Wheels, Inc., a leader in the multi-billion-dollar fleet leasing industry, this week was named a finalist for the 2013 American Business Awards (also known as “The Stevies”) for Sales & Customer Service.

Wheels’ Workforce Management Team (WMT) made the shortlist for Back-Office Customer Service Team of the Year, meaning the company will ultimately win a Gold, Silver, or Bronze Stevie Award in that category. Wheels won a Gold Stevie Award for Front-Line Customer Service Team of the Year in 2012.

The WMT is a team of staffing experts that utilizes a combination of advanced technology and best-in-class processes to deliver a highly efficient call routing system that achieves Wheels’ very aggressive service goals and delivers industry-leading satisfaction ratings.

“Our contact centers handle nearly 1.4 million calls each year from drivers and vendors, making it crucial for us to provide a scientific call-handling approach that extracts premium value and delivers top-level service from our call-handling professionals,” said Christine Steinberg, Vice President of Customer Service Operations for Wheels. “The WMT plays an absolutely fundamental role in ensuring we are always appropriately staffed and well-prepared to attentively handle every single call that comes into Wheels.”

The Wheels WMT oversees more than 100 customer service agents who handle calls from drivers and vendors. The team configures the automated assignment of each call to dozens of unique service categories and subcategories – such as roadside assistance, vehicle maintenance and fuel support – based on the caller’s country of origin, language and specific assistance needs.

State-of-the-art Wheels technology enhances the WMT’s real-time management of every call. The company’s proprietary routing system enables live schedule management for each agent, as well as real-time coaching, auditing, and reassignment. Secondary and tertiary staffing resources can be utilized at a moment’s notice to help respond immediately to unfolding events and sudden spikes in call volume, ensuring that contact center performance targets are achieved each and every day.

The Stevies are the world’s premier business awards, and the Sales & Customer Service award segment honors the accomplishments of sales, customer service, and call/contact center professionals across the globe. Award entrants are from all types of businesses – large and small, public and private, for-profit and non-profit – in virtually every industry.

This year the American Business Awards received nearly 1,100 nominations for consideration in 71 Stevie categories. Nominees who received the highest average scores from a worldwide panel of 120 preliminary judges were named as finalists.

“Many of our preliminary judges have commented about the high quality of the entries the competition received this year,” said Michael Gallagher, president and founder of the Stevie Awards. “Our final judges will have a challenging but rewarding task, to determine the Gold, Silver and Bronze placements.”

Final judging will take place between January 28 and February 8, and this year’s winners will be announced during a gala in Las Vegas on February 25.