Hybrid eLearning Program Delivers Greater Customer Service and Employee Retention Rates

This telecommunications and digital services company has been active in Brazil for almost two decades. It serves almost 50 million customers with more than 90,000 employees and partners. The telecommunications landscape is rapidly evolving, and customers have many choices for service providers; therefore, the company distinguishes itself in the market by developing digital innovations to bring people together. 

Challenge 

The company identified a need to increase the quality of customer service and reduce employee turnover rates. 

The call center department of this company specifically identified a need to meet the following objectives: 

• Increase the sense of belonging of the employees (who are mostly in their first job).
• Improve service performance with a focus on humanized service.
• Reduce employee turnover rates.

 With the advance of technology and self-service channels, such as interactive voice response (IVR), apps, and chatbots, customers can solve many issues on their own, even making changes to their contracted services. This makes the process of care through human contact increasingly important and challenging from a quality-of-care standpoint.

 Working in collaboration with the learning management team, GP Strategies proposed a continuous training program for employees focusing on the development of behavioral skills that could result in a stronger sense of belonging for employees and better customer service performance. The program’s audience consisted of call center supervisors and operators throughout Brazil. Some of these employees work remotely, so the company needed a training program that could reach the audience through digital channels.

Solution 

As a result of the company’s need, GP developed a hybrid eLearning program that included synchronous virtual and asynchronous learning moments. The program trained 1,283 employees in a call center area, including 149 supervisors and 1,134 operators over six-months. The content of the training consisted of continuing behavioral education focused on increasing employees’ sense of belonging in the company and improving customer service.

GP Strategies began with an empathy map with a profile of the call center’s employees. Consultative immersions were carried out in the client’s environment to understand daily work needs. For 30 days, GP interviewed employees to map their needs to the performance needs of the organization.

Based on the empathy surveys and the needs of the business area, GP Strategies presented the hybrid continuing education program that would improve and promote:

• Quality of service
• Collaborative culture
• Self-directed learning
• Satisfaction with work
• Talent retention

Results 

During the development of this learning program, the company and GP Strategies identified several key performance indicators (KPIs). One of the main KPIs was the participation rate. Through the efforts detailed above, the program exceeded its initial goal by 43%, with 1,283 operators and supervisors opting in (29% of eligible employees).

Given that the program was designed to promote a sense of belonging, leadership, and humanized service, the company and GP identified employee turnover rate as another KPI. Tracking during the program period indicated that untrained employees experienced a much higher turnover rate (15.8%) than that of their trained counterparts, whose turnover rate was just 3%. This positive variation confirmed the program’s effectiveness as a valuable tool for employee development and retention.

To evaluate participants’ satisfaction with the training, a reaction survey was conducted where participants rated the training on a scale from 0 to 5. For other call center training programs targeting the same audience during the same period, the average rating was 4.68; the average rating for the program was 4.73.

To determine the recommendation score, participants were asked to rate the program on a scale of 0 to 10. The average score for other courses in the period was 9.11, whereas the average score for this program was 9.23.

In addition, the team measured several more technical KPIs related specifically to the call center’s performance such as customer satisfaction surveys, quality evaluations, the number of transfers, and time of service, among others. 

As a group, the program’s participants showed improvements in all KPIs, demonstrating the program’s effectiveness in improving call center performance.