CVS Caremark is the only fully integrated pharmacy health care company in the United States with over 2300 Customer Care Reps. Hear how their Customer Care colleagues are so highly engaged with their community. Hear how they impact their community across the five states (seven cities). Find out about their “A Million Ways We Care” Campaign. Learn how Colleagues are now able to measure the true impact of their volunteer efforts. Each Customer Care site has a Community Team of colleagues who help coordinate site volunteer outreach activities. They have an amazing team that strives to improve the quality of human life in all that they do. CVS Customer Care has proven they do make a difference in their communities!

Through iCares (i.e. “Inktel Cares”) initiative, Inktel Direct gives life to their philosophy of corporate citizenship. An outsourcer with over 400 agents, the company actively partners with charitable organizations, they pride themselves in a commitment to the community. Find out how they nurture the growth of the next generation of local leaders by partnering with local high schools and matching them with outstanding mentors of the Inktel team. These “at risk” kids get the opportunity to work at Inktel and see firsthand what corporate life is all about. Hear about their participation with Hands on Miami and how partnerships with organizations like St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital raise much needed funds.

Shepell·fgi provides health and productivity solutions to employees and employers in Canada, the U.S. and globally. With 215 contact center staff, the community benefits from their contact centre in two key ways. Firstly, they have collected and contributed tangible items to support our community and individuals. Secondly, the community benefits from their contact centre through the funds they raise and donate to charities and organizations that support various causes in our community. Hear how they engage staff, what information information and education they gather on the organizations and how they share how their contribution will make a difference in the community.

Whirlpool Corporation is a manufacturer and marketer of major home appliances. They have 1300 agents in their center. Since the inception of the center in 1967, it has been increasingly engaged with community involvement. As the operation has expanded in size and number of locations, it has proudly become involved with numerous organizations and causes in both the United States and Canada. Hear how their community involvement has had an extremely positive impact on employee morale and this is reflected in their performance on the job. The contact center has a large percentage of employees who work with a number of organizations including United Way, Habitat for Humanity, Boys & Girls Club, as well as Emergency Homeless Shelters and “food drives”.

With over 200 agents at the Contact Centre in British Columbia, Accenture employees are passionate about their communities and are putting a creative spin on fundraising. This creativity has encouraged employee’s friends, families and colleagues to improve their communities through small acts that collectively make an impact. During the year every contact centre employee participated in some fundraising activity and it has become a part of their culture to support our community. Find out about their contact centre S.W.A.T team and how they get involved in a diverse range of activities. Hear how corporate citizenship programs diminishes barriers and makes it easier to relate to one another internally.

Through our corporate Volunteers for LIFE (VFL) program, the center is actively involved in donations collecting various in-kind items such as school supplies, canned food, and holiday gifts, as well as disaster relief. We also are extremely involved in various volunteering projects, where we spearhead specific projects such as painting a home for a low income elderly in the community and a park beautification. In addition, we participate in the annual United Way Campaign and other fundraising efforts for various non-profit agencies. We also participate in the company wide event of Global Day of Service where projects were coordinated, facilitated and supported by contact center employees.

Since the Company was established in 1982, the spirit of Corporate Citizenry has been strong at PRC through “PRC Pros- People Reaching Out.” In 2005, PRC decided to upgrade its community outreach program with a new name, PRC Community Care. This group has developed a greater vision as to how PRC can better support the communities where we live and work. PRC Community Care is successful because of the participation and generosity of the frontline employees, and support from the company’s leadership. We see this program as a way to be a good neighbor, and as a way to have a positive impact on people’s lives and our employees find it extremely fulfilling.

Morale is at an all time high when the team participates in community activities. With centers in small rural areas, the bond among employees and with their community is very strong. The company is always refreshing and reinventing our efforts to make activities enjoyable and beneficial. For example, last spring our center hosted a fund raiser for the local animal shelter. The person to make the largest donation was granted the opportunity throw a whipped cream pie into their manager’s face (with the manager’s full cooperation of course). The activity was so successful, that they repeated it the next time the company president made a visit. They not only raised even more money than the previous campaign, but also were able to truly enjoy the experience of throwing a pie in someone’s face (the president’s no less!).

