Gessler wins commercial association merit award

Innovative Service Center delivers top-notch customer service

Denver, Colorado, May 20, 2014 - For the third year in a row, the International Association of Commercial Administrators (IACA) has awarded the Colorado Secretary of State's office with a Merit Award. This year IACA presented a Merit Award to the Secretary of State's office for its innovative customer Service Center. The award was handed out at the association's annual conference in Milwaukee.

"We're leading the nation in innovation—but innovation isn't always just about technology," Secretary Gessler said. "You also need a human element to adapt to new systems. As we have placed more systems online for convenience and efficiency, we have ramped up our Service Center to help our customers with their needs. When you call, we pick up the phone."

The Secretary of State's office has leveraged technology to make the filing process faster, easier and cheaper for customers and staff.  As a result of this transformation, customer needs changed too.  Customers who traditionally visited the office in person or corresponded by mail years ago now require more technical advice and direction by phone, email and through the website. 

Secretary of State Service Center agents are trained to respond to a broad range of inquiries and regularly respond to over 500 calls per day.  These calls cover questions about programs including Business, Uniform Commercial Code, Notary, Charities, Campaign Finance, Elections and Document Certification.  Agents also respond to emails and letters, review previously filed documents for accuracy, assist with training, provide data maintenance and tracking, cross-train within the department, and schedule and conduct customer trainings.  

The innovative elements of the Service Center are both personnel- and technology-related. They include personnel restructuring and staff cross-training, queue management and real-time tracking and display of service metrics.

This is the third year in a row the office has received an IACA Merit Award. In 2012 the Secretary of State's office was recognized for the Secure Business Filing system that allows business registrants to set up passwords to protect their filings from business identity thieves. In 2013, IACA presented their Merit Award for the office's secured lien filing system, which was the first in the nation to allow for all electronic filing.

The International Association of Commercial Administrators is a professional association for government administrators of business organizations and secured transaction record systems at the state, provincial, territorial, and national level in any jurisdiction that has or anticipates development of such systems.

For more information about IACA and the IACA Merit Awards, please visit www.IACA.org.