The 2021 Chatties Awards – Winners Announced!

We understand just how difficult customer service and support can be. It’s one of the hardest and most thankless jobs around – all too often, a dull ‘thank you’ is their only reward. And 2020 only made it harder. 

Customer enquiries soared as panicked customers bombarded teams with questions, many of which had never even been asked before. Amidst all this, agents were also tackling the switch from an office to home working environment that posed a lot of challenges for almost everyone. 

This is why we launched The Chatties. In late 2020, we decided there was no better time than now to celebrate our customers’ customer service champions and recognize the hard work and dedication they had put in throughout 2020. The awards comprised two categories – individual and team – and we invited our customers to nominate colleagues that had really gone above and beyond to deliver amazing customer support in the past year.  

We received tons of nominations and so many inspiring success stories. The Comm100 Customer Success team evaluated every nomination and chose two runners-up and one winner for each category. The results were announced in a live virtual ceremony on February 9^th – if you missed it, you can watch the full recording below to find out who won and why they were chosen: 

Watch The 20201 Chatties Award Ceremony 

So without further ado, let’s reveal the winners of the 2021 Chatties Awards and a bit about their 2020 success stories. 

Team Award

Runners-up 

Montgomery College, Counseling & Advising Chat Team

When the pandemic emerged, staff at Montgomery College, a public community college in Rockville, Maryland, were forced into a remote working environment. This was particularly difficult for the counseling and advising team because much of their support was delivered in-person given the nature of the conversations.

Despite this disruption, in a matter of days the team was set up with live chat from their homes to deliver much-needed support to their students. They worked together brilliantly to find innovative and creative ways to meet the needs of the students and developed an entire online live chat protocol to triage student queries and continue delivering fast and helpful advising services. 

Versiti, Customer Service Chat Team  

Versiti are experts in transfusion medicine, blood products, consulting, and much more. When Covid-19 hit and stay at home orders were put in place, there was a surge in questions from their communities and donors regarding appointments and the safety of the blood donation process. The Versiti Customer Service Chat Team met these queries with a great attitude, rolling up their sleeves and working hard to provide accurate and timely information to all their donors, even while facing an increase in live chat volume. Ultimately, they made sure they delivered on their promise to their donors – attentive and helpful service when, where, and how their donors need it. 

The Winner 

Resident Home, Customer Success Team  

Resident Home is a home furnishings retailer that sells several direct-to-consumer brands. During 2020 they saw a dramatic increase in live chat volume, with some months experiencing as much as a 50% uplift.  

To handle this demand and continue delivering fantastic customer service, the team grew from 25 agents at the beginning of the year to over 100 by June. Despite the significant increase in volume, the team reduced both wait time and abandoned chats to almost zero. This was all due to the team’s collaborative efforts, hard work, and understanding of the importance of positive customer experience. Every single member of the team played their part and is very deserving of their win. 

Individual Award 

Runners-up

Diamante Langford, The Christian Broadcast Network 

Diamante Langford is a live chat agent for The Christian Broadcast Network, an evangelical Christian religious television network and production company. She was singled out from within a large live chat team and nominated for her incredible hard-work and dedication to delivering great support to their customers, even when workload spiked. Specifically, she spearheaded and monitored an incredible 12-hour chat campaign in 2020 which experienced a 500% increase in chat volume. She led by example, personally answering 38 of 600 chats herself and showing great care and attention to every customer. 

Sarah Chapman, Co-operative Flexible Benefits 

Sarah Chapman is a Customer Service Advisor at Co-operative Flexible Benefits, part of the Midcounties Co-operative family of businesses in the UK. Sarah has worked there since 2005 and continues still today to go the extra mile for her customers. Through live chat in 2020, she constantly strived to improve the customer experience, trying to make their journey as simple and streamlined as possible. She has driven great improvements in their live chat support, including creating templates for the team to ensure their service is always informative, consistent, and up-to-date. She consistently receives glowing compliments from the customers she helps – the very best testament to her excellent customer service and dedication. 

The Winner 

Jennifer Mann, Promotion Choice  

Jennifer Mann is a Customer Service Representative at Promotion Choice, a marketing agency that specializes in custom and personalized promotional products. Jennifer encapsulates so many aspects of a customer service champion. Firstly, throughout 2020 she kept taking a huge number of calls and was always the first to accept the more difficult queries. She showed great patience, taking time to walk customers through their issues, showing she really cares, and helping them to place orders. This instils great confidence in the customer and lets them know that their order is in good hands.

Her approach resulted in boosted sales, and in fantastic customer satisfaction shown in the wonderful comments she received throughout the year. She bends over backwards for the customers, making sure that each one receives the attention they need, making her a very worthy Chatties 2021 winner.

Once again, a huge congratulations to all our nominees, runners-up, and winners – you are all true customer service champions! We look forward to seeing you all again for an even bigger and better 2022 Chatties!