ACCENT is an international provider of customer lifecycle management solutions. Recently, the company developed and implemented an enhanced communication and recognition initiative that drives more frequent, up-to-date, and consistent information dissemination utilizing a variety of different tools, vehicles and or channels. This flagship contact center for our company was opened in 1994 and is located near the Kansas City International Airport. The15,564 square foot state-of-the art facility can accommodate up to 174 production and 44 fully functional training seats. The company has implemented weekly leadership sessions with senior managers, first line management, and 100% of their agent population.

Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company. The Care Centre was established in 2003 to provide a consistent level of service to both clients and their clients customers. Having the ability to pull on global resources to support and innovate was seen as key to manage cost saving while providing top level service. The variety of work the 'universal' employees perform is what makes Accenture stand out. They are not only expected to be at their post when needed the most for all care calls but often are called upon to come in any tiem day or night to handle customers that hve been impacted by weather related incidents.

Advanced TeleSolutions is a nationwide provider of customized outreach programs designed to decrease service interruption for delinquent broadband and telecommunications customers. Hear how they relocated their contact center to a new state-of-the-art facilities and virtualized their technology structure, improved reliability, increased operating efficiences while lowering operating costs without incurring any down time. Find out how they effectively use live-agent phone calls to reach subscribers at various points in the delinquency cycle and how this pre-collection effort drives more than $158 million annually.

ING Direct's goal is to have a contact center that is second to none. Engaged employees are a big part of this picture. ING Direct are committed to creating an atmosphere that is conducive to providing employees with a great place to work. The most important part of Paul's role is ensuring the most ideal balance for an associate’s work and personal life. The magnitude of an organization’s ability to succeed is largely based on the service provided by its’ front line staff. Excellent service is key in retaining and acquiring clients. Associates that a very content with their workplace are simply more productive and likely to provide exceptional service, which translates into satisfied clients.

Jen is a Workforce Management Analyst. She is responsible for or contributes to completing weekly schedules for seven call centers with a combined 270 agents. The scheduling duties include approving time off and recommendations for overtime, reduction of hours or shift changes to provide appropriate coverage. Also included in the weekly duties is the trending for prediction of weekly forecast of volume and AHT. She is tasked with completing ‘what if’ schedules as needed and making recommendations for hiring additional staffing. Jen started her call center career as an agent taking inbound customer service calls. She was an agent for 5 years before becoming a lead within a special accounts area servicing high volume sales. She eventually became a supervisor of that area. She has also supported the call center as a real time analyst to maintain service levels and coached employees with adherence and resolution of customer issues.

Walt is the Manager, North American Region Workforce Management. He is responsible for Capacity management for 4 sites and 1300 agents that comprise the virtual contact center enterprise. His role is to make certain the correct number of agents with the appropriate skills are at the right place and time when customers choose to reach out to the company for information or assistance. He also supports, nurtures and develops an 18 person virtual WFM department that is located across 4 sites and provides real time agent performance optimization, forecasting/scheduling, and capacity analysis/reporting.

The dynamic and fluid nature of a Telecom Contact Centre means training plans are constantly in motion. Ensuring thorough training isn't sacrificed in the interest of call service level agreements can be challenging. Chris has trained from a lap top, trained from 8 and 1/2 by 11 sheets of paper, trained outside, trained from memory, trained a 5 day course in 1 day, trained folks that have never owned a cell phone, trained folks that could disable a cell phone with their eyes closed, trained the eager, trained the uninterested and many times, even trained himself.

The call center we operate is primarily service and post purchase experience oriented. However, we do have a large internal sales team which handles employee purchase accounts and VIP partners. In addition, we support a sales group which handles pre-purchase questions from consumers to assist the customer in the selection of their appliance and a purchase if the consumer opts to buy direct. In 2009, training was approached by the business and a new instruction method was requested which would promote product knowledge and introduce new sales techniques to the agents. Training introduced a new method into the environment based on chunking knowledge and called it “product chunking

The Contact Center is an inbound and outbound customer service center providing real estate information services to Fortune 500 in the financial and real estate markets. Hear how, after introducing the incentive plan, the average center quality improved by 8 percent, reaching an all time high in the 4th quarter of 2009 (time of entry into the awards). In addition to improving, quality and other service metrics, it also greatly improved the overall moral of the center by giving associates fair and obtainable incentives and recognition for their efforts. Today the program is a popular topic of conversation and has instilled a greater sense of accomplishment for their employees.

