Reimagining
service at Grainger.

Building a foundation for research at scale

The taxonomy work began with a problem of scale: a small research team supporting a catalog of more than 1.6 million products/SKUs. I built a four-person enablement team, including myself, to help others apply research in their work.

We began with the higher levels of the taxonomy, used tree testing, and developed benchmarks and scorecards. Online merchandisers learned to conduct research within guardrails, with responsibility transferring progressively as the practice matured. My team increasingly focused on enablement, while the broader practice extended to product teams as well.

This was a separate initiative from the call-center transformation, but it established the earlier chapter of my Grainger work: developing a research capability that could extend beyond the specialist team.

Taxonomy and search improvements were associated with a 12% increase in new-product acquisition over two years. This was a reported outcome associated with the broader improvements, not a result attributable to my work alone.

Turning to the call experience

The subsequent mandate focused on reimagining the tools, processes, and customer experience of the call-center operation. My responsibility was to help lead that transformation. The operation's more than 1,000 employees represented the scale of the environment we were working in.

We examined interaction data, time on task, and points of friction. Qualitative research helped explain the problems behind those patterns. This combination brought customer experience and representatives' work into the same investigation, connecting what the data showed with a deeper understanding of the experience.

I directed foundational and evaluative research to inform the reimagination of phone sales and customer service. Human-centered insights and design-thinking activities involved people across organizational levels, from executives to frontline call representatives.

Establishing direction and support

My leadership contribution included setting the mission, goals, and direction for the work. I mentored researchers, encouraged collaborative problem solving, and led the investment justification and executive pitch.

That required connecting the research to a proposed direction for the business. The work needed to explain what we were learning about customer and representative needs and how those insights informed the changes we were proposing. Bringing executives and frontline representatives into the process connected leadership decisions with the people and experiences those decisions would affect.

Rebuilding tools and connecting channels

Working collaboratively across teams, we rebuilt the call-center tools from the ground up. We optimized the customer call experience and integrated it with e-commerce. The scope extended across the representative's tools, the processes surrounding their use, and the experience of the customer on the phone.

We partnered with technology colleagues on the changes and established benchmarks, continuing to monitor the experience after the redesign. Research supported both the direction of the transformation and evaluation of the experience that followed.

What the work demonstrates

The delivered changes connected rebuilt tools, an improved call experience, and integration with e-commerce. They were the result of a collective effort. My contribution was to guide research and design thinking, establish direction, develop researchers, and make the investment case.

Across the earlier taxonomy practice and the later call-center work, I took on different ways of increasing research's contribution to the organization. One expanded the ability of merchandisers and product teams to apply research. The other brought evidence into a transformation spanning frontline tools, customer service, and digital commerce. Both required helping people turn customer understanding into decisions and practical changes to their work.