CMSWire Impact Awards

The IMPACT Awards is a prestigious recognition program, celebrating exceptional work in the field of customer experience. Honors are bestowed on both exceptional practitioners (individuals, departments and teams) and vendors (companies and their customers).

Visit awards.simplermedia.com/cx to apply.

We have removed the fee to apply for the Customer Experience Leader of the Year award.

• Nominees for the practitioner awards should be CX leaders, departments and teams who have deployed superior CX initiatives or technology over the past year.
• Individuals and teams may self-nominate for any award. 
• Nominees for the vendor awards should be vendors who have solved a particularly impressive challenge for one of their clients in the last year.

• If you want to showcase your company’s internal practices you should apply for the practitioner awards.
• Companies whose business model includes CX programs, platforms or solutions may not apply for the practitioner awards.
• If you want to showcase the work you’ve done for a customer/client you should apply for the vendor awards.
• Vendors must apply on behalf of a customer. Your customer’s name may remain anonymous, although we encourage you to identify them in your application.

• Practitioner categories
  • Customer Experience Leader of the Year
    • Recognizes executives who excel in leading to improve customer experience through partnering across the organization and leveraging digital technologies.
  • Customer Journey Innovation
    • Recognizes the digital customer experience department or team that has implemented the most novel and/or impactful customer journey optimization over the past year.
  • Customer Service Excellence
    • Recognizes departments or teams that have implemented an initiative in the past year to improve their operations, sales or contact center departments.
  • Innovative Use of CX Technology
    • Recognizes departments or teams that have deployed an emerging technology and related process in the past year to transform the customer experience.
• Vendor categories
  • Best Customer Experience Transformation
    • Recognizes the vendor that has helped one of their customers achieve the most complex transformation of the customer experience. 
  • Best Use of AI in Customer Experience
    • Recognizes the vendor that has helped one of their customers use artificial intelligence to improve the customer experience.
  • Best Omnichannel Personalization
    • Recognizes the vendor that has helped one of their customers improve the customer experience through omnichannel personalization.
  • Best Contact Center Innovation
    • Recognizes the vendor that has done the most to bring innovation to their customer’s contact center.

• For the Customer Experience Leader of the Year award, there is a $49 fee per application.
• For all other practitioner awards, there is a $195 fee per application.
• For vendor awards, there is a $995 fee per application.
• All application fees are payable by credit card prior to application submission. Applications are not considered final until fees are paid in full.
• Occasionally we offer discounts on the application fees or organizations wishing to enter multiple categories. Contact us for more information.

Applications should take 1-2 hours to complete.

• All application questions have minimum and maximum word counts. These vary and are listed on each question. 
• Charts, photos and other attachments are not allowed.

Judges are volunteer practitioners, specialists, consultants and CX experts, recruited for their field expertise.

• Judges apply through the awards portal and are vetted by CMSWire prior to reviewing applications.
• Judges receive detailed instructions and a scoring rubric to assist in the review process.
• Judges agree to keep all material confidential. Certain application fields with proprietary information are not shared with judges.
• All applications are reviewed by multiple judges to minimize bias. Judges are not assigned applications from participants in their own industry and judges can recuse themselves from any application to avoid direct or indirect conflicts of interest.

• Judge scores are aggregated to determine the final winners of each category.
• Judges only score Part 3 of each application. Demographics information is not scored and not given to judges.

• Finalists will be notified through email once the judging period is over. 
• Some finalists may be contacted by phone.
• Winners are announced in a press release once all winners have been personally notified of their status.

• Winners are recognized in the following ways:
  • Press release on CMSWire, promoted through PR channels.
  • As part of a longer awards article on CMSWire.
  • Mention on awards website.
  • Opportunity to participate in CMSWire TV.

• Winners receive a physical trophy as well as a digital badge for social media promotion.
• All awards participants receive a scorecard, with their score and judge comments.

• 2024 Winners
• 2022 Winners
• 2021 Winner

By signing up for the IMPACT Awards, you agree to receive emails related to the awards program, including (but not limited to) reminder emails, open/close dates and finalist status. All finalists and winners will be contacted through email and may be contacted via phone for additional information. Winners’ contact information may be shared with our Awards team for the purpose of coordinating your participation in our events. Winners’ addresses will be shared with our awards vendors for the purposes of awards delivery and digital badge distribution. Finalists’ and winners’ application data may be shared with our Editorial team for background information only.

Please send all questions to [email protected].