NACCM 2009: High Performance Work at Home reps, a Building Block for Creating a Customer-Centric Environment

Ricardo Weld, Director HSN, Performance Support Services, Home Shopping Network


The web complements the television channel. They have emerging channels, what a customer wants, when she wants. They’re also on video on demand to find the products you want for your remote control.

Mission: The delivery the joy and excitement of new discoveries every day. HSN today isn’t about hard sales, it’s about education and information. When Emril is on, it’s about the dish he’s cooking, not just the pots and pans he’s using to cook the meal in.

The start of the experience is the brands. A customer is looking for uniqueness, ideas, accessible aspiration, fun, connections and validations.

HSN handles 45 million calls an 480,000 emails processed annually. They look at the volume that their products are going to drive in calls, and they have found a way to use a work at home model to employees who take calls. They’ve moved away from off shoring, and brought shores back home. Their work at home model has allowed them to grow, and let their employees grow in their career.

Show hosts, reps, online reps, all of the voices are representing HSN. Voices should not be different across the different platforms. That’s why they brought the CSRs back from the Philippines, the voices didn’t translate.

HSN has a reward yourself program for their employees. HSN sets up a program with an account, they get in store credits or expendable cash. This never expires, even if the employees leave HSN.

HSN has a quality evaluation process. They have a Tier process – 1 – Reps who are tenured, solid jobs, 2 – doing well, Tier 3 – Those who are struggling. They receive 3x the number of evaluations compared to Tier 1.

The expectation of HSN for their call center reps is to connect with their customer. This is their brand, and they expect it from their call center representatives. A friendly, connected work at home agent is the HSN brand.