SSPA STAR Awards: New and Improved for 2004
by Bill Rose, SSPA Founder/Executive Director

Companies join the SSPA due to their dedication and desire to deliver world-class service and support to their customers. I’m proud to say that many member companies have been very successful at doing just that. For many, customer satisfaction and retention rates have never been higher, and employee retention rates also run high. Many member companies have fully automated significant areas of their support processes while others have become major revenue centers. As an industry, we’ve probably never been as efficient -- or as profitable -- as we are today.

The next step is to achieve recognition for what you’ve done – and many of you have accomplished amazing feats. That’s why the SSPA created and continues to invest in the STAR Awards.

I’ve had the honor to visit a number of member companies that have previously won awards. All of them have their Awards prominently displayed and I’ve come to realize that there’s a lot of pride associated with winning a STAR Award. I’ve also come to realize that more of our members should apply and be recognized for all the hard work and effort they put into their profession – and the innovative solutions they’ve come up with.

To ensure we recognize as many worthy companies as possible, we continue to evolve the format for the STAR Awards. This year, we’ve rolled our WebSTAR Service Award back into the STAR Awards program to recognize those companies that have been innovative in using the Web and Web technologies to improve the services they provide while also improving revenue margins.

We’ve also put intense effort into developing and refining the categories, with the help of our Advisory Board, to allow member companies to reflect industry trends. We’ve also made some changes to allow companies to compete on more even ground. To do that, in specific categories, we intend to identify both enterprise and consumer product support. We’re working with our Advisory Board to come up with separate metrics to recognize the differences between what indicates superior support from companies servicing consumer and enterprise customers.

The result of all this work is the STAR Awards presentation dinner held at our Conference @ Savannah, Oct. 3 - 6. At the dinner, we’ll acknowledge the finalists and announce the ultimate winners.

I’m often asked about which category a company should apply for consideration. While I’m happy to answer questions about the categories, you probably have the best idea of where your company best fits. This year, we have nine award categories from which to choose. Take a few minutes to look over the category descriptions on our web site along with past winners of each category. To get a self-nomination form, contact Ron Johnson, rjohnson@thesspa.com. When you send in your nomination form, we’ll make sure you don’t apply for a category in which you don’t fit. If you’re still unsure about what category is the best fit, contact me at bill.rose@thesspa.com.

Sincerely,


Bill Rose
SSPA Founder/Executive Director