Rural broadband specialists, Farmside, and parent telecommunications company Vodafone are celebrating significant award wins, alongside a long list of finalist accolades, from the 2020 Broadband Compare Awards held at an evening event in Auckland last Friday 16 October.
Praised for their “amazing customer service call stats” and clear “proactive migration of customers to technology that best suits their needs”, the Farmside team took out Best Rural Service Provider for the second year in a row. The company were also included as finalist for the awards of Best Wireless Service Provider and Best Customer Support.
Receiving the award on the night, Propositions and Partnerships Manager Amber Quinnell said the award was a huge affirmation for the Farmside team.
“We are proud, and passionate team who live and breathe rural; we believe that rural New Zealanders should have access to faster and reliable connectivity and receive the very best customer service. We wouldn’t be here without them or our loyal 16,000 customers who trust us to deliver our best every day,” she said.
Vodafone was also included as finalist in the Best Wireless Service Provider category, along with Best Streaming Service Provider for the company’s Vodafone TV offering and the People’s Choice Award – an award voted on by the public. However the ultimate win came for Vodafone’s Digital Innovation Partner Lead, Chris Coromandel, who took out the Emerging Leader in Digital Technology category, an award given to an individual within their first 10 years of their career who has shown leadership beyond their formal role.
Since joining Vodafone through its graduate programme two and a half years ago, Coromandel has been recognised as top talent within the organisation, taking on high-level responsibilities such as leading and developing the business’s xone start-up accelerator programme, and driving strategic projects within Vodafone’s IoT and Digital Innovation team.
The Broadband Compare Awards judges commented that they were very impressed with Coromandel’s “highly commendable” work within Vodafone’s innovation lab and pointed out the dedication Coromandel also showed “to the broader community outside of the technology sector with a commitment to Māoritanga” while being “a role model to the diversity we so sorely need in the technology sector”.
Thanking the judges for the highly-coveted award, Coromandel said it was important to highlight the calibre of all the outstanding young leaders who were nominated.
“I’d also like to challenge all organisations within our industry to continue to support, inspire and encourage the future leaders of tomorrow to enter into careers within the digital sector,” he said. “By including diverse and fresh thinking we are driving further innovation to benefit all of Aotearoa.”