The 2008 International Directory Assistance Award Winners

The 2008 International Directory Assistance Awards were held at the 5* Wynn Resort in Las Vegas. This highly respected industry event, sponsored by Market Location, concluded a two day conference featuring speakers and delegates from around the globe. The winners of the industry's top awards are all leaders in their particular market or field.

(PRWEB) November 12, 2008 -- The 2008 International Directory Assistance Awards were held at the 5* Wynn Resort in Las Vegas. This highly respected industry event, sponsored by Market Location, concluded a two day conference featuring speakers and delegates from around the globe. The winners of the industry's top awards are all leaders in their particular market or field.

The 2008 International Directory Assistance Conference and Awards was held at the wonderful Wynn Resort in Las Vegas. The highly respected 118tracker.com awards event was again kindly sponsored by Market Location. This year 118tracker.com partnered with the Pierz Group annual conference which featured interesting speakers and a wide range of delegates from around the globe.

The final evening of the two day event was dedicated to fun, laughter and celebrating the positive developments and organisations in global directory assistance and related search market. The gala dinner was a roaring success with entertainment provided by Michael Clayton. Guests were treated to a champagne reception on the terrace and an exquisite dinner. During the awards presentations video speeches were recorded by a number of organisations that could not make the trip to Las Vegas including a special message from Sir Richard Branson on behalf of Virgin Mobile following a successful push into the directories industry with the launch of their 118918 service.

The 5th industry awards were a massive success with delegates and sponsors already looking towards 2009 and the 6th annual event. The aim of the 118tracker.com Directory Assistance event is to celebrate the achievements made by organisations and more importantly the people involved in the directory and related search industry.

118tracker are currently researching suggestions for the venue of next years awards evening. Feel free to send your ideas to 2009@118awards.co.uk

The 2008 International Directory Assistance Award winners are -

Best of Americas -
V-Enable
This year the Best Americas was a strongly contested award, receiving more entries than any other category.

Best in Europe -
Opplysningen 1881
(Norway)
This Award is presented to the service from Europe that can demonstrate Best Practice across all key areas of; recruitment, training & development, service offerings, performance and quality, technology, innovation, and customer feedback.

Mobile Service -
Cha Cha
The winning Mobile Service needs to demonstrate best practice in the areas of: Consumer expectation, need and usability, commercial impact, service quality & performance management, use of technology and of course innovation.

Best Newcomer -
Virgin Mobile 118918
This award is open to those DA services, around the globe, that have launched during the last year and includes telephone, printed or online services.

Best Online -
192.com - 5th year of winning!
The winner of this award is the website that offers the best overall online service. Entrants provided details of their particular online DA service and offering along with a profile of the complete services - including consumer need, usability, technology and innovation.

Best Wholesale -
Telus
The winner of this year's award has, in the last year, been highly recognised by their approach towards their people, winning awards for their training and development.

Advertiser Sponsored -
Call Genie
The winner of this award is the service that best meets the criteria in respect of demonstrable consumer requirement, innovation and use of technology. Yellow Pages Publishers have evolved from book publishing to internet directory publishing and are now exploring voice enabled and mobile user experiences. Their goal is to create brand loyalty through enhanced user experiences and ever expanding distribution of their advertiser's content.

Technology Advancement -
WDN
Entrants to this award should of either developed hardware or software for the directory services industry.

Location Based -
Call Genie
In considering this award, judges looked at all aspects of the service from accessibility and usability to; demonstrable need and service quality. Entrants needed to demonstrate a solid requirement for the service, evidence of client and customer take up, targets and achievements.

Voice Automation -
Dial Directions
Another new award for this year's gala recognising the continued growth and developments in the industry. In considering this award judges were looking particularly at innovation, recognition of customer needs through uptake, and overall impact.

Marketing Campaign -
11890 Ireland
The Marketing Campaign of the Year is an opportunity to celebrate the unique and creative way directory assistance providers have promoted their service.

Agent of the Year -
Philip Capanzana - Global Sky
This industry champion stands out in their company; acting as an ambassador for the delivery of an effective and rewarding customer experience both to the consumer and their colleagues.Judges considered the agents experience, their ambitions and what their peers had to say about them.

Call Centre Manager of the Year -
Marie Labuga - Global Sky
The key to a successful Manager in this industry is someone who can command respect from both their team and their peers. Agents require support from their manager to deliver a first class service, and the business managers expect their call centre manager to deliver on the bottom line to the business.

Outstanding Contribution -
Call Genie
The winner of this year's Outstanding Achievement award is a name that we will all recognise as a brand that is leading the field in innovation. Already winners of numerous awards, including this year's Directory Assistance Awards winning both Best Location Based Service and Best Advertiser Sponsored Service.

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