Call Center Leadership Training Cuts Supervisor Training Time by 46%
One of Brazil’s largest telecommunications providers needed a consistent way to prepare newly promoted call center supervisors to lead people in a high-pressure operation. The company partnered with GP Strategies® to build a modular call center leadership training program, structured as a progressive development ecosystem that fits into a supervisor’s working day.
In a comparative pilot, the first cohort reached operational readiness in 46% less training time, alongside a 26% drop in average handle time and 16% fewer repeat calls. And in August 2026, the program was recognized with a Silver Brandon Hall Group HCM Excellence Award for Best Development Program for Frontline Leaders.
Challenge: Top Performers Promoted but Unprepared to Lead
The service department is an important source of revenue for most dealerships, including warranty reimbursement from the manufacturer. When a dealership submits a claim incorrectly, staff have to correct and resubmit it, delaying payment and creating additional administrative work for both the dealership and OEM.
For this OEM, submitting a claim correctly required Warranty Administrators to navigate detailed rules that varied by warranty, vehicle, repair, and part. They gathered documentation from across the service lane, determined which warranty applied, identified the correct parts and labor codes, and submitted the claim. Those requirements also changed over time, with larger updates arriving about every six months and smaller bulletins released in between.
In 2022, the OEM’s learning organization and GP Strategies rebuilt the Warranty Resource Center to bring warranty documents into one place. Even then, users had to search each manual separately and often did not know which of the four manuals contained the answer they were looking for. The OEM’s 2023 Learner Survey reaffirmed that Warranty Department staff needed a better way to find the information they needed while working.
Key Constraints
Limited time to learn: Supervisors had short windows for development between high call volumes and competing priorities.
Technical backgrounds: Many supervisors earned their roles thanks to technical performance, but had no structured preparation for leading people.
Application to daily routines: Learning had to show up in everyday coaching and performance management on the floor.
A mixed audience: The solution had to serve both current supervisors and high-performing individual contributors preparing for their first leadership role.
Solution: A Leadership Ecosystem Built for Successful Call Center Management
Instead of a single course, GP Strategies designed a progressive ecosystem that builds leadership capability over time, following the same principle behind its leadership development programs. Supervisors learn through short digital units, practice with scenarios drawn from real call center dilemmas, and complete mastery checks that confirm what they can apply. Job aids, infographics, captioned podcasts, and other media stay available on demand, so supervisors can return to them when a challenging situation comes up again. The journey is organized into five learning pillars, starting with onboarding and expanding into people leadership, execution, and on-the-job problem-solving.
Phase 1 | Onboarding for New Supervisors
The journey starts with onboarding for newly appointed supervisors and employees stepping into frontline leadership. It clarifies the supervisor’s mission, decision scope, and core routines, including communication cadence, clear delegation, and concise messaging. Short interactive units are built around common early-role dilemmas, and job aids stay available for quick reference once supervisors are back on the floor.
Phase 2 | Leading and Developing People
The program’s Lead and Develop pillars build the people side of the role. Supervisors practice assertive communication, active listening, and behavior-based feedback, and learn to translate organizational values into daily behaviors. Guided scenarios and reinforcement games develop emotional intelligence, fair decision-making, bias mitigation, and recognition routines. The Develop pillar also covers responsible, human-centered use of AI in leadership, with clear boundaries where human judgment remains essential.
Phase 3 | Execution and Operational Problem-Solving
The Innovate, Execute, and Resolve pillars connect leadership behavior to operational results. Supervisors apply design thinking, agile routines, and plan-do-check-act cycles to service problems, and use customer journey thinking and customer success metrics to guide improvements. The Resolve pillar further teaches supervisors to spot micro-conflicts early and prioritize by risk and customer impact. Clear decision boundaries are also incorporated to empower teams to act with more autonomy and less dependence on their supervisor.
“Very important training, with day-to-day situations that make sense to revisit and reflect on.”
–Program participant
Impact: Faster Readiness, Fewer Repeat Calls
A structured comparative pilot gave the telecom provider early evidence that the new frontline leadership development program improved both leader readiness and operational execution. Over two months, the pilot cohort was compared with a traditional, “control” cohort working under equivalent conditions. The pilot cohort showed:
less training time to reach operational readiness
lower average handle time than the traditional cohort
fewer repeat calls within 24 hours
Beyond the pilot results, the program has demonstrated sustained educational impact over time. Active since 2024 and continuously updated throughout 2025 and 2026, it has maintained consistent engagement among hundreds of leaders. Individual pillars have reached between 369 and 776 learners each, with completion as high as 76% and average participant ratings of 4.8 to 4.9 out of 5.
The company keeps updating modules and reinforcement assets and is working on adding an “Improve” pillar focused on self-management and collaboration. The telecom provider also plans to add transfer indicators that link core leadership routines to operational and customer outcomes, strengthening how the program’s impact is measured over time.
The OEM kept Warren T in place after the pilot. It remains embedded in the Warranty Resource Center and available to dealership employees. The OEM’s learning organization, the OEM’s Warranty Team, and GP’s Account Team meet every other week to review new bulletins and unanswered questions, identify content to add, and send updates to Mobile Coach.
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