CSD Receives Global Call Center of the Year Award
By Vicki Herrell (reprinted from SWPP Newsletter - Fall 2004)
SEATTLE, WA. - FALL 2004
Communication Service for the Deaf Inc. (CSD) was recently awarded a 2004 Global Call Center of the Year Award at the Annual Call Center Exhibition (ACCE) in Seattle. CSD was nominated by the Society of Workforce Planning Professionals (SWPP) for this prestigious award, which recognized nine call centers from around the world.
"We have 20 CSD call centers across the country that fulfill a wide spectrum of communication needs. CSD's call centers are composed of three divisions that work in concert to serve a singular purpose — enabling communication and at the end of the day helping the deaf and hard-of-hearing community. We would not be receiving this accolade if not for the dedication of our employees in the call centers," said Benjamin Soukup, chief executive officer of CSD.
CSD was established in 1975, primarily to provide sign language interpreting services to deaf and hard-of-hearing adults in South Dakota. Today, CSD provides telecommunications relay services (TRS), video relay services (VRS), and customer service solutions for its customers via phone, TTY (telecommunications device for the deaf), video, chat, Web collaboration, and e-mail. The company employs 1,525 full-time call center agents, along with more than 250 sign language interpreters.
"The SWPP Board of Advisors was very impressed with the accomplishments of CSD and its operations in general. We felt that CSD's passion for its mission to the deaf and hard-of-hearing community has distinguished it from other call center providers, and we are proud that CSD is a part of our organization," said Vicki Herrell, executive director of SWPP.
CSD opened its first call center in 1975 and until August 1995 remained a single call center operation with less than 100 employees. CSD began a slow expansion of call centers through their vendor agreement with Sprint by supporting the growth of Sprint's Telecommunications Relay Service (TRS). CSD's call center expansion continued in the next few years with seven call centers opening by September 2003. These centers average 200-300 employees per location for the support of Relay services across the country.
CSD then entered into Video Relay Services (VRS) in 2000 as one of the first providers in this market. This has allowed customers to use their native language of sign language when communicating with businesses, friends, and family members. CSD was the first provider of a VRS that serviced both IP as well as ISDN users.
While nine centers provide these services, seven of these were opened over the course of an 18-month period with an average of 4-12 positions per location in order not to drain the pool of sign language interpreters in any one city.
With Telecommunications Relay Service (TRS), CSD and its technical partner, Sprint, has been able to deploy a new service offering in the past 12 months that allowed their customers to no longer rely on landlines but rather utilize the internet for placing telephone calls. Deaf individuals typically rely on a unique device called a TTY (TeleTYpewriter) which is extremely costly as well as not available in most public places. In order to make the service more accessible, an internet version was created so that a Deaf or Hard of Hearing person could access their telecommunication needs from any facility with an internet connection. The accessibility of this service throughout the industry as now required by the FCC was a great step for the deaf and hard of hearing community.
While the company has been able to do great things, it is not without challenges. CSD is a non-profit agency, and is continuously looking for ways to reduce its most costly areas of operation. Also, CSD is unable to provide premiere compensation rates to employees due to pricing structures with State and Federal governmental agencies and reductions in costs, so the company looks for ways to improve the overall call center environment of their facilities.
In 2000, CSD began the steps to reduce turnover in its facilities by creating a work atmosphere that was employee friendly. CSD's management staff began the implementation of policies and procedures as well as benefit programs that were developed by the agents themselves. Over the course of a two-year period, these steps cut turnover by more than half.
CSD's VRS services have faced ongoing reductions in their reimbursement rate from the FCC. This rate was reduced by 65% last year and an additional 18% this year. Continued viability of the company with these reductions was made possible by the ongoing reduction in operation costs, primarily through workforce management analysis by CSD's Aaron Wegehaupt, one of the finalists for the 2004 SWPP Workforce Manager of the Year.
The 2004 Global Call Center of the Year Awards were presented during a special luncheon at ACCE, which included a video submitted by each winning center. CSD's Soukup accepted the award for the company through a sign language interpreter.
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