manager Bec Crofts, who nominated her for the award, said she was thrilled and shocked to have won the award which earns her an overseas trip to compete in Shell’s Regional awards program.
Winning awards for great customer service is something the Cobar Auto Port Shell Service Station is renowned for and the Cobar servo has just picked up another one.
Cobar Auto Port staff member Tracey Fazulla has been named the Australian Customer Service Champion 2022 for Independent Shell Service Stations.
The award is part of Shell’s employee reward and recognition program, People Make the Difference Real (PMTDR).
Tracey and Cobar Auto Port manager Bec Crofts travelled to Perth for the annual PMTDR awards ceremony last week.
As one of three finalists for the Australian title, Tracey jokingly told The Cobar Weekly on Monday that she had rated herself with “a one-in-three chance of winning it.”
As the Australian winner, Tracey will now go on to compete at Regional level in Budapest in June and then has the chance to be in the running for the world title.
Tracey said she was shocked when her name was announced last week.
“I’m still in shock that I’m going, Bloody Nora!” Tracey said in an interview on Monday.
“I’m very excited to be going to Budapest.
“I’ve been overseas before, to New Zealand, about 27 years ago, that was before kids.”
Bec explained that only the top performing Shell sites each year are invited to nominate a Service Champion.
“The site has to have performed extremely well across all KPIs in order to nominate someone.
“Typically 10 or less sites would be asked to nominate someone nationally,” Bec said.
“We have been asked a fair few times and I think we could be the only site to ever have a Service Champion win the title more than once.
“Cathy Manns won the award back in 2016 and she won a trip to Dubai.
“In 2020, another of our employees, Tahnee Armstrong, made it to the top five.
“For me as a manager, it is incredibly difficult to choose one staff member to put forward when I have such a wonderful hard working team.
“I want to nominate them all.”
Bec said Tracey was very deserving of the award.
“Tracey is always so upbeat and friendly to every customer.
“She just about knows every local person by name and, if she doesn’t, you are her BF, girlfriend, friend or there’s a few others she calls “sexy”.
“Tracey goes out of her way to help anyone that may need it,” Bec said.
On one occasion Tracey helped a young family that found themselves stranded in Cobar.
“The young mother presented herself late at night at the Shell and needed a tyre fixed and somewhere for her family to stay.
“Tracey promptly got hold of Dido [Chris Deighton from Copper City Tyre Service] who didn’t hesitate in helping and took the mother back out to her car and fixed the tyre.”
Tracey also pulled a few strings to organise some accommodation when everything in town was full to capacity.
“Tracey went out of her way to find something without just sending them on their way,” Bec said.
“And it’s not the first time she’s done something like this.
“She’s always going the extra mile to help our customers,” Bec said.
Tracey however doesn’t see what all the “above and beyond fuss” is about.
“That’s what we do in the bush, it’s just how we are,” Tracey said.
