A small Lowestoft telephone answering service business is going from strength to strength after being awarded a customer excellence award at the Suffolk Business Awards 2021.
The awards ceremony took place at Milsoms Kesgrave Hall last Thursday evening and was attended by more than 250 guests - including finalists in the 10 award categories.
The awards are run by Archant, publishers of the Lowestoft Journal, and were introduced by Brad Jones, editor of sister title East Anglian Daily Times, who praised the Suffolk business community for its "vision, resilience and quality" in the face of supply chain, labour, and energy cost challenges.
Pocket Receptionist, based in Lowestoft, was founded in 2016.
The business works by answering calls for around 500 businesses, acting as a professional receptionist but without the cost.
In 2016, the business started with just three callers but has steadily grown over the years and is now recognised as a business which provides customer excellence.
Rose Newman, is a HR Trainee with the business and was the person who entered Pocket Receptionist into the competition.
She said: "I wrote an entry and put us in for the award in August.
"To our surprise, we were told that we were shortlisted to the semi-finals and were invited to a Teams call with the judges to discuss our company a bit more and answer any questions that they had.
"A few weeks later, I received the email that told us that we’d made it to the final four candidates and were invited to the black-tie event last Thursday where we were announced as the winners.
"It is amazing to know that we are a business that has award winning customer service.
"We recently developed Live-Chat integrated systems and plan to target all sorts of businesses and sectors based upon customer feedback."
For staff at Pocket Receptionist the award has acted as a morale boost for a business which is still relatively new.
Miss Newman said: "Everyone was on such a high the day after the awards ceremony it was so lovely to see.
"It has been tough recently but to know our customers are happy means the world to us.
"At the moment we operate from 7am until 11pm but we have listened to customers and should be introducing a 24 hour service next year."
Suffolk Business Awards 2021: Winners in full
- Business Person of the Year: Peter Wilson
- Changing Lives Special Recognition: Combat2Coffee
- Customer Excellence: Pocket Receptionist
- Disruptor of the Year: N2S
- Education in Business: Stow Healthcare Group
- Employer of the Year: Vertas Group
- Scale up Business of the Year: Caribbean Blinds UK
- SME of the Year: Seven Resourcing
- Start Up Business of the Year: GLO - Generate Leads Online
- Business of the Year: Vertas Group
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