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Company: Catapult Technology, Bethesda, MD
Company Description: Catapult Technology, Ltd. is a leading Service Disabled Veteran Owned (SDVO) Information Technology government contracting firm that provides Technology and Management Solutions, Enterprise Systems, and Information Management Services to the federal government. Catapult is focused on quality service delivery.
Nomination Category: Customer Service & Call Center Awards Individual Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Customer Service Contact Center Professional of the Year

Nomination Title: Michael White, Service Desk Operations Supervisor

    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:

As Service Desk Operations Supervisor, Michael White ensures the provision of
Service Desk support as the single point of contact for over 17,000 customers
world-wide. Catapult's call center is based in Chambersburg, PA and serves the
General Services Administration (GSA) on Catapult's largest contract: The $200
million GSA Infrastructure Technology Global Operations (GITGO).

Since joining Catapult at the beginning of the GITGO contract, Michael has
progressed rapidly from service desk agent to supervisor to senior supervisor
and has assumed much of the operation manager's responsibilities at the GITGO
service desk. He was pivotal in moving Catapult's call center operation to a new
location in August 2009, which was a seamless transition.

Michael supervises a team of 40 Service Desk Analyst agents that field more than
250,000 customer contacts annually in a fast-paced, 24x7x365 environment. The
team responds to telephone calls, automated requests, emails, and other requests
for technical support, properly identifying, researching, and resolving
technical problems. His team is also responsible for managing real-time service
level monitoring for load balancing surges and reallocating resources as needed
ensuring achievement of Service Level Agreements.

He takes responsibility for major service desk functions such as education,
customer service training and control, and reporting. Michael leads floor
operations, including-workflow, procedures, technical support, and customer
service. He conducts Service Desk Audits and manages GSA's expectations though
the life-cycle of their request.

At the beginning of Catapult's involvement in the GITGO contract, the Service
Desk did not focus on soft skills. Michael was instrumental in training the team
in orient toward customer service. The team was instructed in politeness and to
smile during calls. They use plain language (versus technical terms) in
conversations. The soft skill initiative has paid off, as evidenced by the
aggregated results of customer satisfaction surveys. In 2007, Catapult scored
76.34%; in 2008, 92.11%; and in 2009, 95.94%. Soft skills clearly had a major
impact on improved satisfaction and process improvement. (Michael created the
customer satisfaction survey that is provided to GSA on a weekly basis.)

As Michael says, "We know we cannot resolve every call immediately, but we can
make every call a rewarding experience. Since I personally take any calls that
escalate, I am the one who assures a caller that their issue will be resolved."
Michael earned his Help Desk Institute (HOI) Support Center Manager
Certification in 2009 and has contributed to GITGO by helping to implement and
follow Information Technology infrastructure Library" (ITIL ®)-based best
practices.

For his efforts on GITGO, GSA recognized Michael's significant contribution in
Customer Intimacy in early 2010. GSA's confidence in Michael is such that he
occasionally gives presentation at off-site meetings to GSA OCiO
representatives, including GSA Cia Casey Coleman.

Keeping his team and supporting engineers calm and focused during incidents is
instrumental in effective outage management and restoration. Michael's ability
to motivate the call center team to meet record call levels in 2009 and to
champion continued process improvement activities is key to the ongoing success
of our GSA support.

    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://thestevies.com/SASCS11Attachments/

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

Michael White has over 10 years of experience. As Service Desk Operations
Supervisor at the Catapult call center operation in support of the GITGo
contract, he is the single point of contact for over 17,000 GSA users worldwide.
His previous position was Local Support Technician at World Kitchen LLC, a
3,000-employee manufacturer of kitchen products. He recently he earned HDI
Support Center Manager Certification (2009). While working 40 hours per week,
Michael graduated from AccuTech Business Institute (second in his class, 3.44
GPA). He has worked for Catapult since the company won the GITGo contract in
March 2007.