NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE – September 10, 2013 – The Quality Assurance & Training Connection (QATC) has announced Gregory Harris of The Home Depot as winner of the 2013 Quality Assurance Professional of the Year Award, which recognizes a quality assurance professional who has shown outstanding leadership in the industry.
“We are so pleased to announce Gregory as the winner of this prestigious award,” said Vicki Herrell, QATC Executive Director. “His knowledge, leadership, and vision have helped him achieve great results for his company. We believe he is truly representative of the great quality assurance professionals around the world.”
Gregory has served as the Quality Assurance Manager for The Home Depot over the past year and a half. The Home Depot has four contact center sites supporting its ecommerce activity with over 900 agents handling up to 6.5 million ecommerce-related voice interactions annually. The Ecommerce Quality Assurance Department sought to gain important insight into its customer interactions in order to improve sales effectiveness, customer satisfaction, and operational efficiency during the customer’s online purchasing experience. To do so, the company wanted to help agents increase sales conversion rates, average order value (AOV), and revenue per contact (RPC) while maintaining high levels of customer satisfaction. They also wanted to reduce average handle time (AHT), eliminate wasted time such as wait time and multiple hand-offs, and better utilize resources without decreasing customer satisfaction or sales effectiveness.
During the implementation of new technology from NICE Systems that Greg oversaw, it was critical for The Home Depot to utilize the NICE solutions in a way that could convert their contact centers from “service recovery centers” to “revenue generating centers.” To measure sales effectiveness, the company used conversion rate, AOV, and RPC metrics to identify ways to enhance agent performance, and they revised the interaction evaluation forms to include a section that determines sales effectiveness. When sales opportunities for improvement were identified, the quality analyst provided the agent with immediate feedback via coaching packages. Supervisors and managers were also copied on the coaching packages to provide the agent with additional input. Quality analysts also conducted targeted coaching sessions for agents by using tools such as role play sales scenarios, providing insight into how to effectively determine the scope of the customer’s project, determining applicable product recommendations, and creating an effective sales offer.
Greg possesses outstanding project management skills. He delegates effectively and works with others to accomplish a common goal, and the results from the NICE technology project were outstanding, The Home Depot increased its close rate by 31.8%, AOV by 12.1%, and RPC by 40.4%. This success translated into an impressive revenue gain of $10.8 million in just four months. In order to measure customer satisfaction, the company used net promoter score (NPS), one call resolution (OCR), and resolution satisfaction. They were able to identify improvement initiatives for business processes, policies, and systems by creating quality plans for targeted call monitoring instead of the random selection method they previously used. As a result of these changes, The Home Depot was able to increase its NPS by 14.9%, OCR by .4%, average resolution satisfaction by 3.9%, and agent soft skills by 26%.
To measure operational efficiency, The Home Depot used AHT as their primary metric and looked specifically into ways to reduce it, eliminate waste (wait time, multiple hand-offs, etc.), and better utilize resources without impacting customer service. The combination of the AHT command center initiative, weekly trending meetings, and continued AHT reporting resulted in an impressive AHT reduction of 27%.
Greg has a deep understanding of fundamental call center quality management principles, which has allowed him to work with operations leadership to create a quality program that makes sense and drives the right customer behaviors. He understands that the foundation for customer satisfaction is not overly complicated — be available for the customers, resolve their issue in one interaction, and strive to create a personal connection with the customer. Greg works hard to understand what the data says in order to drive quantifiable results. He is a very analytical person who can mine data effectively to determine root-cause problems, then create improvement recommendations and action plans.
Greg has the communication skills required to not only perform analysis, but to deliver the information in a way that is non-threatening and inspires leadership to drive change throughout the organization. He is calm, collected, and builds up his peers and coworkers in a positive way. This has allowed him to partner with operations, training, and other business partners to lead improvement initiatives.
Prior to The Home Depot, Greg worked in the residential security alarm industry as a contact center manager. He has a Bachelor's degree in Business Management from Brigham Young University specifically emphasizing supply chain and quality management.
According to Filipe Da Costa, Training/Quality Assurance Senior Manager, “Greg worked with NICE to completely overhaul our program in eight short months. He has become an invaluable resource within the organization, and his team continues to deliver value-added feedback and drive quantifiable positive change throughout the organization.”
The other finalists included Craig Brasington of Deloitte LP, Joanne Gallant-Roberts of FRHI Global Reservation Centre, Brenna Simms of Las Vegas Valley Water District, and Heather Vega of Outerwall, Inc.
The QATC Board of Advisors selected the five finalists from nominations submitted on the QATC website. The Quality Assurance Professional of the Year award is chosen from the five finalists by the Board of Advisors and was announced at the 2013 QATC Annual Conference.
About QATC
The Quality Assurance & Training Connection (QATC) is an organization devoted to facilitating education and networking opportunities among quality assurance and training professionals in the call center across all industries. Membership in QATC is available to all quality assurance and training professionals. Both individual memberships and corporate membership options are available, with full benefits and costs outlined on the organization’s website at www.qatc.org.
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