Grand & Toy

Contact Center

Company Description

Founded in 1882, Grand & Toy is Canada's largest commercial office products company.

Dedicated to providing time and money saving solutions to small businesses and leading corporations, the company offers more than 6,500 products through seven commercial distribution centers, an award-winning internet ordering system and 50 conveniently located retail stores. Grand & Toy TECHNOLOGY and Custom Business Interiors are among the services and supplies that elevate Grand & Toy to leadership status in the office supply category. Grand & Toy employs 2,200 people in its locations across Canada and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Office Max.

Contact Center Description

Grand & Toy Contact Centres are located in Toronto, Ottawa and Edmonton. There are approximately 120 total customer services representatives handling well over a million contacts per year. Channels of communication include: phone, web, chat, email and fax. Types of calls received are: orders, order inquiries, product/price/account/invoice enquiries, order corrections, rush deliveries as well as well as web based, technical, and consultative inquiries.

The Toronto call centre is located on the 9th floor of a modern office tower. The Ottawa and Edmonton locations are in two of Grand & Toy's sales office branches. The floor space is an open environment that allows agents, management and support staff to interact freely and regularly in all three centres. Managers from all 3 centres assess their operations regularly and make suggestions for improvement focusing on agent workstations & reducing repetitive strain injuries. If required, employees have access to ergonomic keyboards and lumbar supports. If employees have special needs, G&T can usually purchase it through their operating budget.

There is plenty of natural light in all three centres. Workstations are positioned on the perimeter of the office to allow CSRs to take advantage of the natural light and view. Workstations are 6'x6' and arranged in rows. Supervisors are positioned on the floor. Part time staff has their own workstations. Employees are allowed to decorate their workstations with personal effects. Lunchrooms in all three centres are bright and functional. They have a fridge, toaster, microwave oven, sink, and several food and beverage vending machines.

Grand & Toy is the first office products retailer to achieve CCEOC certification. Grand & Toy has achieved the Standard level CCEOC designation for 2006/2007 and is looking forward to promoting and maintaining their high standards of excellence

The Contact Center Employer of Choice^® (CCEOC) program will help Grand & Toy contact centers enhance public perception, provide exceptional work environments, and attract, retain and engage high performing, culturally aligned employees. The hard work and dedication to further developing a CCEOC environment and focusing on the key elements: leadership, career advancement and employee involvement, will have a profound affect on employee satisfaction and engagement.

Specific areas of focus for Grand & Toy include:

• Gain industry-wide recognition as a great place to work
• Improve ability to attract, retain and engage the best talent
• Identify areas of opportunity to improve employee satisfaction
• Build pride and engagement

Key Performane Measures

• TSF – 80% in 15s or less
• ASA: 15 seconds
• Abandonment rate: <3%
• First Call Resolution metric

Technology

• Telephony@Work - ACD/IVR QA Web-based Interface
• Skills based & geographical based call routing
• Aspect e-WFM – Agent Scheduling/Forecasting

Growth Prospects

Grand & Toy is committed to growing their contact centre operation internally. They are continually looking at opportunities to improve and expand on call-handling capability to internal clients and external customers. Moving forward, the dot.com business is expected to handle more front-end customer inquiries.

CCEOC Attributs

Health & Wellness

The G&T Contact Centre is very health and safety conscious. Employees are continuously updated on events and activities that will help support a healthy work/life balance. A bulletin board is used to display information regarding nutrition and physical fitness. The Joint Health and Safety Committee meet on a quarterly basis to address associate H&S needs and concerns. Grand & Toy has also made arrangements with local fitness centres to offer contact centre associates reduced membership rates in a effort to further promote the value of heath and wellness.

Work/Life Balance

Because Grand & Toy Customer Service is a 12 hour operation, scheduling frontline employees has some unique challenges. In an effort to create fairness and ensure scheduling requirements are being met, management regularly reviews the scheduling process and makes improvements. Accommodations are made for employees endeavouring to gain post-secondary degrees, or parents who have child care challenges. The Contact Centre promotes a healthy balance between operational requirements and agent schedule preferences.

Rewards, recognition and incentives

Grand & Toy customer service managers know how important it is to recognize and reward their employees. Recognition programs use a combination of cash and non-cash prizes as incentives. Reward points are provided to employees based on a metric and community service criteria. Associates have the opportunity to bid on monetary and non-monetary prizes through a quarterly auction process.

Customer Compliment letters are received regularly by the Customer Service department and are posted in a highly visible area in the contact centre. Typically, customers write letters because a CSR went above and beyond the call of duty in helping resolve an issue depending on the nature of the event.

Throughout the year, a number of fun and challenging events are planned to energize and motivate the staff.

Community involvement

In order to support employees' desire to give back to the community, CSRs participate in a number of charitable and volunteer events. They are involved in raising money for the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation, the United Way, the Canadian Cancer Society and Ernestine's Women's Shelter.

and & Toy, there is a strong belief in giving back to the community. This belief is put practice every day through the sponsorship of a variety of worthwhile local and national activities that can make a real difference in the lives of people all across Canada. These community and charitable activities have helped create tremendous team spirit and a strong value based connection between the employees and the corporation.

Contact Center Culture and Social Environment

The centre culture is one that is very open and trusting. They have an open door management policy where employees are encouraged to communicate freely with their superiors and peers. A culture of quality exists in each centre which is reflected in the manner in which customers are treated and the way employees treat each other. The Contact Centre emulates their Mission Statement on a daily basis:

"To be a world class contact/resource centre delivering accurate, timely, first call resolution that drives customer loyalty and increases revenue at every opportunity."

The social environment is very active. The social committee organizes internal and external excursions throughout the year. They consider themselves family oriented. The culture is highly people focused and their management philosophy consistently embraces employer of choice values and beliefs

Above and Beyond Factors

Above all of the official policies, procedures and structures that make Grand &Toy Customer Service Centres great places to work, Customer Service employees simply seem to have a lot of fun.

Above and beyond refers to the little (or big) extras that differentiate Grand & Toy Customer Service Contact Centres from all the rest:

• Fun, casual environment
• People enjoy coming to work
• Open door policy with management
• A continuous learning culture
• Equality is promoted among associates
• Associates have a say in how they're jobs are to be completed