OWENSBORO, Ky., March 28, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- UniFirst (NYSE:UNF), an industry leader in the supply and servicing of uniforms, workwear, and facility products throughout the U.S. and Canada, was presented with a Bronze Stevie® Award in the Back-Office Customer Service Team of the Year category at the tenth annual Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. The awards were presented to honorees during a gala banquet on Friday, March 4, at the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas. More than 500 executives from the U.S. and several other nations attended.
A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/1734f010-4173-4d8a-8a21-9dcd6f4c2c8f
UniFirst’s customer service and contact center team is located within the company’s distribution center in Owensboro, Ky.
The Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service include top sales awards, business development awards, contact center awards, and customer service awards. The Stevie Awards organizes several of the world’s leading business awards shows including the prestigious American Business AwardsSM and International Business AwardsSM.
Over 2,100 nominations from organizations of all sizes and in virtually every industry were evaluated in this year’s competition. Finalists were determined by the average scores of 115 professionals worldwide, acting as preliminary judges. More than 60 members of several specialized judging committees determined the Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie Award placements from among the Finalists during final judging earlier this month.
UniFirst’s bronze-winning nomination centered on the creation and implementation of new professional development tools, performance measurement metrics, and performance review programs to identify areas for continuous improvement in all aspects of customer service. “We wanted to ensure that the customer service representatives on our team possess the highest levels of professional caliber polish and skillset,” says Bethany Johnson, UniFirst’s customer service manager. “We felt a responsibility to help them reach those levels, for their benefit and for our customers’ benefit. We were confident they had the ability but wanted to make sure we were doing everything we could to properly equip them to consistently deliver excellence in customer relations.”
Johnson’s group identified a need to further enhance an environment that supports the professional growth and success of their customer service representatives. “It appears, based on overwhelming positive results from a new online survey tool, that our efforts are having a near immediate impact on both response rates and overall customer satisfaction. We’re extremely proud of that.”
Details about the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service and the list of Stevie winners in all categories are available at www.StevieAwards.com/sales.
About UniFirst
Headquartered in Wilmington, Mass., UniFirst Corporation (NYSE:UNF) is a North American leader in the supply and servicing of uniform and workwear programs, as well as the delivery of facility service programs. Together with its subsidiaries, the company also provides first aid and safety products, and manages specialized garment programs for the cleanroom and nuclear industries. UniFirst manufactures its own branded workwear, protective clothing, and floorcare products, and with over 225 service locations, 275,000 customer locations, and 12,000 employee Team Partners, the company outfits more than 1.6 million workers each business day. For more information, contact UniFirst at 800.455.7654 or visit www.unifirst.com.
About The Stevie Awards
The Stevie Awards are conferred in six programs: The American Business Awards, the German Stevie Awards, The International Business Awards, the Stevie Awards for Women in Business, the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service, and the Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards. A seventh program, the Stevie Awards for Great Employers, will debut in April 2016. Honoring organizations of all types and sizes and the people behind them, the Stevies recognize outstanding performances in the workplace worldwide. Learn more about the Stevie Awards at http://www.StevieAwards.com, and follow the Stevie Awards on Twitter @TheStevieAwards.