That’s right, for the third year now, Rackspace is now accepting applications for the 2009 FANATI® Award for Outstanding Customer Service. For three years now, Rackspace has awarded The FANATI to the one customer who best demonstrates ‘Fanatical Support’ when it comes to their customers.

Here at Rackspace, we’ve built a reputation based on service, known to our customers as Fanatical Support®; our anytime, anywhere, any way approach to customer service. And we know we’re not the only ones who put customer needs first. That’s why we created The FANATI in 2007 to recognize one of our customers for valuing customer service as much as we do.

The contest consists of two rounds of judging (judging by a panel of experts and a customer satisfaction survey). Customers first complete the application process located on the MyRackspace® customer portal. The past two years, the award has only been available to our Managed Hosting customers. But this year we are opening it to all US-based customers including Cloud and Email & Apps customers. Those customers will be able to access the application online here.

The other thing we are changing this year is the format of the application. No longer is it just a written application answering a bunch of questions. This year we want to make it personal and with a touch of creativity. That is why we are only accepting video applications! All our customers need to do is create a short (less than five minutes) video explaining what they do and how they exemplify outstanding customer service. It should be interesting none the less.

So if you’re a customer, and you think your customer service is pretty good…award winning even…then log on to the MyRackspace portal or click the link on your control panel, and let us hear from you.

For more information on The FANATI, click here, or leave us a comment below if you have any questions.

Fanatical Support® is what we do, and for Rackspace customer Laughing Squid, we’ve been doing it for 10 years.  Happy 10th Anniversary, Laughing Squid!  We’re pretty sure we owe you something made out of tin, or is 10 years aluminum?
Check out the blog post from Laughing Squid here.

On February 10th, just four days before Valentine’s Day, one of our customers, Golden State Communications, showed us the love and posted an amazing blog post about our service.  This all goes back to our goal to become one of the World’s Greatest Service Companies.

Read the full post here.

Rackspace recently gave our second annual Fanati™ award. The award honors the one customer that has best demonstrated excellence when it comes to customer service. Douglas Hanna, one of the contest judges, has written a special guest post about the contest and the winner.

A Fanatical Competition

As a customer service consultant and journalist, I have the opportunity to work with and report on a variety of companies of all shapes, sizes, and specialties.

I first started covering Rackspace in July 2006 and have enjoying following company since then. I have had the opportunity to meet and interview several Rackers and when I was asked to participate in the process of deciding which of Rackspace’s 31,000 customers would win THE FANATI contest award in September, I gladly accepted.

THE FANATI contest has a simple mission: to recognize Rackspace customers who value customer service as much as Rackspace does.

With that goal and my understanding of what Fanatical Support meant to me in mind, I reviewed a small stack of finalist applications and graded each finalist on a scale of one to ten in five areas. To me, Fanatical Support isn’t about responding to emails in a timely manner or being polite (that’s expected in today’s market). Instead, Fanatical Support is about going the extra mile. The companies that have set themselves apart as exceptional service providers are the companies that consistently go the extra mile for each and every one of their customers. (read more…)

“How do I get my employees to care about customer service?”

This is a common question that we hear. Senior leaders in all types of organizations recognize the power of Fanatical Support, and want to know how they can bring it to their company.

My advice is always the same: If you want to build a culture of customer-centricity, look to the corner office before looking to the front line.

Far too many managers and executives view customer service the same way as public transportation: it’s a great idea – for everyone else but them. The reality is that until customer experience is on your leadership agenda, any efforts to create a service-center culture will fall flat. Why? In my opinion there are two main reasons. (read more…)