San Jose, CA – January 29, 2026 – NetApp has won two Silver Stevie® Awards – one in the Best Use of AI in Customer Service and one in the Best Use of Chatbots or AI Assistants in Customer Service categories in the 20th annual Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service.
The Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service are the world’s top honors for customer service, contact center, business development and sales professionals. The Stevie Awards organizes nine of the world’s leading business awards programs, also including the prestigious American Business Awards® and International Business Awards®.
Winners will be celebrated during a gala event attended by more than 300 professionals from around the world at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City on March 5.
More than 2,100 nominations from organizations of all sizes and in virtually every industry, in 41 nations and territories, were considered in this year’s competition. Winners were determined by the average scores of 150 professionals worldwide on eight specialized judging committees.
Entries were considered in more than 100 categories for customer service and contact center achievements, including Contact Center of the Year, Award for Innovation in Customer Service, and Customer Service Department of the Year; more than 70 categories for sales and business development achievements, ranging from Senior Sales Executive of the Year to Sales Training or Business Development Executive of the Year to Sales Department of the Year; more than 20 categories for AI in sales and customer service including Customer Service AI Trainer or Specialist of the Year, AI & Tech-Focused Customer Service Team of the Year, Best Use of AI Integration in Contact Centers, and Sales AI Trainer or Specialist of the Year; and categories to recognize new products, services, and solution providers.
The two winning Silver Stevie® Awards highlighted multiple innovations in AI in the digital support experience including customer-facing NetApp Support Site Generative AI (GenAI) for Search, Elio (virtual assistant/chatbot), and a Case Recommendation Panel. Additionally, GenAI was enabled in SmartSolve, an internal tool for support engineers to resolve cases. Overall, the customer satisfaction levels reflect the success of the customer experience, with a Customer Satisfaction rate at a high 90% and a Customer Effort Score of 88% (ease of use) at the time of entry.
The two awards add to digital support’s continued award wins and industry recognition including multiple Stevie Awards® and Association of Support Professionals Support Website awards.
"Empowering our customers with top-tier digital support fueled by cutting-edge AI is at the core of NetApp's mission. We are thrilled to win these two Silver Stevie® Awards that highlight our commitment to innovation and our leadership in delivering world-class, AI-driven customer experiences." said Jyotiram Pasupalak, VP, Customer Support Delivery at NetApp.
Stevie Awards President Maggie Miller said, "The remarkable scores achieved by this year’s Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service winners reflect the extraordinary levels of excellence, innovation, and customer impact they deliver. We proudly join the judges in congratulating and celebrating these outstanding organizations and professionals on their achievements."
Details about the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service and the list of Stevie winners in all categories are available at http://www.stevieawards.com/Sales
About NetApp
For more than three decades, NetApp has helped the world’s leading organizations navigate change – from the rise of enterprise storage to the intelligent era defined by data and AI. Today, NetApp is the Intelligent Data Infrastructure company, helping customers turn data into a catalyst for innovation, resilience, and growth.
At the heart of that infrastructure is the NetApp data platform – the unified, enterprise-grade, intelligent foundation that connects, protects, and activates data across every cloud, workload, and environment. Built on the proven power of NetApp ONTAP, our leading data management software and OS, and enhanced by automation through the AI Data Engine and AFX, it delivers observability, resilience, and intelligence at scale.
Disaggregated by design, the NetApp data platform separates storage, services, and control so enterprises can modernize faster, scale efficiently, and innovate without lock-in. As the only enterprise storage platform natively embedded in the world’s largest clouds, it gives organizations the freedom to run any workload anywhere with consistent performance, governance, and protection.
With NetApp, data is always ready – ready to defend against threats, ready to power AI, and ready to drive the next breakthrough. That’s why the world’s most forward-thinking enterprises trust NetApp to turn intelligence into advantage.
Learn more at www.netapp.com or follow us on X, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.
NETAPP, the NETAPP logo, and the marks listed at www.netapp.com/TM are trademarks of NetApp, Inc. Other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
About The Stevie® Awards
Stevie Awards are conferred in nine programs: the Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards, the German Stevie Awards, the Middle East & North Africa Stevie Awards, The American Business Awards®, The International Business Awards®, the Stevie Awards for Great Employers, the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service, the Stevie Awards for Technology Excellence, and the Stevie Awards for Women in Business. Stevie Awards competitions receive more than 12,000 entries each year from organizations in more than 70 nations and territories. More than 1,000 professionals around the world participate in the Stevie Awards judging process each year. Honoring organizations of all types and sizes and the people behind them, the Stevies recognize outstanding performances in the workplace worldwide.
Learn more about the Stevie Awards at http://www.StevieAwards.com.
Sponsors of the 20th annual Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service include SOCAP International and ValueSelling Associates, Inc.