International Customer Management Institute (ICMI) Announces Global Call Center of the Year Award Finalists

PRNewswire
PRINCETON, N.J.
Jul 17, 2008

PRINCETON, N.J., July 17 /PRNewswire/ -- The International Customer Management Institute (ICMI) has announced the Global Call Center of the Year Award finalists. The award will be presented on September 16 at ICMI's flagship call center conference, the Annual Call Center Exhibition (ACCE), taking place this year in Phoenix.

In the large call center category, the finalists are Mondial Assistance, http://www.mondialusa.com/, a global leader in specialty insurance and emergency assistance services, and SRP, https://www.srpnet.com/Default.aspx, one of the nation's largest public power utility companies.

"Our associates ask me every day if we've won the award," said Pam Dufour, Chief Services Officer at Mondial Assistance (formerly World Access.) "They are very excited to be recognized as a top call center. We tell them all the time just how great they are but having an independent group's validation is really special, too."

"We're grateful that ICMI has elected to recognize SRP's Call Center accomplishments," said Michael Lowe, SRP's manager of Customer Services. "I want to acknowledge our employees who have carried on SRP's long tradition of quality customer service through hard work and a real commitment to our customers."

The Global Call Center of the Year Award are given annually to two call centers, one in the small-medium and one in the large, that have shown a strong grasp of the principles of effective call center management, created a positive work culture and a climate that fosters personal growth, and built a track record that includes developing and attaining impressive goals within the organization. The award recipients will profiled in Customer Management Insight, the leading publication for the call center industry.

In the small-medium call center category, the finalists are Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP, http://www.orrick.com/, a global law firm, and in the large category, Careerbuilder.com, http://www.careerbuilder.com/, the nation's largest online job site.

"It is certainly an honor for Orrick's Service Desk to be chosen as a finalist for the ICMI "Call Center of the Year Award," said Patrick Tisdale, Orrick's CIO. "Being recognized by one of the service industry's most trusted advisory organizations is a wonderful validation of something our lawyers and staff comment on quite frequently -- that we enjoy a very responsive, educated and high quality level of service center support, available to us anywhere we find ourselves working around the globe, at any time of the day."

Ted Hopton, Director of Membership Services, spoke proudly about all four finalists, "ICMI Members include the leading contact centers from around the world, and we select only the very best of the best for our award. Each of these companies provides an outstanding example of the high-level of performance that call centers are capable of achieving," he said.

For more details about the annual Global Call Center of the Year Award, please visit http://www.icmi.com/Membership/ccy/.

About Mondial Assistance

Mondial Assistance is a global leader is specialty insurance and emergency assistance services. Four percent of the world's population or about 250 million people are served by Mondial Assistance businesses around the globe. In the United States, Mondial Assistance is best known for its Access America brand of travel insurance and assistance services. Access American plans are sold in all 50 states by the finest travel agencies and suppliers. As one of 29 business units, the U.S. operation also serves major health insurers, credit card, and entertainment companies with insurance products, international travel assistance, and concierge services. For more information, please visit: http://www.mondialusa.com/.

About SRP

SRP is the third-largest public power utility in the nation providing electric service to more than 935,000 customers in the greater Phoenix metropolitan area. SRP also is the Phoenix area's largest supplier of water, delivering about 1 million acre-feet to agricultural, urban and municipal water users.

About Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe

Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP is a global law firm with more than 1,000 lawyers in North America, Europe and Asia. The firm focuses on litigation, complex and novel finance and innovative corporate transactions. Orrick clients include Fortune 100 companies, major industrial and financial corporations, commercial and investment banks, high-growth companies, governmental entities, start-ups and individuals. The firm's 18 offices are located in Beijing, Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles, Milan, Moscow, New York, Orange County, Pacific Northwest, Paris, Rome, Sacramento, San Francisco, Shanghai, Silicon Valley, Taipei, Tokyo and Washington, D.C.

About CareerBuilder.com

CareerBuilder.com is the nation's largest online job site with more than 23 million unique visitors and over 1.6 million jobs. Owned by Gannett Co., Inc., Tribune Company, The McClatchy Company and Microsoft Corp., the company offers a vast online and print network to help job seekers connect with employers. CareerBuilder.com powers the career centers for more than 1,600 partners, including 140 newspapers and leading portals such as America Online and MSN. More than 300,000 employers take advantage of CareerBuilder.com's easy job postings, 26 million-plus resumes, Diversity Channel and more. CareerBuilder.com and its subsidiaries operate in the U.S., Europe, Canada and Asia. For more information, visit http://www.careerbuilder.com/.

About the International Customer Management Institute

The International Customer Management Institute (ICMI) is one of the call center industry's most established and respected organizations. Founded in 1985, ICMI delivered the industry's first management-level conferences, educational programs and publications. Through constant innovation and research, ICMI's consulting and training services have become the industry's gold standard. ICMI publications, such as ICMI's Customer Management Insight, and events, including the Annual Call Center Exhibition (ACCE) and Call Center Demo and Exhibition conferences, continue to lead the industry. And ICMI's growing membership community now includes professionals representing organizations in over 50 countries. For more information on the International Customer Management Institute, please visit http://www.icmi.com/. ICMI is part of Think Services, a division of United Business Media (http://www.unitedbusinessmedia.com/), a global provider of news distribution and specialist information services with a market capitalization of more than $2.5 billion.

   Contact Information

   Ted Hopton
   ICMI Director of Membership Services
   Phone: 610-918-4757
   tedh@icmi.com

SOURCE: International Customer Management Institute

CONTACT: Ted Hopton, Director of Membership Services of ICMI,
+1-610-918-4757, tedh@icmi.com

Web site: http://www.icmi.com/
http://www.unitedbusinessmedia.com/