ICMI's Customer Management Insight - December 2007 - (Page 12) contact center spotlight Competitive wages and varied training styles translate into low agent turnover and loyal employees at TransCore. TransCore BY GREG LEVIN Lots of change has taken place in recent years at TransCore’s Freight Business Service Customer Support center in Beaverton, Ore.: increasingly complex transactions; evolving customer access channels; new and improved products and processes. What hasn’t changed too much, however, are the faces of the folks working there. The center boasts an impressive average agent tenure of more than five years, and whenever turnover does occur, it usually involves an agent moving to a higher position in the contact center or to another division within the company. “We attribute our low turnover and strong employee commitment to a number of things,” explains Laura Mendoza, customer support manager for TransCore. “We start by offering competitive wages that attract talented individuals, and we hire candidates that demonstrate a desire to learn and grow with the company.” And TransCore more than helps them fulfill that desire. Each rookie agent completes a comprehensive training program that lasts up to 120 hours and features an effective mix of “seeing, listening and doing,” says Mendoza. This is followed by ample continuous training and career development — including opportunities to work with and learn about other departments — throughout each agent’s tenure. “Once hired and trained, it becomes our primary goal to promote qualified individuals within the department and throughout the company,” says Mendoza. Add to TransCore’s eclectic training and development strategy a healthy focus on employee camaraderie and recognition, as well as a proactive process for capturing customer feedback and gauging satisfaction levels, and it’s easy to see why TransCore’s agents — and customers — tend to stick around for a long time. EDUCATING AND DEVELOPING ENGAGED AGENTS Mendoza estimates that new-hires spend about 30 percent of their training time in a traditional classroom setting and 20 percent of their time engaged in online training, leaving the remaining 50 percent of training AT A GLANCE time open for tactile and very valuLOCATION: Beaverton, Ore. able side-by-side instruction. To keep trainees on track, TransCore HOURS OF OPERATION: 4 a.m. - 6 p.m., Mon.- Fri.; 5 a.m. - 12 p.m., Sat. (PST) provides them with a daily training FTEs: 45 schedule and a training checklist SERVICES PROVIDED: Customer support for the company’s various transportation that is reviewed with their supervilogistics products sor once a week. CHANNELS HANDLED: Phone, email, fax and chat The eclectic and balanced blend NUMBER OF CONTACTS HANDLED: Roughly 17,000 customer contacts per month of training styles, along with the NOTABLE: Very high agent retention rate — driven by eclectic and holistic training regular feedback trainees receive, is instrumental in keeping newand career development programs; dynamic customer satisfaction measurement process hires engaged, thus enabling them to “go solo” with confidence once M icmi’s insight www.icmi.com | DECEMBER 2007 12 http://www.icmi.com
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