CONTEXT

At a customer conference with senior leadership in 2022, customer frustrations hit an all-time high with the organization's customer service department.  Long hold times, poor quality experiences, and incorrect information breached customer trust and patience. 

Early hypotheses argued the department had experienced significant churn of employees during COVID-19, so the majority of the department was very new and causing a lag in service standards. 

WATCHOUT 

In this case, it might have been easy to defer to a training solution as the only solution, but a needs assessment was conducted to determine that training could solve some of the gaps but not all. 

NEEDS ASSESSMENT

The needs assessment revealed that a rigorous onboarding program could get new hires to meet performance standards more effectively and efficiently. However, it would not resolve performance issues and cumbersome processes that had accumulated over time. 

ONBOARDING TRAINING PROGRAM

A rigorous, structured, and standard training program for newly hired team members would

1. soften the learning curve

2. compare and document expectations against results 

3. reduce the time it took to produce quality customer experiences from new hires. 

Additionally, better trained newbies would relieve tenured agents of the burden of supporting an inexperienced team. 

TRAINING PROGRAM FEATURES

• Clearly defined training map

• Cohesive training manual

• Frequent knowledge checks

• Classroom training sessions

• Structured on-the-job shadow training with qualifying agents

• Training logs

• Expectations vs. results documentation

TOOLS

• Microsoft Office

• Kahoot

• Power Automate

• Docebo (LMS)

• Recorded calls

• LinkedIn Learning

• Training Playbook

• Shadowing Log

REACTION

Through both formal and informal feedback gathered weekly, learners report overall satisfaction with the onboarding training program. The feedback that learners provide is used to make continuous improvements to the program.  

LEARNING

• 20+ formal knowledge checks

• Informal game activities

• Scored role plays  

BEHAVIOR

• A training log ensures the learner is receiving feedback from the coach and supervisor as they leave the classroom phase of training and start performing the functions of the job. 

• A bowler is used to measure performance increases over the first 90 days in the role. 

RESULTS

•  Average Handle Time decreased by 40% (from 10 minutes to 6 minutes). 

• Daily new-hire call volume is up by 75% compared to their counterparts who had been trained under the previous plan.

• Hold times have decreased significantly.