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Company: VIZIO, Inc., Irvine, CA
Company Division/Group: VIZIO Call Center, Dakota Dunes, SD
Company Description: VIZIO, Inc. Dakota Dunes, SD call center began in 2009 with 23 people. Today the site has over 200 employees and focuses on customer satisfaction of Tech, Customer Service, and some Sales contacts. The VIZIO call center also handles chats and emails. VIZIO headquarters are located in Irvine, CA. Entertainment Freedom for All!
Nomination Category: Customer Service & Call Center Awards Individual Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Contact Center Manager of the Year

Nomination Title: VIZIO's Derek Teut - Manages to Make a Difference

Tell the story about what this nominee 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:

Derek Teut began with the VIZIO Dakota Dunes contact center in April 2009 as a phone agent. Today, Derek is the floor Manager responsible for more than 160 Agents, Supervisors and Team Leads. Derek’s sudden promotions were due in part to his understanding and living the VIZIO values; humility, integrity, transparency and equality. With Derek you know what you get and what you get is real and honest.

Derek has made it his personal mission to improve the performance of each agent while making the VIZIO contact center a great place to work.

Derek focused on two main areas to measure and improve: Customer Satisfaction and Call Quality.

Customer Satisfaction (CSat) - Many obstacles made it difficult to measure CSat, but Derek continued to stress the need of measuring this important performance indicator and was instrumental in making CSat scoring possible. Before Derek, the VIZIO contact center did not measure CSat. Today, CSat is on the weekly dashboard and is closely reviewed by the VIZIO Management Team. To measure CSat, VIZIO sends out a survey to new customers. Derek led the team to develop that along with the questions and scoring.

Customer Satisfaction can be influenced by giving free or courtesy products and services, which can be costly. It fell on Derek to control those costs while maintaining a high CSat rating. This year’s CSat cost is $400k less than last year. Meanwhile, the CSat rating has climbed from 80% last year to an average of over 85% this year. 36% of the surveys receive a 100% rating.

Call Quality – Prior to Derek’s appointment as Floor Manager, 80% was considered passing for a call audit; the floor averaged about 82%. Derek did not believe that goal was good enough and raised the bar to 85%. Today, quality audits average over 89% and many agents feature 100% quality audits more often than not.

How did Derek do all this? 1. Focus. 2. Attention to detail. 3. Accountability

Derek immediately began his quest for improvement by conducting weekly one-on-ones with each Supervisor. During these meetings, he focused his leaders on CSAT and Call Quality. He then established defined metrics and baselines to accurately measure the results.

Out of these meetings it became clear that agents were not consistently addressing escalated customers. Derek formed the Executive Resolutions Team (ERT). CSat immediately improved, and cost drastically decreased.

The one-on-ones also addressed employee quality and efficiency. Average Handle Time (AHT) for example was reduced by 45 seconds over the previous year, another annual savings of over $400k.

Derek holds quarterly skip level meetings with Employees at each level of company tenure. The main focus of these meetings is to increase employee satisfaction while reducing attrition.

Finally, Derek focused on making the contact center a better place to work. He instituted a recognition program that identifies Monthly & Quarterly awards naming MVPs, Team Players, and the Most Improved Agents. VIZIO’s Floor Manager Derek Teut has managed to make a huge difference.

Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography about the nominee:

Derek Teut was one of the first agents hired at the VIZIO contact center. Six months later he was promoted to team Supervisor and then to floor Manager in October 2011. Prior to VIZIO, Derek spent 17 years with Gateway, Inc. He began as a Customer Support agent and rose quickly through the ranks to become a Senior Finance Manager.

Derek is married to Becky and has a son, Chase (5) and two step-daughters Sharayah (23) and Kinzi (21). Derek likes to golf and follows Iowa Hawkeye Football & Basketball. He has a BA from the University of South Dakota.