Aspire Wins Top International Award

Aspire, a training and strategic marketing company, wins a prestigious 2014 Summit Creative Award as part of the Summit International Awards.

Out of more than 5,000 submissions from 24 countries, Aspire was named a winner by the 2014 Summit Creative Awards® for its EVOLVE campaign to help call centers (contact centers) drive new revenues in a rapidly changing technological and consumer environment. Aspire’s winning entry for Best Creative in a B2B Campaign included offline and online integrated educational materials and a free, downloadable white paper called “The 21st Century Call Center,” all designed to help an industry often stuck in the past keep pace with consumer demands.

“We are thrilled and honored to be a recipient of a Summit Creative Award for the impact of our call center campaign,” said Christine Brosnahan, Aspire’s Senior Vice President and Director of Call Center Strategy. She continued: “We created the guide based on our years of experience and extensive research into what changes need to occur to drive profits in our industry. Recent studies show that demand for the voice channel is not going anywhere, and businesses today must learn how to maximize the potential of their call centers to stay competitive. Put simply: they have to evolve.”

The Summit Creative Award (SCA) recognizes and celebrates the creative achievements of small and medium-sized agencies worldwide with annual billings under $30 million. Celebrating its 20th year, the SCA has firmly established itself as the premier arbiter of creative excellence for firms of this size and has become a coveted honor. Entries in 20 major categories are judged by an international group from 24 countries against a stringent set of standards. During its blind judging, the Board of Judges search for and identify innovative and creative concepts, strong executions and the ability to communicate and persuade.

“Winning a Summit Creative Award is a significant accomplishment in one’s career. With vetted judges, tough judging criteria, blind judging processes, and strict bylaws limiting winners, only deserving entries receive recognition,” said Jocelyn Luciano, Executive Director for the Summit International Awards (SIA). “The creative work this year was outstanding. Watching the judges debate the details of individual entries in the run-off for the top spots was inspiring.”

According to materials in Aspire’s winning entry, the voice channel will remain a vital part of distribution in the 21st century. While it will look different due to the advent of search and mobile, the heart of the matter is that people want to talk, especially when making costly or unfamiliar purchases like travel bookings. Aspire’s campaign highlighted the fact that call centers today must move from transactional approaches—rates, dates, spaces—to more strategic operations that are proactive about adapting to a changing marketplace. By doing so, call centers will drive new customer acquisition and loyalty through their channel.

With today’s evolving consumer expectations for personalized answers and fast service, it’s more important than ever for call centers to understand how to effect change in order to remain profitable: whether it is through changing a process, the way product information is created, distributed, and maintained, or the culture of a call center itself. Aspire’s EVOLVE campaign helps call centers stay in front of technology trends, and above all, learn to provide the outstanding service that customers crave through effective call center training.

“To be recognized on this international scale by Summit is exciting for our whole team,” said Renie Cavallari, founder and Chief Instigator of Aspire. “‘The 21st Century Call Center Guide’ was a true creative and collaborative effort led by call center expert Chris Brosnahan and crafted by our talented strategic team to effectively communicate new ideas within an industry that desperately needs to innovate. I couldn’t be more proud of our team here at Aspire, who strives to continuously challenge the status quo, share, and implement new thinking to improve our clients’ financial performance.”

Aspire makes their customers more money through their focus on strategic marketing, service culture integration and training. They deliberately disrupt the status quo, making room for results-driven change. Aspire works with service-oriented organizations large and small operating around the globe, from brands like Best Western and Four Seasons to small independent businesses and organizations. Aspire announced their Call Center Division expansion in November of 2013 to demonstrate their conviction in the power of voice and further optimize the call center environment to increase revenues for organizations that operate them around the world.