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Company: ConsumerInfo.com, Inc., Costa Mesa, CA
Entry Submitted By: Edelman
Company Description: freecreditscore.com™ is part of a family of online consumer credit reporting sites belonging to ConsumerInfo.com, Inc., an Experian company. ConsumerInfo.com, Inc. was founded to give consumers quick, easy and inexpensive access to their credit profile. It is now the leading provider of online consumer credit reports, credit scores, credit monitoring and other credit-related information
Nomination Category: Customer Service & Call Center Awards Team Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Contact Center of the Year (Over 100 Seats)

Nomination Title:  freecreditscore.com Southwind Call Center

Tell the story about what this nominated contact center 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:

The Van Buren, Arkansas freecreditscore.com Southwind Call Center (SWCC) plays a crucial role in providing excellence in customer service, customer retention, and managing business lines and partners for freecreditscore.com. The original employees sat together over the course of a couple of months to create the call center’s values and culture – E3: Exceptional Experiences Every time -- the lifeline for the center’s people and customers. The end result culminated into a culture and set of values that has created many successes, setting it apart from the more traditional contact centers throughout the country.

Since July 2011, the call center has delivered outstanding results, including:

• August 2012 Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 31, a 91 percent score increase from the 2011 score of 17; average industry NPS score is 5 – 10.

• Customer call ratings resulted in an overall satisfaction score of 8.1 (10 point scale); 17 percent above the industry average.

• There is a low employee attrition rate of 2 – 4 percent per month compared to the industry average of 10 – 12 percent per month.

• Average tenure per employee is 2 years; industry average is 6 months.

As part of E3 and continual enhancement of operations, the entire leadership staff participated in Customer Operations Performance Center’s (COPC) High Performance Management training. COPC sets the industry’s bench marks to becoming a high-performing contact center. Since the training, the SWCC moved forward on:

• Revamping “quality processes” – increased contact quality by 10 percent in all areas.

• Revamping “reporting processes” –33 percent of metrics demonstrated improvements, up from zero percent of metrics.

Since July 2011, the SWCC employee engagement initiatives and community work has resulted in the following:

• Employee Recruitment and Retention – More than 85 percent of the Van Buren call center employee hires are from referrals.

• Cause-related Marketing – The call center is a United Way PaceSetter, a special designation for companies who set the tone for the campaign and inspire others to support United Way to change lives forever. Since 2010, the contact center has raised more than $23,000 for the United Way, exceeding its fundraising goal every year.

• Corporate Donors – The call center organizes four blood drives per year; most companies in the area only host two. The Van Buren Call Center is the highest corporate donor in the community with 312 units of blood collected in 2012.

• Community Support – As the largest corporate sponsor for the Van Buren Education Foundation, the SWCC has donated $76,500 to help fund 60 school grants for the teachers in Van Buren, AR.

The call center is not necessarily proof that “Culture trumps Strategy,” rather it’s the understanding that culture and strategy are interrelated. Treat your people right, engage them, educate them and they will in turn perform their best for the company and do what is right for the customer.

Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography about the leader(s) of the nominated contact center:

Tony Taylor is the Senior Site Director of the Arkansas Contact Center. Tony has over 40 years of Contact Center management/leadership experience. His expertise is in forming and developing strong leadership teams, driving culture and core values in a site, and creating high performance management processes.