VerticalResponse
Company: VerticalResponse, San Francisco, CA
Company Description: VerticalResponse Inc. provides a full suite of self-service marketing solutions for small businesses including email marketing, social media marketing, event marketing, direct mail marketing and online surveys. Our mission is to empower small businesses and non-profit organizations to easily and affordably create, manage and analyze their own marketing campaigns.
Nomination Category: Customer Service & Call Center Awards Team Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Customer Service Management Team of the Year
Nomination Title: VerticalResponse Customer Support Management Team Achieves High Marks for Creativity, Career Growth
Tell the story about what this nominated team achieved since the beginning of July 2011 (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:
VerticalResponse is a self-service online platform that enables small businesses to get up and running quickly and easily with their email marketing, social media, online surveys and direct mail postcard campaigns. The company’s customer support team, at its San Francisco headquarters, comprises 27 full-time employees and services customers seven days a week on phone, email, instant message and Twitter.
The customer support managers are each responsible for a team of support representatives and one support lead. Managers set individual as well as team goals, provides training, gathers feedback on ways to improve the VerticalResponse customer experience, advocates on behalf of their teams, and helps uncover opportunities for those who are interested in pursuing other career paths.
This year, the managers went above and beyond to create an energized, engaged support department and foster career growth. Initiatives included:
• The launch of “Project Odyssey,” a program that allows top-performing support reps to spend time doing projects for other departments and to explore different career paths. Since the launch, eight support team members have been promoted to roles in other departments including product management, sales, engineering and email delivery compliance.
• The establishment of a new department-wide mission statement. Each manager worked with his/her reports to develop a team mission statement, which were then blended into one unified departmental statement.
• Continually improved customer service. Quality metrics increased from 85 percent in the third quarter of 2012 (the quarter when the teams worked on the mission statements) to 90 percent in the fourth quarter, after the mission statement project was completed. The department generally only sees a 1 percent change from quarter to quarter, so this jump was huge.
• The implementation of creative team-building initiatives, including: - The “Star” program, which acknowledges above-and-beyond work that can’t be captured through hard metrics. Anyone in the department who notices someone doing something great for a customer can write on a paper “star” and attach it to the “star” employee’s desk wall.
- A “breakfast of champions” contest, to help support reps manage and balance two challenging channels – emails and instant message chats – at the same time. The team with the best overall ratio of emails to chats enjoyed breakfast prepared at the office by the department vice president, managers and leads.
Results: Improved ratios of chats and emails across all the teams, and a great start to the morning!
- A “Hunger Games”-themed contest in December 2012. The program was designed to:
1. Keep everyone focused during the holiday season, when distractions are high; and
2. Build team bonding across both the customer support and sales departments.
Employees were divided into 12 “districts.” The teams earned “resources” (clothing, fuel, etc.) by hitting their normal daily performance metrics or more challenging weekly goals. They also had to trade “resources” with other teams to survive. Prizes were given to the leading team each week, along with the announcement of a final winner.
Results: A 10 percent increase in productivity across the board during the month. Perhaps more importantly, everyone bonded and got to know each other!
Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography about the leader(s) of the nominated team:
Kristen Hayer serves as vice president of sales and support at VerticalResponse. She brings nearly 20 years of sales and technology management experience to this role, and specializes in leading high-performing teams through periods of growth and change.
Natalie Macks: director of customer support
Justin Smith: customer support manager
Ryan Stevens: customer support manager
Travis Smith: customer support manager