Company: Office Depot, Inc
Company Division/Group: Customer Service Network
Company Description: Office Depot is an industry leader in Office Supplies with annual sales of $13 billion. Office Depot has more than 870 retail stores in addition to a national business-to-business delivery network supported by 24 delivery centers, 60 local sales offices and 13 regional call centers. Founded in 1986 and headquartered in Delray Beach, FL, Office Depot employs nearly 50,000 people.
Nomination Category: Organization Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Best Support Organization

Nomination Title: “Office Depot Quality Assurance-Capturing the Customer Experience”

Tell the story about what this nominated functional organization achieved in 2003 (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:

In 2000, the Office Depot Customer Service Centers were decentralized across the
US resulting in the inability to leverage standardized processes to provide seem-
less, consistent customer service.  In 2001 & 2002, several re-engineering
initiatives were implemented to centralize these functions. This prompted a strong
desire and need to take service quality and the Customer Experience to the next
level for 2003.

The first step was defining a consistent methodology or model to collect customer
feedback about the quality and service provided by Office Depot referred to as
Voice of Customer (VOC) and to provide a strong link back to all the organization.
The VOC proactive model is centered on telephone surveys to randomly selected
customers to gauge their experience in each process such as Service
Representative experience, first-time service delivery execution and service
recovery experience. The cross-functional Council discusses the VOC findings and
determines the priorities for making improvements.
In 2003, The Quality Assurance team conducted 108,000 outbound surveys to
customers regarding their experience. This is a 100% increase over outbound
surveys in 2002 and a 225% increase over 2001. In addition, an improved cost per
completed survey and faster turaround time was also experienced. ($50.00 with a
90-day turnaround  to $4.85 with a 30-day turnaround in 2003).

The second step was to develop the infrastructure and environment to allow Voice
of Customer to flourish and utilize customer feedback to drive business
improvements that enhance the customer experience and support the company's
values.  Key to the success was the partnership and commitment established
between key stakeholders on the Council.  Much time and effort was spent in
creating an environment where people feel comfortable receiving, incorporating,
and working with VOC. To give our teams the skills needed to fully incorporate
VOC into process improvements, we established Quality Depot - an educational
curriculum to develop Quality enhancement tools for our front line leaders and
Directors.  The result was teams utilizing statistically reliable VOC information as
a basis for improvement efforts. In addition, we began to see a shift in thought
process with teams reacting to trends vs. single occurrences. At this point VOC
was successfully incorporated  into our performance expectations and bonus
structure.

Our final step was refinement of the customer touch points to
allow us to measure and gauge VOC and calibrate it to our critical internal
business metrics. Data collection systems were enhanced to further
detect less visible opportunities in our servicing. As a result of our focus on Voice
of the Customer our ties to quality, the company values and focus on the needs of
the customer continue to strengthen within the organization. The commitment to
our VOC goals is evidenced by a resounding change in our culture, application of
new skills and excellence in execution. This is reflected in closing our Customer
Service Index gap by 19% over 2002.

We have built a very strong foundation to do more in 2004 as we continue our
journey to the most compelling place to work, shop, and
invest!

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

Note: The National Retail Federation in their newest book Customer Service
Excellence 2004: 50 Exemplary Practices in Retail recently highlighted The Office
Depot “Voice of Customer” Model as an exemplary retail customer experience
practice.
http://www.officedepot.com
http://www.mediarelations.officedepot.com
http://www.nrf.com

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

Carolyn Clendening, Senior Manager of Office Depot's National Quality Assurance
Department is a seasoned professional with 20+ years of service experience and
is a Six Sigma Black Belt. Prior to Office Depot she was with a large electronic
payment company where she served as Vice President of Customer Service and
later as Vice President of Business Integration & Project Management. She is a
member of the National Association of Female Executives, International Six Sigma
Professionals, and Helpdesk Institute.  Ms. Clendening has served on several
boards as a Business Adviser supporting curriculum development to enhance
quality and service skills in vocational students.