2024 Support Experience Awards Ceremony

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We're just vamping a little bit.

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We want everyone to come in because we're going to do the support experience

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awards.

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Yeah.

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And Blake, I don't know if you know this, but like all classic award shows, you

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and I are

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going to sing.

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I'm ready.

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All of the awards.

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Like Billy Crystal used to do.

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Okay.

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Are you ready?

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I'm ready.

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I'm going to take your lead though.

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I forgot my tiny harmonica.

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And now we can't do it.

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And without it I can't sing.

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I know.

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What would we do without you?

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Tiny harmonica's everywhere rejoicing that they don't have to hear us sing.

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And this crowd and this audience.

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Absolutely.

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So these awards are going to be amazing.

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We've got some incredible things to hand out to people who so deserve it.

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But before we do, we want you to meet your judges for these awards.

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Judith Plots, David Kay, Francois's Tournier and Al Han got together with an

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incredible

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amount of experience between them, looked at all the nominees and really found

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the

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best winner for every single one of these.

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Isn't that right, Blake?

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Yeah.

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I mean, and the competition was fierce.

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The support of experience awards continues to recognize organizations, teams

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and individuals

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who are transforming the way support is delivered.

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And they're drinking the Kool-Aid.

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By showcasing these exceptional achievements, we aim to inspire others to push

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the boundaries

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of support.

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This year we were so impressed by the quality, the diversity.

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We had over 50 submissions.

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And Ryan, they didn't just tell us what they did.

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They showed us.

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They demonstrated real impact.

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So with that, why don't we jump in right to the awards?

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Sounds great.

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I think we'll call up Judy.

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Absolutely.

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Thank you.

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Thank you.

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Thank you.

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Great job.

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Hello, Ward.

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But we're doing this a little bit out of order.

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We usually save the executive for the end because it is such a large, large

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honor.

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But we have some scheduling issues, so we're moving this one.

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But I do want to take a quick moment.

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If anybody was in yesterday's course and you took the certification test and

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you feel

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like you passed, I'll let you know that we did the grading last night after the

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party.

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So everybody passed.

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It was much easier that way.

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Have some wine, grade some tests.

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It all worked out for everybody.

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But if you took the test, your certificates are available.

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Where's Lynn?

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Lynn, back corner, see the arm raised.

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Your certificates are there.

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She's ready.

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They're signed.

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Everything's available.

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So please stop and get those before you take off.

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Okay?

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To the registration table?

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Okay.

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That's perfect.

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All right.

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Transformational executive.

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This executive is somebody who is setting ambitious, strategic objectives for

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their support

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organization, defining key actions to achieve them.

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They're tracking successful outcomes with measures, including customer and

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cross-functional

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measures.

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With the focus on technology, processes, and culture, the executive focuses on

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continuously

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reaching new levels of success.

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He or she will continually strive to improve customer perceived value.

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Very important as you've heard all through today.

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They'll drive employee engagements that are high and they will have business

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results

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with new or improved initiatives.

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In this category, I think the judges all agree here.

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We had many impressive submissions.

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It was actually a little overwhelming to read through them.

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Some of us actually were emotionally pulled into a couple of the stories and we

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're really

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rooting for the story to have the outcome we were hoping for.

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We'd like to recognize all of the executives and for what you've accomplished

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in the organization.

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We were truly impressed with all submissions, but I have to say that too stood

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out.

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We had Ryan Matthews from NetApp and Jerry Salick from Delinea.

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Ryan has achieved true digital support transformation with his multi-year

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innovative shift left support

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strategy.

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Ryan leads the digital support team at NetApp, including community support site

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, knowledge

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base, team members, along with leading the entire charge for support AI

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initiatives.

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That's Ryan's story.

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And then we have since joining Delinea in November of 2023, Jerry has been

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instrumental in transforming

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the support organization.

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His leadership has driven multiple organizational changes without compromising

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customer satisfaction

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or employee engagement.

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Jerry's transformation strategy focuses on three key elements, the customer

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experience,

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the employee experience, and the impact on the business.

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Congratulations to our two finalists.

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And what we did as judges because we can, because they gave us the ability to

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do so,

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we awarded two awards in this category.

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Both of these gentlemen were so impressive.

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We decided that the double award made sense.

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Jerry, for the transformation in a short period of time, and truly a turnaround

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champion.

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We look forward to continuing to watch both of you as you continue to lead your

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organizations.

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And please, Jerry, you are truly a transformational executive.

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Unfortunately, Ryan Matthews could not be here today.

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Jerry, you disrupted our entire conference flow this evening.

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It's okay.

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That wasn't part of the transformation we were looking for, but Jerry,

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congratulations.

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Thank you very much.

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And on behalf of Ryan, Lila Malek from NetApp is coming to the stage to accept

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that award.

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You didn't know you were going to have to do this, did you?

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You're welcome.

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Thank you for accepting.

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All right, Jerry, there's an Uber waiting downstairs.

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You're going to get to the airport.

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You're going to get on that flight.

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You're going to make it.

