Awards Program

The IARE Excellence Awards are presented each year to those who have exceeded expectations in the areas of job performance, team development, customer service, and even community service. Past award winners have often been represented by the individual who always rises to the occasion when needed, placing their personal time second to the needs of the call center. These individuals are also the ones who work quietly behind the scenes to ensure a successful operation and without whom the enterprise would suffer.

This year's Excellence Awards winners were announced recently during the IARE's 18th Annual Conference in Seattle, Washington. As they appear in the photo above:

IARE Manager Excellence Award

Julie Wood Downey
Reservations Sales Manager
Hilton Reservations Worldwide, Tampa, Florida USA

During the past year Julie has lead the opening and expansion of two new functions in the Tampa reservations center for HRW.(one for Hilton Honors and one specialized hotel reservations group). In total these two groups add up to 160 agents. She supports eight team leaders and a total of 180 agents. In addition to doing a superior job of start up in these two new areas, Julie took on the role of leading the other eight supervisors and 200 (added) res agents in Tampa, as her counterpart has been out ill for the past four months of the year with cancer. While the entire center was being torn apart as a result of missing leadership and emotions for someone we care so much about, Julie stepped up to the plate, assumed 100% of the reservations sales responsibilities in the Tampa center, and did it with a smile on her face. She added at least 15 hours per week to her work schedule - not because she was asked to, but because she saw t! hat people needed her. She is the consummate professional, a terrific person, and most importantly, a tremendous leader. When we note this statement 'Managers do things right; Leaders do the right things', we are describing Julie Wood Downey.

IARE Supervisor Excellence Award

Susan Stone
Sales and Development Supervisor,
Carlson Hospitality Worldwide, Omaha, Nebraska USA

Susan has been the lifeline of our office because of her in-depth knowledge and thoroughness. She has been a role model for perfection, devoted to her job and an excellent example of the kind of supervisor Carlson Hospitality Worldwide can be proud of. New programs excite her and she gives them the utmost encouragement and support. She is visionary, always seeking to improve and expand opportunities for her sales representatives and other supervisors. Susan has spent numerous hours of each day tirelessly coaching and developing sales representatives as well as playing a key role in the supervisory group. One of her many success stories is when one of her sales representative, who had been struggling in her performance, achieved her goal in sales per hour and conversion after Susan took her under her wing for a month. Not only does everyone on Susan's team meet, 90% of her team exceeds his or her sales per hour and conversion goal every month. Susan continually motivates us to be our best, strive for accuracy and please the customers. She has given up her nights, weekends and holidays in order to make our department run smoothly by covering different shifts and volunteering for extra activities as needed. She treats each person with respect and consideration. There is much gratitude from those employees who have had direct contact with Susan. Susan, thank you for all your hard work and dedication. You truly shine every day you are at work!!

IARE Staff Member Excellence Award

Rebecca Gentry
Training Coordinator,
Wyndham International Central Reservations Office, Irving, Texas USA

Allow us to introduce you to Rebecca Gentry - Wyndham Super Star! Rebecca has excelled in a number of areas at our Wyndham International Central Reservations Office in Irving, Texas. She joined our company on December 6, 2001 as a Reservations Sales Associate (RSA). With her thirst for knowledge and willingness to contribute, Rebecca quickly volunteered to assist our Training department in streamlining and improving our new hire sales training materials. Specifically, she developed Microsoft PowerPoint presentations used in our 3-week training program that were creative and "alive." She also improved the online skill assessments used throughout training to identify areas of competency and knowledge retention. Her contributions to the training arena have resulted in a more thorough and effective training program for our new hires. As a RSA, Rebecca excelled in the areas of sales conversion and customer service. She was appointed as a New Hire Mentor to assist our newly trained team members as they joined our sales force. In doing so, she identified areas of our systems that were lacking information and efficiencies. Exercising her creativity and initiative, she recommended a project to improve and streamline the existing hotel information reference system used by all RSAs in our office. She learned HTML on her own and used her extensive computer knowledge to automate our existing system. One of the biggest challenges was the fact that the information about our hotels and packages were in multiple locations and did not always match. Also, the information was, in some cases, out of date and no longer applicable. To say the least, our RSA team struggled to give our customers the most accurate and up to date information. Rebecca saw this as an area that needed immediate and sustained improvement. Thus, her new adventure began! Rebecca started working on ways to improve our online resource. She wanted to develop a system that was easy to use and contained the most accurate and up to date information about our hotels for our RSAs to use on their calls. Her thoughts and ideas came together in what we call InfoCentral. What started with a simple, technological idea developed into a multi-media intranet for Wyndham RSAs. This system is used daily for quick reference and immediate response to our customers' questions and needs. Today, RSAs begin their shift with a review of "What's Hot" on InfoCentral - where they receive up to the minute information about sales related topics. In addition, RSAs are able to research in-depth information about our hotels regarding special packages, promotions, and amenities as well as have links to various websites that assist them in providing exceptional service to our customers. Now, a RSA has at his or her fingertips, all the resources and benefits of the world wide web and access to Wyndham related information all through one central resource; thus, increasing the potential for more hotel reservations and higher customer satisfaction. Rebecca's contributions and dedication to creating and maintaining InfoCentral has improved RSA efficiency and customer service. No longer do our customers have to wait endlessly for answers. The immediate and accurate response of InfoCentral is beneficial for our RSAs, our customers, and Wyndham International. Rebecca's dream has become a living reality and we are better - stronger, faster and more efficient - because of it. Did we mention... besides working full time for us, she is also a part time honor student (current GPA is 4.0), a member of the Phi Theta Kappa honor society, and a full time mother and wife? She has also been recognized and published in a creative writing journal called Duck Soup for a short story she wrote, called "Figs and Snails and Apricot Tales," honoring her grandfather. She is truly an exceptional individual who exemplifies excellence.

