Case Study – Call Centre Development Programme

Background

Motivating the front-line Call Centre workforce is a real challenge for many employers. Attrition is often high and costs to recruit and train employees can make a significant dent in the budget.

We were asked to help a major telecommunications company to develop a market-leading development programme which would be used by Advisers, Coaches and Team Leaders. Development until now followed the traditional approach used by many call centres. This consisted mainly of an induction programme of several weeks in duration and frequent briefings by line managers.

Purpose and Objectives

Our objectives were to develop a suite of learning material which would meet the learning needs and styles of all Customer Service Advisers, Coaches and Team Leaders to impact positively on a range of key business objectives.

The ultimate aim was for staff to consider the company a great place to work due to the investment and value it was placing on its people whilst having a positive impact on business performance.

Stage One

A needs analysis had already been completed by the business before our involvement, which highlighted key areas staff wanted to see in the final solution delivered. Footprint analysed this research and provided a range of comprehensive and innovative recommendations for the way forward.

Footprint supported this by completing a range one to one interviews with key stakeholders across the business. These interviews discussed the key areas highlighted by the needs analysis in more detail, in terms of desired content and context.

The needs analysis helped to gain buy in across the Senior Management population as individuals felt involved and recognised that their input was being used to shape the final solution.

Stage Two

Working with the Head of Learning for Customer Service and Retail, we developed a comprehensive suite of solutions including four face to face events, 20 coaching casebooks, to be used by the Coaches when coaching Advisers, 20 knowledge nudges and a selection of theories. This was in addition to material to help populate the e-learning solutions being progressed by an e-learning consultancy. All coaching casebooks, nudges and theories will be accessible to all via a portal sitting on the Intranet.

The face to face events were highly participative, using fun activities and drawing on the delegates’ experience of the topics covered to maximize learning. For example:

Examples required here

Stage Three

All events have been reviewed by a community within one of the call centres. Feedback has been excellent including “the coaching guide is excellent and will really help embed coaching skills across the company”.

A train the trainer event will be delivered in November 2005 to transfer the skills and knowledge to deliver the programmes to a group of in-house trainers, ready for full delivery rollout. This is an excellent example of how we create client independence, by enabling in-house delivery with minimum support required.

Outcomes

We await the results of both the train the trainer events, pilot across one community and full rollout and will continue to engage regularly with our customer to ensure full satisfaction.

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