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Congratulations.

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Our next award is just confirming.

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This is where the space call comes in.

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Where's Blake?

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Yes?

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I'm so much.

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Al could not make it.

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Al is our fourth judge.

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He could not make it.

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So I am introducing the AI Innovation Team Award, but Al was able to dial in,

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and we're

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ready for that.

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I'm delighted to present the award for AI Innovation today.

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This is a hot topic in support circles right now, and it couldn't be more

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timely for us

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to be acknowledging people that have really accomplished a lot in this space.

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It was a real tight competition.

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We had 14 or 15 applications, and it got down to three.

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Cabello, Renette, and Sales Loft, and I'm delighted to say that the winner was

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Cabello.

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They've been in this space for a long time.

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They've been supplying applications for support organizations for close to a

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decade now, but

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this award is actually for their own use of their own tools, as well as others.

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So we're pleased to say that Cabello has won a Well-Ders Earth Award for AI

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Innovation.

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Congratulations.

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[applause]

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Accepting on behalf, Pierre, congratulations.

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Thank you.

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You're welcome.

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Good?

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Okay.

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Congratulations.

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To you and your team.

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As now, I'm going to bring Francois to the stage to introduce and announce the

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winners

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in her category.

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Thank you.

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I'll be bringing her to you.

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So the first award I will announce is the one for Customer Experience, which is

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a team

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award.

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For this particular award, we are really looking for an organization that's

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done great things

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with their customers.

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We're looking for an organization that has defined personas, an organization

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that has

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journeys that has organized both internal -- I'm sorry, self-service support,

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as well

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as assisted support around those journeys, and has obtained great results as

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demonstrated

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in the nomination.

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So it is difficult award.

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We got 16 nominations for this, so quite a lot of them.

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And I'm delighted to announce that we have two finalists, bandwidth and Siemens

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And I must say that both of these nominations were incredibly strong.

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They were very, very close.

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For the actual winner, I'm happy to announce that it is bandwidth.

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We judges were very impressed by their onboarding program, by the fact that

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they had a really

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strong automation set up, and they had a very good system to respond to what

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their customers

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were asking for continuously, not just one time, but continuously.

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The nomination also noted a customer satisfaction rating of 97.6.

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I had to double check before I said it, because it seemed like too high, almost

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, right?

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So congratulations to bandwidth.

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I'm not sure there's anybody here to receive the award, right?

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So let's just clap for them.

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Next award.

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So the next award is for customer hero.

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This is my favorite award, because it goes to an individual contributor.

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And we heard today all these stories about AI, and I still think that at the

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end of the

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day, we want to have that personal touch and that personal connection, and

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nothing replaces

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that.

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We had a number of strong nominations for a customer hero, and I'm happy to

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announce

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the two finalists who are Andrew Martin of Zai Wave and Frank Shapiro of Sales

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force.

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As you will see, they are different people with different strength, but both of

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them

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very much showing the spirit of what we want for these customer heroes.

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And Judy earlier announced that they were two winners in one of the categories,

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and

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this is another category where we could not distinguish between those two, so

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both of them

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are going to be receiving the award.

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Let me describe a little bit the way that they won.

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Andrew, I will call him David Kay, who coined the term, which I thought was

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really good,

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a customer assist hero.

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So Andrew is this person who has his nomination, has a list this long of praise

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So praise from customers, praise by internal folks, including CSMs, including

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his peers,

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including his manager, and including people in R&D.

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So he seems to just generate a great deal of goodwill wherever he goes.

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He has saved accounts, he has helped develop accounts, and again the praise is

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just absolutely

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amazing, so customer assist hero.

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If Andrew is the customer assist hero, Frank is the enablement hero.

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He is no sludge when it comes to his own performance.

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Apparently, 90% of his CSAT surveys are five, which is perfect.

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That's pretty good, right?

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But he was also quoted to be a wonderful participant in swarms, leading swarms,

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in being active

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on the discussion forums, being active, creating materials for certification

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tests, participating

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in tech pubs, creation, and being a voice to the R&D organization for new

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products.

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So very, very active behind the scenes and enabling great service to customers.

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As is pretty typical of these customer heroes, they are not here, they are

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working.

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So let's clap for them and really congratulate them.

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Thank you.

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David will present the next awards.

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Thank you very much.

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So the organizational influence is an award I'm really passionate about.

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Giving actionable data driven feedback to the rest of the organization is one

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of the

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most important things support can do.

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It's a view properly, support is a never ending voice of the customer program,

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right?

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Even if as Shilpa told us earlier today, we sometimes need to deploy influence,

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shame,

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and guilt to actually get it done.

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I believe that's a quote.

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And I'm delighted to announce that the winner is UiPath.

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So UiPath really gets this role.

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They created a top issues and feedback or TIFF program that provides input to

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the product

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and services organizations.

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They did it by investing in a dedicated team of support ability program

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managers, so real

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investment and they are assisted by AI tools.

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As they said in their award submission, it's not enough to listen.

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They have to act and boy did they act.

