Company: The Cobalt Group, Seattle, WA
Company Description: Cobalt is North America's leading provider of digital marketing services to the automotive industry. For thirteen years, Cobalt's mission has been to help automobile dealers and manufacturers increase their retailing effectiveness and profitability. Cobalt provides marketing services to half of the automotive dealerships in the United States, as well as automotive dealers in Canada and Mexico.
Nomination Category: Customer Service Team Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Front-Line Customer Service Team of the Year

Nomination Title: The Cobalt Group - Front-Line Customer Service Team of the Year

1. Tell the story about what this nominated team achieved since the beginning of July last year (up to 500 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:

From late 2007 through June of 2008, the Customer Services department at
Cobalt experienced a 250% increase in staff size (from 100 team members to
350) due to a significant business opportunity with one of our major
customers. During this time, not only were we ramping up new contact center
personnel to meet the new demands of our client base and service offerings,
but we also wanted to ensure we maintained a superior level of service with
our existing customers. We achieved this feat during this time as our level of
customer satisfaction (as measured by third party satisfaction vendor) was
over 90% satisfied with the level of service provided from our Services
department, including our front-line technical support team! This was well
within our historical trending and expectations.

During this same time, our front-line technical support team had a two-fold
opportunity:

• First, by ramping up new customer-facing personnel we had to ensure
the every customer interaction was a positive experience. We did this by
launching a brand new Quality program and solution that helped us provide
immediate access to recorded calls. Within the Quality program we provided
near-real time feedback to management and front-line personnel to ensure they
were armed with feedback that would help the front line personnel maximize
their customer interactions. We also used this feedback to ensure we minimized
any knowledge gaps within the team. During this time, our quality scores
associated with the call evaluations indicated we were successfully achieving
a positive customer experience near 90% of the time for the calls that were
being evaluated.

• Second, during this time we also had a sizable backlog of outstanding
issues and requests from our customers that needed to be resolved as we were
in the process of adding many more customers. During the course of April '08-
June '08, our front line teams reduced the issue back log by over 82% and
still maintained and managed the new inbound volume of issues and requests as
they came in.

As a validation of our efforts in maintaining a high level of customer
satisfaction during this significant time of growth, Market Tools awarded us a
customer Satisfaction award for a high level of customer satisfaction in
Technical Support. This award was our fourth win in a row but also one of the
most challenging due to our rapid growth!

At Cobalt and within the Cobalt Customer Services department, we take great
strides in ensuring every customer experience is a positive interaction and
one where business relationships are cultivated for the long term. We felt
that the first part of 2008 was a prime example of this philosophy of ensuring
our customers (existing and new) are taken care of even during times of
significant growth. We are also working with our employees to ensure we
provide them the tools they need to excel at their jobs and provide the
highest level of service in the industry.

2. List hyperlinks to any online news stories, press releases, or other documents that support the claims made in the section above. IMPORTANT: Begin each link with http://, and enclose each link in square brackets; for example, [http://www.youraddress.com]:

http://www.cobalt.com/newsdocs/autonews_apr21_08.pdf

http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20081202005504&newsLang=en

http://www.cobalt.com/cobaltnews/press_releases/2008/104/

3. Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography about the leader(s) of the nominated team:

Mark Dunn, Vice President, Customer Services. Mark has been with Cobalt since
July of 2000 and is accountable for establishing and executing the company's
Service Delivery strategy, as well as oversight management responsibility for
Tier I and Tier II technical support, Proactive Premium Services, Organic and
Paid Search delivery, Owner Marketing delivery services, and Quality and
Training programs. Prior to joining Cobalt, Mark served in leadership roles
in the telecommunications industry.