American Home Shield finds a new
home in one of the world's most intelligent cities.

his past spring, American Home Shield, the nation’s leading home warranty company, decided it needed a call center in the Eastern time zone, but didn’t know where to put it. Company executives knew they needed a hard-wired Southern community with a sophisticated telecommunications network and a qualified workforce. A site selection team put Georgia on the shortlist.

When Sean Boles, Development Authority of LaGrange senior development specialist, heard about the company’s interest in Georgia, he called the site selection team and LaGrange quickly became the company’s top choice.

LaGrange boasts one of the most sophisticated fiber-optics systems in the world, a key selling point for American Home Shield, which relies on advanced technology to serve its customers.

This winter American Home Shield is moving into a 60,000-sq.-ft. building in LaGrange housing more than 400 employees. This monumental move marks the culmination of an innovative multi-effort development initiative involving Quick Start, West Georgia Technical College, the Development Authority of LaGrange, the LaGrange-Troup County Chamber of Commerce, the GDITT and the Department of Labor.

“Call centers are the lifeblood of our company,” notes John Sylvester, AHS LaGrange call center manager of service operations. “The technology is extremely important to us.”

The city’s state-of-the-art fiber loop prompted the World Teleport Association to name LaGrange “Intelligent City of the Year” in 2000.

“I think that our telecommunications network really convinced American Home Shield,” says Jane Fryer, LaGrange-Troup County Chamber of Commerce president. While construction of the call center got under way, Quick Start team members were already at work designing a training program to address the company’s industry-specific needs.

When American Home Shield executives heard about Quick Start’s job-specific training program, “they almost couldn’t believe it was true,” says Sean McMillan, GDITT senior project manager.

American Home Shield Executive Vice President Rick Ascolese says, “Our workforce’s ability to be effective is a result of education and training. Georgia Quick Start helped us standardize our training programs and add new programs to reinforce our existing training plans. American Home Shield has been more than pleased with the quality and expertise in training services that the Quick Start program has provided.

Training For Peak Performance

American Home Shield founded the home warranty industry more than 30 years ago and continues to be the industry leader. Key to the company’s competitive edge is its call center workforce, a highly skilled team of employees who:

• Apply technical knowledge about home appliances to better assist customers;
  
  
• Communicate effectively with customers to pinpoint problems, determine
  specific warranty coverage and find solutions;
  
  
• Use sophisticated computer software to identify warranty coverage, order
  parts and dispatch technicians nationwide;
  
  
• Create life-long customers and revenue streams through contract renewal.

With Quick Start’s assistance, employees of the new facility complete 15–20 days of rigorous training to learn job tasks and procedures, computer applications, appliance technical knowledge and maintenance procedures, warranty coverage provisions, plus communications and other interpersonal skills.


 

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