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NEW Customer Service Companies

How to EnterCompany: NEW Customer Service Companies, Sterling, VA
Company Description: Founded in 1983, NEW is the leading global provider of extended service plans, buyer protection services and product support, providing coverage to more than 150 million consumers around the world. NEW delivers a comprehensive customer care solution that begins on day one of the product purchase and extends through the end of the product life cycle.
Nomination Category: Customer Service & Call Center Awards Team Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Contact Center of the Year (Over 100 Seats)

Nomination Title: NEW's Command Center

Tell the story about what this nominated team achieved since the beginning of July 2010 (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:

NEW provides consumers with post-manufacturer warranty solutions for numerous products, ranging from technology and electronics to fitness equipment and major appliances. These solutions include over-the-phone troubleshooting, scheduling depot or in-home repair service based on the customer’s needs, and rapid replacement provisions. Providing a quality service experience is paramount across all of these resolutions and is, by far, the most intricate and complex aspect of the business. At the most basic of levels, we must ensure the right quality service professionals are getting to the right place at the right time and with the right replacement part.

Over its 29 years, NEW has invested in systems, people and processes to ensure the NEW service experience is exceptional for our customers. In 2008, NEW acquired an automated scheduling, dispatching and reporting technology platform called ServcieBench®. This brand continues to be the recognized standard for many industries. In addition, NEW created the only comprehensive system, what we refer to as, “Command Center”, to enable the company to track and monitor each service event from the minute the customer filed a claim until the technician successfully serviced the product, flagging events like missed service appointments and allowing further insight into the service cycle.

In 2010, NEW further improved its customer service by deploying a team of Service Operations call center employees dedicated to managing the post-claim service experience. The primary role of this team is to manage service fulfillment exceptions. Their goal is to be the customer advocate by ensuring service levels are met, parts are available and claims are fulfilled successfully. Since then, this team has achieved many significant milestones and has consistently exceeded their organizational goals. Customer satisfaction through speed and quality service has been the team’s top priority; this was evident in their ability to impact the cycle time of repair. The cycle time for electronics has decreased by 4.5 days and for appliances by 2 days since 2009. The team also implemented Net Promoter Score (NPS), a cross-industry customer satisfaction metric that measures a company’s performance based on the customer’s propensity to recommend the service to a friend or colleague. In July, our team hit an all-time record high with this metric reaching an above average score averaging above 60%. On average, most companies perform in the 5-10 NPS range. This team also began servicing our Canadian customers in June of 2011. Although they are spread across 3 locations, management holds a daily morning “huddle” call to share trends and cross-train opportunities to help further improve processes. As you can see from its rapid growth and success, this team is the embodiment of dedicated customer service at NEW, ensuring that the servicers are fulfilling their service events and, ultimately, fulfilling promises to our valued customers with the highest degree of quality.

List hyperlinks to any online news stories, press releases, or other documents that support the claims made in the section above. IMPORTANT: Begin each link with http://, and enclose each link in square brackets; for example, [http://www.youraddress.com]:

 

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

Michelle Robinson, Vice President of Service Operations, leads the strategy to optimize service delivery and create best-in-class service to NEW’s customers by optimizing people, processes and systems.

Prior to joining NEW, Ms. Robinson was the Executive Vice President of Operations of the Ignite Research Institute, and has held a variety of Service and Process Improvement roles at Covance, and General Electric. Ms. Robinson is a graduate of Purdue University and holds a BS degree in Industrial Engineering. She received an executive MBA from Northwestern University Kellogg and is a Six Sigma Certified Master Black Belt.