Centennial, Colorado - (The Hosting News) - November 30, 2006 - Web hosting and managed services for small to midsized companies firm, Verio, has been named a Finalist in the 2006 Selling Power Sales Excellence Awards, in the Customer Service Team of the Year and Online Sales Team of the Year categories.

The recognition validates Verio’s investment and focus in delivering world-class technical and customer support, and to creating an easy to use and effective online sales and education experience to customers via its web site.
The new awards are jointly presented by Selling Power magazine, the leading sales management publication with 145,000 subscribers in 67 countries, and The Stevie® Awards, which have been hailed as “the business world’s own Oscars” by the New York Post (April 27, 2005).

Nicknamed the Stevies for the Greek word “crowned,” winners will be announced during a gala banquet on Monday, December 4 in Las Vegas. Nominated executives from around the world are expected to attend. More than 300 entries from companies of all sizes and in virtually every industry were submitted for consideration in more than 40 categories.

Verio’s Customer Service team was advanced to the finalist category based on several improvements made to the company’s support structure during the past year, including enhanced call center redundancies, more stringent quality assurance measures and standardization across all call centers, reducing the average call hold times for customers. Dennis Boyle, Chief Operating Officer for Verio explained, ”Verio’s technical support is a distinguishing factor of the business overall, and the reason many customers choose Verio services over the competition, and have helped to position the company as an advisor to customers’ businesses. Our goal for the coming year is to continue improving upon our best-in-class service to make it easier for customers to get the service they need for their online business needs.”

Earlier this year, Verio’s Online Marketing Team, also named a finalist in the Online Sales Team of the Year category, launched a redesign of Verio.com, incorporating extensive customer feedback, user preferences and site behavior analysis into the new design to enhance the customer experience. As a result, the team was able to increase shopping cart conversion, as well as online revenue. The team credits its success to carefully analyzing and interpreting extensive data gathered from marketing and sales trends, site testing and customer research.

Kiyoshi Maeda, President and CEO for Verio added, ”The simple act of speaking to customers yields some of the best insights into product needs and the best education and sales process. Our Online Team is combines extensive user input with data analysis to optimize our online sales channel, resulting in double digit growth.”

Members of the Awards’ Board of Distinguished Judges and Advisors and their staffs will select Stevie Award winners this week from among the Finalists. Finalists were chosen by business professionals worldwide during preliminary judging.

Gerhard Gschwandtner, Founder and Publisher of Selling Power remarked, ”Being named a Finalist in The Selling Power Sales Excellence Awards is an important achievement. It means that independent business executives have agreed that the nominee is worthy of international recognition. We congratulate all of the Finalists on their achievement and wish them well in the competition.”

Hailed as “the business world’s own Oscars” by the New York Post (April 27, 2005), Stevie Awards are conferred in four programs: The American Business Awards, The International Business Awards, The Stevie Awards for Women in Business, and the Selling Power Sales Excellence Awards. Honoring companies of all types and sizes and the people behind them, the Stevies recognize outstanding performances in the workplace worldwide.

Selling Power is the world’s leading sales management magazine with more than 145,000 subscribers in 67 countries. Sponsors of the 2006 Selling Power Sales Excellence Awards include Factiva, Fusion Sales Partners, HR Chally, and SAP.

Verio Inc. is a provider of hosting and managed services for small and midmarket companies and partners worldwide, and is a wholly owned subsidiary of NTT America, US subsidiary of NTT Communications, which provides complementary global network access reaching over 200 countries worldwide. The company offers businesses a range of Internet services, including web hosting, managed services and value-added professional service offerings. Verio supports its operations with scalable global infrastructure and systems including the NTT Communications Global IP Network, and provides business solutions to customers and partners in more than 146 countries.

For more information about The Selling Power Sales Excellence Awards, please visit: www.stevieawards.com/sales.

To learn more about Selling Power, please visit: www.sellingpower.com.

For more information about Verio, please visit: www.verio.com.