer Communicator.

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