Saudi Aramco's IT Customer Care Centre and INVITA, a Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) company owned by the Bank of Bahrain and Kuwait (BBK) have won the HDI-MEA Team Excellence Awards.

The awards honour support organisations that have achieved the highest standards of customer service and were presented at a ceremony held at the second annual HDI-MEA Conference and Expo currently which recently took place in Cairo.

The industry prizes were awarded to recognise the contribution of the two companies to the enhancement of the call centre, outsourcing and IT service management industries through their commitment to customer service and skills training.

The awards also aim to improve the quality of IT service and support worldwide, by encouraging organisations to focus equally on customer service and technical support skills. The most recent HDI Practices and Salary Survey reports that 'soft' skills, such as effective listening and communication, are the most coveted skills for a support professional, with 98 per cent of respondents viewing them as very important.

'These awards celebrate investments in both people and technology, as we cannot create a culture of excellence without first investing in a framework to provide first class customer service. These two companies are leading by example and have created a successful synergy between information technology and human talent to excel and innovate in their respective services,' said Moustafa Kadous, president and chief operating officer, HDI-MEA.

The Internal Team Excellence Award was presented to Saudi Aramco based on the company's low staff turnover rate of five per cent, high customer satisfaction ratings and a first call resolution rate of between 92 to 95 per cent. With more than 50,000 staff handling a volume of up to 100,000 calls per month, the IT Customer Care Centre provides first class services including service desk support, customer relationship, desk-side support, IT service management, incident management, problem management and change management.

Outsourcing provider INVITA secured the External Team Excellence Award, for its efforts in consistently achieving high ratings on all measures of customer service. A team of 65 staff, managing more than 45,000 calls per month, has created a first-class outsourcing partner in the region that has recently achieved a 92 per cent satisfaction rating from their client base.

HDI is the world's largest membership association for technical service and customer support professionals and has more than 10,000 members worldwide and business partners in six continents. Almost 90 percent of the Fortune 500 companies have participating HDI members, who spearhead the advancement of the IT service and support industries. HDI Middle East and Africa (HDI-MEA) serves 71 countries with headquarters offices in Dubai, UAE, and supporting offices in Egypt and Saudi Arabia.-TradeArabia News Service