Contact Lens King - Incentive, Rewards, or Recognition Provider of the Year

Company: Contact Lens King Inc., Champlain, NY
Company Description: Founded in 2004, Contact Lens King has made it its mission to provide contact lens wearers with the best online option to buy brand name contact lenses at the lowest possible prices on a consistent basis. In concert with its commitment to value focused pricing, the company conducts its business in keeping with practices that support providing an exceptional customer service experience.
Nomination Category: Solution Provider Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Incentive, Rewards, or Recognition Provider of the Year

Nomination Title: Contact Lens King Acknowledgment Solution

Founded in 2004, Contact Lens King has made it its mission to provide contact lens wearers with the best online option to buy brand-name contact lenses at the lowest possible prices on a consistent basis. However, until the last few years, the company's model was geared towards order conversion with competitive prices then building relationships by providing exceptional service. The company's customer attrition rate was approximately 24% in 2019, virtually had no reputation management program in place, and experienced a high yearly employee turnover. In an effort to address these and other internal and external issues Contact Lens King decided to develop a 4 phase approach to address employee satisfaction which ultimately also improved our customer satisfaction. The four approaches that the company decided to focus on was employee incentive using monetary rewards, the second was job flexibility, third was team performance recognition through individual and team meetings, and the last was to provide personal reward and satisfaction by promoting social responsibility. By engaging our customer service agents in these four areas Contact Lens King was able to transform its business culture and the way it built relationships with its employees and customers.

These achievements played a critical role in reducing employee attrition rate, with maintaining approximately 90% of its agents over the past 3 years. The department has also grown more cohesive, breaking call center industry averages. For instance, according to TalkDesk, the average global Abandonment Rate for call centers range between 5% to 8%, while our call center successfully reduced its abandonment rate to below 1% in 2021, according to Vonage analytics. We also improved our SLA (Service Level Agreement), which according to TalkDesk 80% of calls should be answered within 20 seconds. Contact Lens King's call center was not only successful in meeting this performance metric but surpassed it by answering over 94% of all calls within 20 seconds.

The company's overall service improvement has resulted in Contact Lens King being rated in Newsweek as the number 1 Online Contact Lense Company for customer service. This has also been reaffirmed by TrustPilot on 12/28/21 ranking the organization as number 1 in the "Contact Lenses Supplier" industry. Contact Lens King has also been ranked with an A+ rating by the BBB, an achievement no competitor has attained yet.

By implementing the recognition, incentive, and reward programs, Contact Lens King has been able to build a stronger, happier team; one that is inclusive and collaborative. These programs built a happier work culture, reducing overall employee attrition while improving overall performance. It directly impacted the way the organization built relationships with customers, even increasing their loyalty and overall lifetime value.

The first incentive program implemented was solely performance-based. At the end of each month analysis of agent, performance was completed and the top-performing employees would receive a monetary prize, however, the problem with this model is that it can alienate good employees who are just unable to perform at the same level, which can be demoralizing for them. Therefore in an effort to address this, the organization implemented a strategy to increase service coverage through cross-training and hiring additional agents. This permitted the organization to allow employees increased flexibility with their schedule and when requesting time off. The third approach imployed was to create a monthly team review and to recognize the achievements the team has accomplished, but also to address any issues that required attention. This collaborative method to management promoted company pride; the employee now felt part of the decision-making process, instilling a sense of comraderyand teamwork. The last approach was to help improve employee personal intrinsic happiness. The company began to join socially responsible programs that helped the local community. This was successful in promoting self-worth and helped build a stronger and more cohesive team.All of these programs played a significant role in improving employee happiness, purpose, personal and professional growth, overal performance both indiviudally and as a team.

Attachment: America’s Best Customer Service 2022 - Newsweek

This Newsweek acknowledgment helps demonstrate Contact Lens King’s continued commitment to improve its performance towards providing exceptional service to our customers. This publication has listed ContactLensKing.com as number 1 in its industry as displayed at the following link; https://www.newsweek.com/americas-best-customer-service-2022.

Attachment: TrustPilot Company Rating

This attachment illustrated the company’s achievement in providing exceptional service ranking as one of the highest rated businesses in its industry.

https://www.trustpilot.com/categories/contact_lenses_supplier

Attachment: Vonage Performance

This attachment illustrates both ContactLensKing.com’s SLA service level of 94% with a 1% abandonment rate.

Attachment: TalkDesk

Shows standard call center stats such as the SLA (80%) and abandonment rate (5%-8%).

KPI Performances

Abandonment Rate

-Contact Lens King Inc.: <1% Abandonment Rate

SLA (80/20 Service Level Agreement)

-Contact Lens King Inc.: 94% SLA

Customer Order Attrition Rate

-Contact Lens King Inc.: 6.8%

Customer Satisfaction

-Contact Lens King Inc.: 4.8/5 (Trust Pilot), A+ Rating (BBB)

Volunteering

-2019-2021 Participated in the Great Strides for CF

-2019 Organized Food Drive for local food shelf

-2021 Volunteered for Toys for Tots

-2021 Participated in the Salvation Army’s Christmas Angel Tree