Virgin Australia and Qantas have collected the major awards of International Customer Service Month celebrations in Australia staged by customer service development company International Customer Service Professionals (ICSP).

Virgin Australia won the ICSP International Outstanding Business Award and Qantas’ Elio Pilatti, Inflight Customer Service Manager for Qantas based in Perth, won the Outstanding Individual Award.

The awards were judged on a range of international customer service best practice measurements. ICSP has been conducting its annual customer service awards since 2003.

CEO of ICSP, Tricia Olsen said Virgin Australia’s entry focussed on the airline’s training and development of its people which was the forerunner to the airline’s current branding campaign.

“In the service world it’s brave to show off your people as your point of difference, but there is real substance behind the Virgin Australia’s new profiling,” she said.

“For 17 years, Elio Pilatti has been an outstanding inflight ambassador for Qantas, consistently providing exceptional customer service,” Ms Olsen said.

The awards were announced in Melbourne on Friday.