IARE Representative Excellence Award
(not pictured above)

Annette Bey
Reservation Sales Associate,
Marriott Reservation Center, Omaha Nebraska USA

Annette Bey has made significant contributions in her short tenure as a sales associate that I feel make her very deserving of this prestigious award. When Annette began with Marriott as a reservation sales associate on the Special Services Desk, she quickly proved that she was eager to learn, ambitious, and conscientious about the quality of her work. Her goal has always been to provide the best possible service to each and every guest she assists. Annette strived to have a clear understanding of the reservations system, policies and procedures. Annette's ability to problem solve quickly and desisively not only benefited our guests, but also improved her call handling time, increasing her productivity and decreasing our call waiting time for our guests. This is evident as her statisics for 2002 are incrediable. Her conversion was 59.95% and her ability to cross sell when needed was a whopping 104%. All these booking gave her total revenue for year at $2,039.792. Her attention to detail reduced booking errors and had a positive impact to our organinzation by increasing revenue. Although reaching her statistical "P! ride" goals was important to Annette, it was secondary to her desire to help her callers with their travel plans. This level of service and commitment did not go unnoticed. In October of 2002, the Omaha Reservation Center was given the task of designing and implementing a team of associates to specifically meet and exceed the needs of our most valued guests, the Platinum Elite Members. A request was sentto each Sales Manager asking them to volunteer thier very best, most customer service oriented associates. Annette was recruited by her manager to be a memeber of this very important pilot program. The goal of this project was simple,to provide exemplary service to our Platinum Members. This required the sales associates to use enhanced verbiage and different dialogue thoughout their phone conversations. The new requirements weren't easy for Annette. Initially she found some of the changes daunting and difficult to work into the call flow. Annette made sure to ask questions throughout the training in an effort to understand the "whys" of the project as well as the "whats". It was because of this tenacity and her need to u! nderstand, that prompted her to suggest several changed to the requiered dialogue. Due to this feedback, these changes were incorportated which streamlined and improved the process, once again showing that Annette's focus was to provide the highest quality service within her ability. Once she understood the expectations of her new role, Annette excelled, earning her many commendations from guests around the world. In addition, Annette was also honored in December of 2002 by being chosed from over 700 sales associates "Sale's Associate of the Month". Annette is not only respected by the management staff, but others within the operation as well. The Platinum Elite Project, was a very high profile project. Often visitors from our hotels, as well as from our corportate office were expressing a desire to learn more about the project and to listen to associates proving this serive to our guests. Again and again, these visitors would sit with Annette, while she consistently handled these phone calls. Her dedication to the guests, professionalism and high standards made Annette a leader on this team. In December of 2002, because of the feedback recieved from our Platinum Members, the Platinum Elite Pilot Project, became the real deal. By January of 2003, Annette had applied and been hired as a valuable member of this team. In the two months since the desk was formed, Annette continues to be an asset to the team. she is a proven leader among her peers and often serves as a mentor to new associates going through similar difficulites with the dialogue and verbiage changes that Annette experienced herself. Because of her first hand knowledge of these challanges Annette is able to empathize and successfully coach these team members through the changes which directly impacts the morale and success of the team. I am thrilled to have such a motivated associate as a member of my team. Based on the significant contributions that Annette has made to our organization in only a year, I am confident that she will continue to excel in any area she sets her sights on. Marriott is forunate to have such a dedicated associate. I thank you for considering her for this most prestigious honor.

Nominations are submitted from IARE member call centers and nominees are judged by the IARE Awards Committee on how they have exceeded expectations in their role and performed in an extraordinary manner deserving of recognition.

Award recipients are offered a complimentary registration to attend the IARE 2003 Annual Conference, an awards trophy and a prize check for $200.