We weren’t able to attend the awards banquet for the 2009 Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service, which took place last night in Las Vegas — but, luckily, we were able to recruit an attendee to write us a dispatch, and, as it happens, our conscript volunteer turned out to be one of the winners. (The full list of winners is here.)

So, without further ado (well, as much ado as “after the jump” implies, anyway), allow me to turn this post over to destinationCRMblog.com’s first-ever guest blogger, Hari Subramaniam, senior director of global customer service at Informatica. [Anything added in brackets is by me.]

A windy February evening in Las Vegas that turned into quite a remarkable one for the Informatica Global Customer Support team and the rest of Informatica. The Stevie Awards (or ‘Stevies’ as they are affectionately referred to) have been around for a while, although their foray into the Sales and Customer Services disciplines is fairly recent. Michael Gallagher, president of the Stevie Awards, presided over the event, which had well over 120 representatives from various organizations that excel in their sales and service functions.

Distinguished company, I’d say.

Ashok (Gunasekaran) and I were nervously awaiting the start of the ceremonies when we ran into Debbie Monteforte from AT&T Business Direct. Coincidentally, Informatica employs a Corporate Responsibility User plan through AT&T, the Web portal [through which] users can log in and see details regarding their usage, device details, etc. It’s an offering from AT&T Business Direct, so we merrily chatted away about AT&T’s Web portal and got this lady all curious about [our] data integration platform….

And so the event started and Mike applauded the participants for making it this far and shared some historical details around the Stevies. The Stevies [the actual awards that are physically presented to winners; see photo, below] are made by the same people who make the Oscars it seems [that would be Chicago's R.S. Owens], and Mike went on to say that they both weigh in at about 8 lbs.

Stevie Award trophy

Everyone thought that was a cool bit of information and suddenly you could feel an aura of glamour in the awards ceremony. Compared to last year, there were 120 or so more applications this year, for a total of around 520.

The awards ceremony started, and within a few minutes, we heard the announcement that an unsually high number of contenders received very high credits from the panel of judges in the category – “Best Use of Technology in Customer Service.” Consequently, the Stevies made an exception to present joint winners status to two organizations – one was AT&T Business Direct and the other was (yes, you guessed it right) Informatica. Whoooohooooo!

As part of a 30-second acceptance speech I mentioned the focus on service excellence that we live by in Informatica Global Customer Support and that for such a premier organization to recognize the same is a true privilege and honor.

[Update, 2/11/09, 2p ET: Two small changes have been made to the following, at the request of Informatica. The locations of these changes are noted in Italic.]

Going back to our application, I can recall a few key points that should come as no surprise:

• Consistently exceeding Service Level Achievements
• Reduction in time-to-resolve of over 10 percent in the past year
• A truly global operation (including tools and procedures) that earned an “Industry Best Practice” classification by The SSPA

And of course, never ceasing to innovate value for our customers, which has resulted in the launch of Informatica TechNet Community, Configuration Support Manager, and Change Request Tracking to name a few.

A great event, an array of distinguished finalists as company, AND a Stevie in the bag — what more can one ask for? Signing off from Vegas, Hari Subramaniam

That’s it — aside from my desire to list a few other winners and finalists of note in the CRM world (this is a totally arbitrary selection — comprising companies or verticals that interest me, or ones we’ve covered recently — so be sure to check out the full list):

Customer Service Categories

Award for Innovation in Customer Service
STEVIE AWARD WINNER: Akamai Technologies, Cambridge, MA

Best Use of Technology in Customer Service
STEVIE AWARD WINNERS:
AT&T BusinessDirect, San Antonio, TX
Informatica Corp., Redwood City, CA
FINALIST: Bluewolf, New York, NY

Customer Service Contact Center of the Year (Over 100 Seats)
STEVIE AWARD WINNER: Brink’s Home Security Holdings, Inc., Irving, TX
FINALIST: Marriott Vacation Club International, Orlando, FL

Customer Service Department of the Year – Financial Services
STEVIE AWARD WINNER: Wachovia, Charlotte, NC

Customer Service Department of the Year – IT & Telecommunications
FINALIST: Informatica Corp., Redwood City, CA

Customer Service Department of the Year – Leisure & Tourism
STEVIE AWARD WINNER: The Venetian & The Palazzo Resort – Casino – Hotel, Las Vegas, NV

Customer Service Department of the Year – Public Services & Education
FINALIST: U.S. Postal Service, Washington, DC

Customer Service Department of the Year – Retail
STEVIE AWARD WINNER: Toshiba America Business Solutions Inc., Irvine, CA
FINALIST: Kohl’s Department Stores, Menomonee Falls, WI

Customer Service Leader of the Year
FINALIST: James Wong, CEO, Avidian Technologies, Redmond, WA

Sales Categories

CRM Implementation & User Adoption Program of the Year
STEVIE AWARD WINNER: Geeks on the Way, Calgary, AB Canada
[Nice to see more acclaim spread in this company's direction; we wrote about Geeks just a few months ago -- here.]

Demand Generation Program of the Year
STEVIE AWARD WINNER: Marketo, San Mateo, CA
[We deemed Marketo worthy of one of our 2008 CRM Rising Star Awards.]

Global Sales Leader of the Year
FINALIST: Chris Harrington, President, Worldwide Sales and Client Svcs, Omniture, Inc., Orem, UT

Sales Department of the Year – Computer Software
FINALIST: Epicor Software Corp., Irvine, CA

Sales Department of the Year – Public Services & Education
STEVIE AWARD WINNER: U.S. Postal Service Sales, Washington DC

Sales Manager of the Year
STEVIE AWARD WINNER: Leah Daniels, Sales Manager/Retention and Growth, ZoomInfo, Waltham, MA

Sales Process of the Year
STEVIE AWARD WINNER: Numara Software, Tampa, FL

Honorary Stevie Award Winners
Gartner, Inc.: ValueSelling Award for Sales Productivity Improvement

Congratulations to all the winners and finalists, actually — I love hearing about high-quality customer service stuff, especially success stories that are entirely new to me.

j.