GlowTouch - Most Valuable Response by a Customer Service Team

Company: GlowTouch, Louisville, KY
Company Description: Founded in 2002, GlowTouch’s 2,300+ employees provides personalized contact center, business processing, and technology outsourcing solutions to clients around the world. A certified Woman-Owned Business and six-time Inc. 5000 honoree, GlowTouch is headquartered in Louisville, KY, with locations in Louisville, KY; Miami, FL; India, the Dominican Republic; and the Philippines.
Nomination Category: COVID-19 Response Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Most Valuable Response by a Customer Service Team

Nomination Title: Surviving and Succeeding During COVID-19: How GlowTouch India Exemplified "Putting People First"

GlowTouch was founded on the principle of “Putting People First.” Our entire India (Diya Systems) team embraces and exemplifies our motto in how they continually care for their clients, communities, and co-workers—especially since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

As a BPO company, we rely on standard customer service metrics to measure our customer service teams’ performance. Regardless of client or program, our India team has consistently held exemplary Knowledge (K), Courtesy (C), and First Call Resolution (FCR) scores in the last 5 years. In March 2020, COVID-19 lockdowns were enforced in India, but our teams’ customer service performance was not severely impacted.

Accomplishing what seemed insurmountable using sheer ingenuity, support, and global cooperation, GlowTouch India delivered:

1) Technology that enabled a 70% office-to-home transition in four days

2) Food to employees and their families in need

3) Unprecedented continuity of client support and service

How do you measure a team’s compassion, resilience, determination, and comradery amid a pandemic? There are no such metrics. If a GPR (Global Pandemic Response) metric did exist, our entire India team would score 5.0s in these KPIs: Continuity of Customer Service, Client and Customer Care, Co-worker Support, and Community Compassion and Giving.

GlowTouch company decision-making has always been guided by how well we impact lives for the better. Our India teams’ natural reaction to COVID-19 was to take care of everyone around them. Developing a tactical, boots-on-the-ground response was possible simply because our GlowTouch India family stepped into those boots.

In addition to customer service continuity during a government-mandated lockdown, the GlowTouch India team:

Created a Business Continuity Plan (BCP)
Formed a Pandemic Response Team (PRT)
Created March 2020 when only a few COVID-19 India cases had been confirmed
Little was known about COVID-19 then, and the India team conveyed known information regularly via company emails to ensure everyone’s safety.

Created a list of essentials needed for GlowTouch employees and their families, then implemented:
Food delivery outlets
Supermarket delivery systems
Coordinated anonymous food donations and deliveries from GlowTouch India team members

Increased community involvement with specific COVID-19 relief efforts:
30 new ICU beds donated to Wenlock Hospital for COVID-19 patients
GT Foundation Partnership with Indian vaccination initiative, VaxAll

Increased employee engagement and activities:
A blood drive
COVID-19 Volunteer opportunities
Visiting Little Sisters of the Poor hospital and Bala Yesu Orphanage
Employee wellness-at-home info via company emails

While taking care of fellow co-workers and their communities, the GlowTouch India team successfully serviced GlowTouch clients’ customers from their homes and hostiles—anywhere there was a reliable internet connection—out of dedication to GlowTouch, but also out of dedication and compassion for mankind.

Like many companies in the BPO industry, we responded as best we could, and pursued business-as-usual when and how we could. What GlowTouch India and the entire organization have achieved since 2020 is nothing short of a business phenom.

Since the onset of COVID-19 pandemic restrictions and mandates, with the customer support and service provided by our India teams, GlowTouch has accomplished the following:

National and International Industry Awards:
IAOP Outsourcing 100 List
IAOP Strategic Partners Recognition
Best IT Exporter, Karnataka, India
Everest Peak Matrix

Exceptional expansion and growth
Since March 2020, servicing and providing support for 18 new clients (prior clients per year average: less than 5)
Increased number of employees (from 1,800 July 2020 to over 2,300 December 2021)

4 new locations:
Louisville, Kentucky, USA; new corporate office August 2020
Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; November 2020
Mysore, India; August 2021
Manilla, Philippines; November 2021

Zero client attrition

Despite lack of in-person communication and activities since COVID-19, GlowTouch India has improved employee engagement. Since March 2020, the India team has consistently created home activities for employees that include arts and crafts, holiday decoration contests, online home yoga classes, and desk posture exercises. The India team also became more community-aware and gave to their surrounding communities in need since the pandemic by helping at food kitchens, hospitals, and orphanages.

Our Indian teams’ accomplishments have consistently reflected compassion beyond measure for its employees, clients, and communities.

Company decisions have always been guided by how well they impact our clients and their customers, our employees, and our communities; the GlowTouch “Putting People First” in our logo is more than words, it’s who we are and what we do. Our company’s natural reaction to COVID-19 was to immediately take care of our ‘people.’ Developing a tactical, boots-on-the-ground response was made possible simply because many GlowTouch people volunteered to fill those boots.

Our India team had the greatest need and greatest obstacles, but through determination, creativity, support, and global cooperation, they delivered: 1) technology that enabled a 70% office-to-home transition in four days, 2) food to employees and their families in need, 3) unprecedented continuity of client support and service, and 4) Employee and community relief through COVID-19 initiatives and heart-led volunteerism.

Our India team helped our entire organization discover that the best and most important business plan is grounded in compassion for others. The supporting materials included reflect how GlowTouch India responded by taking care of its employees, clients, and community in an unprecedented way.

Included materials in support of our submission are:

Press releases, photos, and other documents showing GlowTouch company growth and expansion, and how the India team helped its employees and communities

Emails and examples of ongoing internal communications with resources to keep employees informed, equipped, engaged, and safe during COVID-19

Client metrics and comments regarding GlowTouch employees’ excellent support and service amid a pandemic.

Attachments available at:http://www.glowtouch.com/stevie-awards-scs-category-161">www.glowtouch.com/stevie-awards-scs-category-161
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