Harry & David dials up technology to manage call center ebb and flow
Mail-order fruit and gift retailer Harry & David relies on technology to manage call center load swings that range from 5,000 calls per day in the off-season to 100,000 during the holidays. That includes overseeing from 300 to 4,000 call center employees that handle those fluctuations.
Harry & David, No. 75 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide, has implemented a variety of technology tools to help manage its mail-order gift foods business, which reported $166.4 million in web sales for 2006. Call center technology includes an order taking/customer service system, e-mail management, call recording and monitoring, electronic time card, and electronic product information index.
One of the tools that Harry & David’s uses to manage call center labor is a web-based call recording and quality monitoring application from Coordinated Systems Inc. The scale of its holiday call activity pushes Harry & David’s infrastructure and systems to their peak capacity, says Jason Phillipson, director of planning for customer operations. Hiring and training also must be completed for most of the 4,000 peak-season workers in about two months.
“The biggest advantage the new technology has is that it allowed us to hold our labor needs static. Advances in our online stores, sales and service applications, knowledgebase, telemarketing, call monitoring, and training systems have kept pace and often exceeded the demand for additional labor force,” Phillipson says.
The call center technology enables managers to monitor new workers and provide feedback on their performance quickly. That enables Harry & David to correct areas where they are having trouble, which reduced attrition during crunch time and “saved us money,” Phillipson says.
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