Headsets.com
Company: Headsets.com, San Francisco, CA
Company Description: America’s Headset Specialists, Headsets.com Inc caters to its 116,000 strong customer base through a 31 person call center based in the heart of San Francisco. As one of the fastest growing private companies in America today, it prides itself on delivering World Class Customer Service at levels of employee efficiency unseen in the B2B office electronics industry.
Nomination Category: Team Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Best Customer Service Team
Nomination Title: Headsets.com's World Class Customer Service Team
1. Tell the story about what this nominated team achieved in the past year (up to 500 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:
In 1997, Headsets.com was founded on the belief that delivering World Class Customer Service is a significant enough business differentiator to be successful. Despite the majority of Headsets.com’s products being widely available, often priced lower, the company has enjoyed 1,100% growth since setting itself the goal of being the number one telephone headset retailer just seven years ago.
The Company measures overall Customer Satisfaction by surveying each and every Customer interaction. Customers are asked to rate their overall experience and the service they received, on a scale that runs from Poor to Excellent and it sets itself a goal of an 8:1 ratio of ‘Excellent’ to ‘anything else’, across the entire Company. Meaning 88.8% of the 2,100 surveys that Customers complete every month, rate every aspect of Customer interaction with the company as ‘the best experience possible’, whether that transaction is a pre-sale inquiry, a product support call, a call to return a product, a Live-Chat session via the Company website or even a overdue bill collection call. These exceptionally high standards are met consistently, with individual CSRs regularly achieving 100% Weekly Customer Satisfaction, and the excellence ratio for the entire Company frequently passing 10:1(90.9%) and peaking at 14:1(93.3%) in March of 2006.
The Company promises to return all out-of-hours voicemails and emails within two business hours and to answer 98% of its 1,000+ daily calls to its call center in under 4 rings, by one of thirty-four live Customer Service Representative, trained sufficiently satisfy the Customer needs. A response from the team of Live-Chat operators on the company website is typically less than sixty seconds. In order to uphold these promises, the Company staffs its call-center from 5AM to 5PM with enough CSRs to cater for its peak projected call volume - a difficult proposition given the 85% growth in revenues to $32M for 2005.
Every piece of marketing the company produces lists the President/CEO’s direct phone and email, and the contact details of both the Customer Service Manager, and the Shipping and Inventory Manager. Should any problem arise, Customers are urged to contact any member of the management team, directly.
Consistent growth has landed the Company a spot on both the Inc. 500 Fastest Growing Private Companies list for two years running (ranked #247) & Fast Company Fast 50, and the San Francisco Business Times 100 Fastest Growing Companies (#24) lists for 2004 and 2005. Headsets.com was also named Cataloger of the Year for 2005 by Catalog Success Magazine and was recognized and honored by Internet Retailer and the Catalog & eCommerce Club of Northern California. President and CEO Mike Faith is also a two-time finalist at the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year awards.
Attention to the morale and wellbeing of its employee's is reflected through Mikes nomination and recognition by FSB Best Bosses and Winning Workplaces, and the listing of Headsets.com in the San Francisco Business Times 100 Best Companies to work for in the Bay Area, for two years running.
2. List hyperlinks to any online news stories, press releases, or other documents that support the claims made in the section above. IMPORTANT: Begin each link with http://, and enclose each link in square brackets; for example, [http://www.youraddress.com]:
http://www.inc.com/resources/inc500/2005/profiles/247.html
http://www.headsets.com/headsets/company/news_fast_24.html
http://www.headsets.com/headsets/company/news/news_top_100
_places_to_work.html
http://www.winningworkplaces.org/bestbossesaward/finalists_2005
.php#faith
http://www.headsets.com/headsets/company/news/news_investors
_business_daily.html
http://www.internetretailer.com/dailyNews.asp?id=8827
http://www.internetretailer.com/article.asp?id=16882
http://catalogconference.com/Speakers/bios/mike_faith/
http://multichannelmerchant.com/news/faith_customer_service_0715/
http://www.headsets.com/headsets/company/news/news_catsuccess
_staffing.html
http://www.mikefaith.com/downloads/MikeFaith_Top10Tips.pdf
3. Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography about the leader(s) of the nominated team:
Escaping from the drudgery of England's state schools at age 15 with a desire to scratch his entrepreneurial itch, Mike Faith pursued a sales and marketing career in the UK for a while before setting his sights on the larger US market where he started several successful ventures, before founding Headsets.com, Inc in 1997.
Headsets.com has grown from humble beginnings to a $32M, profitable and self funded company with Mike still at the helm, and has ambitious plans to grow to $200M in sales by 2010. Mike lives in Danville, CA with his wife and two children.