Nextiva - Award for Innovation in Customer Service
Company: Nextiva, Scottsdale, AZ
Company Description: Nextiva provides cloud-based communications and collaboration solutions designed to simplify the way businesses communicate. Founded in 2006 on the principle of Amazing Service®, Nextiva serves more than 150,000 businesses in the United States from its headquarters in Scottsdale, Arizona. Learn more at www.nextiva.com.
Nomination Category: Customer Service & Call Center Awards Achievement Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Award for Innovation in Customer Service - Telecommunications Industries
Nomination Title: Nextiva’s unwavering dedication to Amazing Service
Tell the story about your organization's innovations in customer service since the beginning of July 2017 (up to 650 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:
Nextiva, an innovative technology company based in Scottsdale, Arizona is the ideal candidate for the Stevie Award for Innovation in Customer Service – Telecommunications. The company is so passionate about customer service that it trademarked the term “Amazing Service” and lives by that mantra every day across all levels of its organization.
Tomas Gorny, a serial entrepreneur originally from Poland, founded Nextiva with the mission of simplifying business communications across the world. He and his management team welcomed their first customer in spring 2008 by offering best-in-class VoIP solutions. Since then, Nextiva has grown to 150,000 business customers in the United States and 1,000 team members worldwide. One of Gorny’s original core principles was to give customers a level of service they had never before experienced, especially from a telecommunications company.
He was determined to do away with lengthy call wait times, rude responses, and forgotten follow-ups. Instead, Gorny made it his mission to re-define customer service. His plan is working beautifully. Nextiva’s dedication to Amazing Service is evident in every customer touch point, from personalized system walkthroughs for new customers to instant troubleshooting.
Numbers support Nextiva’s Amazing Service promise: 95 percent of sales and support calls are answered by the second ring and the company prides itself on having little to no hold times during calls. Since July 2014, Nextiva has added nearly 700 customer service-focused employees to the company.
Quick and friendly responses aren’t the only way Nextiva exhibits Amazing Service; the team is also focused on engaging customers via social media channels, often with thank you videos. Responses from customers to this initiative have been incredibly positive. The strategy has shown that Nextiva cares enough to take the time to respond to each customer, and since then, the team has recorded more than 1,800 thank you videos, even making a dedicated YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/user/NextivaCares) for this effort. Nextiva’s video production team has been invited to speak about this program at national conferences, and members of the press have written about the company’s commitment to customer service.
Nextiva conveys its dedication to Amazing Service in part by giving autonomy to its customer service representatives. The company subscribes to a “whatever it takes” mantra in making customers happy and, as such, has been known to utilize some above-and-beyond follow-up techniques to build lasting relationships with customers. When, for example, a customer off-handedly said he was having a rough day and wished he had some Red Bull on hand, the Nextiva customer service representative he was speaking with ordered a case of the energy drink and had it overnighted to the customer’s house. Another time, when a customer called in with a request and got to talking with one of Nextiva’s employees, he expressed how much he loved the Chicago Bears NFL team. As a follow-up to make sure the customer’s needs were taken care of, the employee sent a signed Brian Urlacher helmet to the client’s home.
In addition, Nextiva sends out satisfaction surveys to customers after every interaction. Employees review the survey responses daily to see what is working and the areas in which they can improve.
In spring 2018, Nextiva extended its dedication to Amazing Service by expanding its product offerings beyond VoIP. While the company still continues to offer best-in-class VoIP services, it also unveiled NextOS (https://www.nextiva.com/why-nextiva/nextos-technology.html), a customer-focused software platform that enables companies to communicate more effectively.
For these reasons, Nextiva would like to be considered for the Stevie Award for Innovation in Customer Service – Telecommunications Industry. Nextiva hopes its story of Amazing Service, and supporting products/platforms, inspire other companies to be just as attentive to the needs of their clients.