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The feedback they provided resulted in over 250 issues resolved in the products

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So we're pleased to recognize the benefits that the TIFF program has had for Ui

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Path

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and its customers.

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Congratulations.

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Really well done.

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Appreciate it.

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Well, thanks.

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The next category we're going to look at is self service.

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So this is a team award.

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Self service, something I also care a great deal about.

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It's an incredible force multiplier for support.

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If the business of support is to help people receive and perceive value, then

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self service

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is what lets us do that at scale.

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We had three very strong submissions.

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They were separated by the tiniest of margins in the judges scoring.

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Al Terricks, Siemens and Zaiwave.

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But in the end, I'm pleased to announce that the winner is Siemens.

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All right.

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So in the end, the Siemens Digital Industry software submission especially

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impressed us

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with their focus on continuous improvement driven by data.

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They've evolved their knowledge base to include not only articles but also web

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inars, short

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videos and what they call support kits that enable hands-on learning for

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customers.

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Their Knowledge Centered Service or KCS program creates evergreen content in

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the customer's

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context.

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Almost three quarters of the KB content over a period of a year, three quarters

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was viewed

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online.

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And as somebody who looks at a lot of knowledge base usage reports and self

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service, that

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is truly incredible.

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That is much higher than any I've ever seen.

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So their support portal has generative AI, not in pilot but in production, in

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use to

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answer questions and to do machine translation.

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So we're excited to recognize Siemens self service success and the deliberate

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process

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they use to achieve it.

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Please.

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[Applause]

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Congratulations.

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Thank you.

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[Applause]

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And so bookmarking our awards presentation is Judy.

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Thank you.

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Hey, you guys doing okay?

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We only have 72 more awards to get through.

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Should be over in a snap.

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All right.

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Our next award, employee experience.

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This is a team award.

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This award recognizes companies who create and deliver high-tier world-class

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support

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employee experience, especially this week, National Customer Service Week.

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This organization is doing a lot to really make the employee experience

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something amazing.

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From recruiting, all the way to offboarding should offboarding have to happen.

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Winning organizations will have implemented programs that ensure employees are

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highly

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engaged but more importantly, highly valued and that value will be felt

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throughout the

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company.

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We had amazing submissions in this category.

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Three organizations stood apart for the judges for all things focused on

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employee experience.

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Our three finalists, Autodesk, Siemens and Flickr, congratulations to the

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finalists and

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more importantly, congratulations to the employees that work at these companies

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because

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they are truly being treated the way we all want to be treated.

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But we only had one winner in this category.

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Get rowdy!

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Come on up, you rowdy people.

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Come on.

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Now we can see what the culture is like there.

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Congratulations, Siemens.

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Thank you for the care you have for your employees.

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Bring it on.

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We're all here for it.

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Come on.

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Bring it.

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There's a lot of you.

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Yeah, okay.

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The judges do want to make a special call out here though.

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There was something amazing in UI pass submission highlighting a truly

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impressive training program.

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All of the judges commented and we do want to make that call out because it

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absolutely

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made us pause and reread and reread and talk about it when we were going

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through the

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judging process.

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Siemens team, congratulations.

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I hope you will make some of what you're doing public.

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I know it's kind of prioritized information but you guys are killing it.

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We are so impressed.

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Thank you.

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Let me give you an award.

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There you go.

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You're welcome.

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Congratulations.

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Now go sit down.

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You're not coming back up.

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Okay.

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That's it.

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You get two.

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You're done.

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Okay.

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All right.

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One more award for today if I'm not mistaken and it's technology adoption.

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This award is a team award again and it's chosen.

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The winner is chosen for what they are doing in their organization related to

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technology

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decisions and deployments.

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We are looking specifically in this category for organization who balance the

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business

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goals with the desire to minimize customization and configuration as much as

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possible.

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The adoption of new technology is measured.

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That's important.

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And meaningful with a high focus on both the customer and the employee

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experience.

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Our judges were impressed with the significant technology investments our

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winner has made

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into their support teams to provide a better experience for their employees and

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their customers.

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Our winner has adopted technology.

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This is just in a very short period of time by the way.

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And they've chosen technology for communities, federated search, case assist,

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monitoring,

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swarming tools, AI tools.

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That's not even the entire list.

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Of note is the establishment of a steering committee to evaluate additional

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opportunities

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to incorporate AI and AI based technologies.

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This team will continue to help further enhance their customer support and

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their engineer

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experience.

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I am pleased to announce the winner in this category is nice.

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It was worth staying, wasn't it?

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You did come for the hug.

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Congratulations.

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Here we go.

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And did I see your bride is here?

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She is on the left.

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She didn't get to see it.

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Awesome.

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Congratulations, Chris.

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You're welcome.

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Thank you everyone.

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Thank you for hanging in there with the awards.

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And again, we'll do this next year.

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If you think your organization is ready, get those submissions in.

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The criteria are publicly available for you to see.

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And we look forward to next year's judging.

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Thank you.

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And don't forget, get your certificates if you took the test.

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Thank you.