Midwest Contact Center provides inbound and outbound services to handle sales, technical support, order taking and service calls. Their Incentive Scheme was implemented to provide recognition for their Brand Care Experts as they focus on increasing sales with each contact. Hear how when they first implemented the Incentive Scheme in May 2009, the closure rate was averaging 1.5 percent. Within one month it had increased to 2% and within 2 months to 3.5%. They are currently averaging 9% for a closure rate. This amounts to approximately $30,000 a month in increased sales.

The Contact Center provides training and support for customers of a sophisticated and sometimes complex online software service. Hear about the scheme and how employees love the profit sharing program for reasons other than just the cold, hard cash. It's transparent so all employees know at a glance roughly what to expect in their next paycheck. It rewards retention as well as new business since a lost existing customer is just as painful, perhaps more so, than a lost new customer. Third, it serves as a natural break on hiring too far ahead of growth. Finally, it is a terrific recruiting tool, particularly in this economy.

Serena has been working in the Accenture contact centre since 2004 as a customer service representative and more recently as a correspondence representative, handling written email, fax, and mail from customers. One of the main challenge she had to overcome when she started working as a customer service representative in the care centre was language - a native of Thailand, she was not fully fluent in the English speaking language when she started in my role. Always going beyond her day to day work to provide excellent customer service, serene always tries to exceed expectations for her core duties and give a 110% to any project that she is involved in.

Heather Dolan has 3 years experience working with a contact center that provides inbound/outbound support and related back office second level support for external and internal customers. She lives up to the team’s Mission Statement and Values, as well as the company’s by providing one-call resolution and ensuring that any issue that’s asked of me and my teammates is given my total commitment to resolve any technical matter.

Danielle's employment with MassMutual for the last year and a half has been her only contact center experience. She has been in customer service for a long time, but this has been a new experience for her. She loves being at other end of the line to help customers solve their problems and answer their questions. Her motto is "Treat others like you want to be treated”. If she call's a contact center, she expects the person that she is calling is there to help her. If they have the power and / or ability to solve her problem, she expects them to. Because this is what she expects when she picks up the phone, it is what she offers customers whose call she answers.

This organization did not start with anyone with a background with contact center experience. The ideology behind this customer support center is to provide high touch, personal, solutions and results. Sarah has worked in customer service in the insurance industry, but not technology. Nonetheless, she received a WOW! (perfect rating from a customer) on just her second day on the job. This has become a regular occurrence and the company feels so lucky to have her on the team.

Hear from Susan and her main personal goal which is to provide excellent customer service, and to go above and beyond to build relationships, and customer loyalty with every interaction. Remain focused on the tasks at hand and present herself in a professional manner.

Peter knows he is providing excellent customer service as a result of the feedback he receives from both participants that he assists and his mangers. One of the biggest reasons he enjoys his job is because of the satisfaction he experiences when he knows he has made someone’s day by providing excellent customer service. He enjoys educating people on the benefits of saving for retirement and by helping others solve problems or issues that may arise.

Josephs's dedication and commitment are evident as he has starred and co-written the production skits for the annual Customer Service Kickoff event in each of the last 5 years. He takes great pride in his work and his drive, determination, passion and the satisfaction he gets from helping others, motivates him to perform. His actions and achievements are proof that he always give 100% to my job.

Michelle's goals are to be a positive influence on her peers, a great example of an engaged team member and someone who others view as a valuable contributor to the call centre. She tries to lead by example and she also appreciates the advice from her peers and leaders. For her, KPIs are important as a way to track her progress, however she truly feels that her customer’s positive feedback on her calls provides the best possible measure of her personal success.