BT Business Sales dials up a customer-focused coaching culture: Program combines new technology with tailored training

摘要

Purpose: Describes how BT Business Sales developed a customer-focused coaching culture through training provided to its call-center managers, first-line managers and call-handling advisors. Design/methodology/approach: Explains why the program was needed, the form it took and the results it has achieved. Findings: Reveals that call-center advisors are dealing with calls more consistently, the business's 40 first-line managers are coaching their employees more effectively and the nine call-center managers are no longer "pushing" to achieve numbers but are striving to achieve better results by changing people's behaviors. Practical implications: Reveals that recognition at managing-director level for top performers is driving people's pride and passion, while stronger relationships have developed between agents and their managers and between agents and their customers. Social implications: Describes an approach to training - combining new technology with "whole site" training, creating a customer-focused coaching culture - that could have wider application. Originality/value: Claims that the program is unusual in the holistic approach it took, achieving behavioral change through combining new technology with practical, skill-based behavioral training and with perceptional and actual performance measurements.