BGSU Team Crowned Champions of Nation’s First Service Marketing Competition

Second place went to Kent State University and the University of Toledo earned third. The individual winner of the Customer Complaint round was Shayan Hart of Kent State who was presented her award by Dr. David Reid, director of SMI and Ms. Christine Seiler, associate director.

Teams worked on problems given by sponsoring companies. During the competition, students were judged by executives from sponsoring companies and other executives from service-based firms as well as faculty from around the country with expertise in service marketing. Teams with the three highest combined scores after the three rounds then competed in the championship round on Saturday. During the championship round, team point totals were reset to zero and the students presented their service blueprints along with their recommendations on how to improve the overall customer service experience.  They responded to questions from executives from the sponsoring companies and other faculty judges.

Participating teams came from as far away as Virginia, Canada, and Texas.  David Rose, team coach for Wilfred Laurier University from Canada said this was an “excellent experience.” It was very well organized and he was impressed with the schools and the coaches. Rose added that it was good to have sponsors like Speedway part of the competition.  Having the sponsors provide the scenarios made the competition a good experience.

The team from Kent State University echoed Rose’s positive comments about the competition. They were impressed with the talent and said the competition was well organized and ran smoothly.

Ms. Christine Seiler, associate director of SMI, along with its director, Dr. David Reid, organized the competition.  According to Seiler, “It was so exciting to have these seven universities on campus participating in this event. The overall work quality that these teams presented was just amazing.”  Ms. Seiler also stated, “The corporate sponsors were extremely pleased with the experience. They enjoyed getting to meet and recruit the student competitors for their respective organizations, and they were impressed with how well the students did, given that this was the first competition of this kind.”

Special thanks go to the competition’s sponsors.

Patron Sponsor:

Garage Management Company

Leaders Sponsor:

Brown & Brown
Speedway
TQL

Supporting Sponsors:

Huntington Insurance
Marathon Petroleum Company
MultiView
Quicken Loans
Thomson Reuters
Tom James Company

Not only is this competition the only one of its kind, BGSU is one of the few schools in the U.S. with a dedicated specialization in sales and services marketing.