At a formal gala awards banquet last night at Caesar’s Palace, Purchasing Power, LLC received a Gold and a Silver Stevie® Award in the 13th annual Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. Purchasing Power®, one of the fastest-growing voluntary benefit companies in the U.S., offers a leading employee purchase program through the convenience of payroll deductions.
                        
In the “Outbound Marketing Program of the Year” category, Purchasing Power was honored with the 2019 Gold Stevie for creating “Purchasing Power Chicago Style – SHRM Campaign,” a successful market-specific initiative to drive new client engagement and relationship building, and first-time, on-site meetings for the company’s sales team representatives.

“For more than a year now we’ve focused our B2B marketing on ABM tactics, directing sales and marketing communication and resources to targeted accounts within specific markets,” said Margaret Holm, director, B2B strategy and operations. “Our campaign for SHRM 2018, held in Chicago, out-delivered all stretch goals by accurately identifying potential prospects and creatively executing sales materials to the largest, most important human resources conference in the U.S. This award is the crowning achievement to our efforts.”

In the “Best Customer Satisfaction Strategy” category, Purchasing Power won the 2019 Silver Stevie in recognition of its Voice of the Customer (VoC) program, which systematically analyzed customer satisfaction surveys, turned customer responses into measurable actions and ensured that customers’ basic needs were met in a timely, optimal manner.

“Our commitment to our customer goes beyond lip service; we truly read every survey we receive,” said Chris Gillen, vice president of customer experience. “Through our Voice of the Customer program we focus on how best to reduce the customer’s level of effort to ensure their experience is always improving. This award is a testament to my team's hard work and effort to make every customer a repeat customer!”

The Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service are the world’s top honors for customer service, contact center, business development, and sales professionals. More than 2,700 nominations from organizations in 45 nations of all sizes and in virtually every industry were evaluated in this year’s competition. Winners were determined by the average scores of more than 150 professionals worldwide in seven specialized judging committees.

The Stevie Awards committee specifically recognized strategies that measurably improved customer satisfaction ratings, and developed a strategic plan designed to leave a legacy, after implementation, of a new relationship between an organization and its customers.

The 2018 Chicago Style—SHRM Campaign surpassed all expectations, including every previous year’s efforts:
•    Campaign out-performed the 2017 campaign by nearly 5000%
•    1,291 landing page unique visits (up 8% compared to 2017 campaign) 
•    51 specific positive responses to the offer (4% conversion rate from landing page unique visits)
•    25 accepted prospect meetings with Purchasing Power sales representatives in advance of the conference (49% conversion rate from responses to offer)
•    KEY: Nearly $279 million in projected estimated revenue (once pipeline cases are successfully closed)


Launched in March 2018, the VoC program far exceeded both its established goals and expectations, resulting in more satisfied customers, increased orders and revenue, and significant gains in Purchasing Power NPS consumer ratings:
•    Customer orders since VoC launch increased by 23%
•    Demand (actual sales revenue) increased by 7% (Year-to-Date)
•    NPS scores across 2018 increased more than 10%: from 61 to 68
•    Customer Service Calls fell by 36%
•    Order Placement Satisfaction increased by 7% (over 60% of respondents)
•    “Contact to Order” (# of customer communications following their order) dropped by 17%
•    Survey Respondents rose 25-30% (per month)
•    Item Delivery complaints fell by 30%
•    Shipping update complaints fell by 14%

“All of the Stevie Award winners should be very proud of their achievements.  Independent professionals around the world have agreed that their accomplishments are worthy of public recognition,” said Stevie Awards President and founder, Michael Gallagher.