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Blinds.com Customer Service Department

How to EnterCompany: Blinds.com
Company Description: Blinds.com is the largest online window covering store in the world. At our heart, we are a passionate customer service and marketing company that connects our community to home decor trends and high quality window coverings. Blinds.com has been featured in numerous magazine, newspaper, and radio publications.
Nomination Category: Customer Service Awards Department Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Customer Service Department of the Year - Retail

Nomination Title: Blinds.com

Tell the story about what this nominated department achieved since the beginning of July 2012 (up to 525 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:

The Blinds.com Customer Service team struck out in bold and exciting ways in 2013, incorporating many employee suggestions to make this year our best ever. Post Call Survey Scores jumped to 4.9 out of 5 and NPS (Net Promoter Score) beat Apple at 90% vs. 72%.(1)(2)

The Blinds.com team moved offices in early 2013; but, with construction still under way in the new building as the old lease came to an end, were forced to work remotely (all 160+ employees!) for 3 weeks as we awaited its completion. Our customers had no idea that our entire team was telecommuting as maintained exceptional service levels and enjoyed a record-breaking month for revenue with no service delivery interruptions.

The new office space features a state-of-the-art contact center featuring collaborative work spaces, company culturally themed coaching rooms and interactive screens to stay connected to the work-from-home force using Adobe Connect. Using this interface, daily private coaching sessions and team meetings remain an integral part of the Customer Service employee experience.(3)

We challenged our preconceived notions of salary based pay and went to a “first of its kind” Pay for Performance system which combines QA (presence of Skills), Right Solution and Call Volume with Post Call Surveys and pay accordingly.(4)

In an attempt to provide a better customer experience during our busier days, the Customer Service and Sales departments collaborated on hand selecting some of their top performers to cross-train each other called the “Swing team”. Its members are equally proficient handling sales and Customer Service calls. We automated our phone system to put “Swing team” members in the queue with the most call volume which should insure shorter wait times and higher satisfaction during our busiest months in 2014.

Interaction Process Automation project automated our processes to guide customer care reps through the many steps for delivery of exceptional service. This allows our team to focus more on the customer experience they deserve, without worrying about losing important details along the way.(5)

We hired two skill coaches to ensure a 1:15 coaching ratio. These smaller groups increased the efficiency of our coaching sessions and help us attain service and customer satisfaction goals.

We combined quality assurance, training and coaching functions under one department to streamline our focus on Skill Development. This allows us to better collaborate and innovate more rapidly to help improve our reps’ skill sets and service levels.

We conducted a Master Coaching Certification Class to increase the expertise of our coaching, trainer and management staff and implemented a best practice process so that our QA team can easily share behaviors we would like to replicate throughout the call center floor.

The Blinds.com Customer Service experience continues to grow in other outlets as we embrace Social Media. We have cross-trained members of our Public Relations team to handle basic product questions and service requests on networks like Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Houzz.com to ensure customers are able to connect to our experts in their preferred medium.(6)

An added benefit of our increasing focus on social service is that our satisfied customers have a built-in platform to tell their friends and connections about their Blinds.com experience.

 

Provide a brief (up to 125 words) biography about the leader(s) of the nominated customer service organization:

Our Award winning Customer Care Center is led by Stephen M. Riddell, CSO and managed by Sharon Scheckter and Scott Davis. Their success is built upon a combined total of over 40 years of experience and their genuine care for their staff. Their willingness to mentor their team to succeed and coach to skill is exhibited in their everyday behaviors. They willingly go above and beyond to show their appreciation for their staff’s dedication and their willingness to constantly and continuously improve the customer experience. This commitment is the reason why Blinds.com is the #1 provider of Blinds and Window Coverings online.