Michael Biondo, Thumbplay

Company: Thumbplay, New York, NY
Company Description: Thumbplay® (www.thumbplay.com), is the #1 mobile entertainment content service in the U.S. As the largest and fastest growing mobile entertainment content destination, Thumbplay gives consumers access to the broadest and deepest catalog in the industry, spanning audio, video and gaming content from the leading music labels and artists, game publishers and media companies.
Nomination Category: Customer Service Individual Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Customer Service Leader of the Year

Nomination Title: Michael Biondo, VP - Customer Service

1. Tell the story about what this nominee achieved since the beginning of July last year (up to 500 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:

Michael Biondo has a proven track record of creating and leading successful
organizations at ESPN and AT&T. Whether it was launching a 5000 seat call
center for AT&T or building a best in breed technical support center for ESPN,
nothing compares to what he has accomplished at Thumbplay. A true start-up
where he had to roll-up his sleeves to build a World Class Customer Support
department.

The following is what Michael Accomplished since July 2007 to present:

Consolidated two North American Call Center into One reducing costs by 22%.

Moved from a Shared Agent Model to a Dedicated Model.

Negotiated an exclusivity contract with outsourced Call Center.

Launched 24/7/365 Call Center providing an 80/20 Service Level Objective;
which was met or exceeded month over month in the face of a 62% increase in
contact volume.

Created CBT training.

Defined Departmental Values and Goals:

Integrated 24/7 Click to Call; Web Chat and e-mail support.

Developed Mobile Chat - an industry first for Gen X and Gen Y customers who
prefer to IM using their mobile phones to support agents.

Launched Customer Satisfaction Surveys (phone, IVR, email)

Defined and implmented Netpromoter concept and scoring.

Hosted numerous Customer Roundtables.

Increased FCR by 7% by not including AHT in our KPIs and by living
our core department value of Keeping our Promises – We do what we say we are
going to do ..

Defined all KPIs and created strong analytics - "You need to know the score if
you want to win the game"

Launched a Cyber team to monitor blogs, wikis and forums to assist
our Customers.

Designed Self Help Section

Developed Quality Assurance, WFM and Training Departments.

Launched PERT (Presidents Executive Response Team) to handle formal complaints.

Thank you for your consideration. Please seriously consider Michael Biondo
for this prestigous award. Michael was a one man team wearing multiple hats
and delivered exceptional results. He has set the tone for our organization
and always preaches the "Golden Rule" - Please overlook the lack of "fluff"
in this nomination - and what you may think is not possible is when Michael
Biondo is on your team....

2. List hyperlinks to any online news stories, press releases, or other documents that support the claims made in the section above. IMPORTANT: Begin each link with http://, and enclose each link in square brackets; for example, [http://www.youraddress.com]:

http://www.thumbplay.com/about/pressrelease.do

3. Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography about the nominee:

Michael Biondo is the Senior Director of Customer Operations at Thumbplay
where he is responsible for building and leading Customer Support Operations.

Biondo brings over 13 years of customer support program development to his
position.

Prior to joining Thumbplay, Biondo led technical support operations at Mobile
ESPN and served in various customer support leadership roles for AT&T Wireless
Services and XO Communications.