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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.

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 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.

Learn more about The Customer Communicator.

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