Splunk Customer Success at the Stevie Awards!

The Splunk Lantern team, together with Dave Zimmerman, Group Vice President, Customer Success Management and Renewals, Public Sector (PBST), have been named Finalists in the 18th annual Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. This year's competition saw more than 2,300 nominations from organizations of all sizes, in virtually every industry, and across 47 nations and territories.

The categories Splunk has been named a finalist in are:

Best Use of Thought Leadership in Customer Service (Splunk Lantern)

This category recognizes the promotion of thought leadership within customer service that enables customers to benefit from the unique knowledge and learnings of individuals and teams within their organizations.

The Splunk Lantern website launched in Q2 of 2020 with 46 articles. Since then, Lantern has become a customer success center used widely by Splunkers, partners, and Splunk’s 15,000+ customers alike. All of Lantern’s 900+ articles are crowdsourced from experts around Splunk, the majority of whom don’t have documentation in their job descriptions. Splunk partners also share their insights gained from real work with customers in the field. 

Lantern’s user activity shows a clear appreciation for the expert knowledge found in its articles. Between July 2021 and November 2023, Lantern saw new user metrics rise from 5,878 then to 35,842, an increase of 509%, and returning users increased from 1,707 in July 2021 to 29,580, an increase of 1,632%.

If you're not one of our regular readers, why not take a moment now to check out all the great content we offer for Platform, Security, and Observability customers?

Award for Innovation in Customer Service - Computer Industries (Splunk Lantern)

This category recognizes new ideas and developments within customer service that enable organizations to meet the needs of their customers more effectively, leading to increased satisfaction and loyalty.

Splunk Lantern is a unique customer success center that is free to use, and provides information that customers can pick up and apply right away to get more value from their Splunk deployments. Ongoing executive support for the Splunk Lantern project shows a dedication to the success of all Splunk customers, not just those who can afford expensive professional services. 

Lantern’s site metrics demonstrate that more and more customers benefit from the articles that Lantern hosts. In July 2021, Lantern saw 21,767 unique pageviews. By November 2023, the average monthly unique page views had risen to 81,469 an increase of more than 274%. This number continues to rise.

Check out some of the unique content our site offers, such as Data Descriptors (comprehensive guidance for getting data in and applying data to your key use cases) and the Splunk Success Framework (best practices that you can use to create and maintain a smoothly-running Splunk implementation).

Customer Service Leader of the Year (Dave Zimmerman)

This category recognizes the achievements of senior customer service and call center executives.

Dave Zimmerman has been a transformative leader at Splunk for nine years. Heading the Public Sector Customer Success Manager team, he consistently exceeds corporate goals, enhancing national cybersecurity and citizen experiences. Dave's customer-centric approach, highlighted by the introduction of the Splunk Value Platform and collaborative efforts, has propelled success internally and fostered better processes for superior customer service.

Since July 2021, Dave's impact on Splunk has been profound. Internally, his restructuring and innovative models led to higher renewal rates, while externally, his strategic partnerships and introduction of the Value Stack resulted in a 15% higher renewal and expansion rate. Dave's leadership has uniquely positioned Splunk for success, achieving significant growth in customer accounts, revenue, and satisfaction in the ever-evolving landscape of cybersecurity and data analytics.

If you aren't participating in any of the Splunk Customer Success offerings, click here to see how we can help you succeed. 

The Results 

The Stevie Awards recognition underscores Splunk's commitment to excellence, innovation, and superior customer service in an ever-evolving landscape. Both the Lantern team and Dave will ultimately be Gold, Silver, or Bronze Stevie Award winners in the program. As we await the final results of the awards to be unveiled on April 12th, please wish team Lantern and Dave Zimmerman much luck in their three categories!