We are proud to share that Guusto has been named a Gold Stevie Award winner in the Customer Service Transformation category at the 20th annual Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service.
Our Customer Experience Leader, Vernon Wittal, also earned Silver for Customer Service Leader of the Year.
The Stevie Awards are the world’s top honors for customer service, contact center, business development, and sales professionals. This year more than 2,100 nominations from organizations across 41 nations and territories were evaluated by more than 150 professionals worldwide. Winning Gold means Guusto’s work stood out among top companies around the globe.
As Stevie Awards President Maggie Miller shared:
“The remarkable scores achieved by this year’s Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service winners reflect the extraordinary levels of excellence, innovation, and customer impact they deliver. We proudly join the judges in congratulating and celebrating these outstanding organizations and professionals on their achievements.”
One judge added:
“Guusto is seriously an organization to keep on your radar. Their ability to adapt, change and improve is a stellar story of improvement and growth.”
For us, this recognition is about more than performance metrics. It reflects our mission to make people’s working lives more pleasant, fulfilling, and rewarding through every interaction.
From Growing Pains to Gold Standard
Our Gold win recognizes a two year transformation of Guusto’s customer experience.
When Vernon first heard the news, he shared:
“When I first heard about winning the gold Stevie award, my first reaction was elation. I honestly couldn't think of a more deserving team of this award.”
He reflected on the effort behind the recognition:
“When I look at the work that has gone into the past two years at Guusto to really transform what our customers experience, every single person on the customer experience team has really leaned in and found ways to contribute towards that, whether it's challenging the status quo, recommending a new approach to doing something, highlighting some customer pain points that can be addressed either through process or product.”
The transformation was practical and disciplined. When Vernon joined, response times averaged over an hour.
“When I joined our wait time was a little over an hour for our response times, which, you know, on a metrics page doesn't look that bad, but when you're a customer, an hour is a long time to wait.”
By analyzing schedules, aligning coverage with customer volume, and collaborating as a team, response times dropped to under five minutes.
For HR and support leaders, the lesson is clear. Excellence often comes from focused operational improvements paired with a culture that empowers people to challenge the status quo.
Leadership That Takes Care of People
Vernon’s Silver award reflects the philosophy that powered this transformation.
He shared:
“Even being nominated for customer service leader of the year by your team is almost the award unto itself. It's such a humbling thing to have happen to you.”
And he was quick to redirect the spotlight:
“Leaders are only made great by their teams. And so with that, the award may have my name on it, but it wouldn't have been possible without the team behind me and all focused together on the in common cause.”
His advice to other leaders is direct and practical:
“When a lot of people get into leadership, they think leaders are in charge. And I don't think that's right. I think real leaders take care of people who are in their charge.”
And in day to day execution:
“One-on-ones should be checking on how people are doing, what's going on in their life, how can I unblock them, what's creating friction in work, where are they clicking five times, where I can help them click once.”
For People and HR leaders, this is a powerful reminder. Customer experience starts with employee experience. Removing friction, recognizing effort, and equipping managers to support their teams creates measurable business impact.
The Discipline of Compassion
Vernon shared a perspective that captures what truly differentiates high performing service teams:
“A lot of people have a lot of fancy things to say about providing customer service, but ultimately it is just a day in day out, unending, unremitting, compassionate type of activity.”
He described each interaction as an opportunity:
“Each one of them represents an opportunity to take a piece of negative emotion or a challenge that somebody is experiencing and replace it with something better, optimism, capability, belief in the future.”
Recognition plays a central role in sustaining that level of compassion. Teams who feel valued bring energy and empathy to their customers. Leaders who reinforce impact build resilience into their culture.
This is one of Guusto’s secret weapons. We help organizations build recognition programs that fuel performance, engagement, and service excellence at scale.
A Shoutout to the Team
Vernon made it clear who deserves the credit:
“A team is really just another word for a group of people all working towards common cause. So with that in mind, I really want to shout out Vaughn, Sam, Julia, Sreeja, Uche, Shelby, and Noah. All of you have contributed in immense ways to making this award possible.”
And he closed with this:
“I can honestly say there is none finer than you all. Thank you for everything you've done over the past couple of years, the ways you show up for each other, the way you show up for our customers and the way you show up for everybody at Guusto. You really enable us to live and breathe our mission, which is to make people's workplaces more pleasant and rewarding and drive recognition for all the great work that happens around the world.”
To our CX team, congratulations. This recognition reflects who you are every day.
.png?width=982&height=443&name=5%20Podcast%20(2).png)
If you're leading HR, People Ops, or Customer Support, you're making decisions every day that impact performance, engagement, and retention.
We lean into those conversations by sitting down with leaders who share what's actually working, what they're rethinking, and how they're strengthening employee experience, manager capability, and recognition in real organizations.
If you're looking for practical insight from people doing the work, listen to HR On The Frontline and join the conversation.
What This Means for HR and Support Leaders
This Gold Stevie win is not just a milestone for our CX team. It is proof of what happens when people, process, and recognition work together at scale.
Vernon said it clearly:
“A lot of people have a lot of fancy things to say about providing customer service, but ultimately it is just a day in day out, unending, unremitting, compassionate type of activity.”
That level of consistency does not happen by accident. It requires leaders who remove friction, teams who feel supported, and systems that reinforce the right behaviors every single day.
For HR and People leaders, the question becomes practical. How do you build that kind of culture across hundreds or thousands of employees?
You start the same way we did with customer experience. Intentionally. Incrementally. With scalability in mind.
Build the Foundation
Automate milestones first. Birthdays. Work anniversaries. Key life moments. Create a reliable rhythm of appreciation so recognition is consistent without adding manual work.
1. Empower Leaders
Give a small group of managers structured recognition budgets. Let them reinforce great behaviors in real time. Measure impact. Learn what resonates.
As Vernon reminds leaders:
“Real leaders take care of people who are in their charge.”
Recognition is one of the most practical ways to do exactly that.
2. Expand When the Culture Is Ready
Peer to peer programs are powerful when they align with your organization’s maturity and values. Expand intentionally once the foundation is strong and managers are confident modeling the behavior.
3. Scale Without Wasting Budget
One of Guusto’s biggest differentiators is how we scale with you. You only pay full seat price for employees who send recognition. That means the majority of your budget goes directly to your people rather than administrative overhead.
You can begin with a focused pilot. Add managers. Expand to departments. Roll out company wide when the time is right. Guusto grows with your organization instead of forcing you into a rigid model.
The same discipline that helped us reduce response times from over an hour to under five minutes applies here. Identify friction. Optimize intentionally. Scale what works.
Let’s Raise the Bar Together
Winning Gold at the Stevie Awards affirms the standard our team holds itself to every day. It also reinforces what we believe deeply: recognition strengthens culture, culture strengthens service, and service strengthens business outcomes.
If you are an HR leader, People leader, or Support leader looking to elevate how your organization shows up for employees and customers, we would love to connect.
Start your 30 day free trial and explore how Guusto can help you build scalable, impactful recognition that fuels engagement and customer excellence.
If you're already a Guusto customer and want to expand your program, optimize budgets, or explore new ways to scale recognition across your organization, speak with a member of our award winning team. We would love to help you take the next step.
We're proud of our team we're grateful for our customers, and we're excited to partner with organizations ready to improve the world of work through meaningful recognition.
— Skai Dalziel, Co-Founder & CEO @ Guusto