Company Background

AnswerCall Direct is a fast growing full-service call centre, providing an international capability to a wide range of clients and combining advanced call centre technologies, sound business practices and a focus on key quality standards. Founded in 1996, AnswerCall Direct has grown dramatically to a 600-seat call centre through a focus on personalised service and the ability to respond quickly to changing customer needs.

The Challenge

Whilst the culture within AnswerCall Direct recognises good performance, the environmental assessment suggested that some team leaders wanted greater clarity in terms of what the “role of the coach” should encompass within the business. Despite the high quality of individual staff, sales coaching delivery was affected by individual styles, with sales coaching performance showing varying degrees of success and impact. AnswerCall Direct’s ambitious growth plans led them to focus on how their people worked, stimulating a desire on their part to ensure that there was a very high degree of consistency in team leader coaching practice.

Solution 

AnswerCall Direct wanted to use Procoach™ to benchmark sales coaching standards and drive consistent coaching performance. Procoach™ interventions invariably refine performance benchmarks and targets, highlighting the key performance indicators and helping to make the information gathered more valuable for business management. For example, the use of structured call monitoring sheets sets a quality benchmark by which agents can be measured, supporting achievement of consistency in the call centre.

Why AnswerCall chose Procoach™

• Procoach™ delivers tangible results which are aligned with individual and business needs
• Procoach™ completely matched the culture of the business in terms of time invested in the learning process
• Procoach™ delivers a proven, pragmatic coaching model, tuned to call centre and service environments
• Coaching is delivered at the point of need - in a way that suits the individual
• Clients are able to track training ROI throughout the programme
• Implementation integrates with - and enhances - existing systems

Implementation

AnswerCall employed Procoach™ coaching in co-operation with a reputable a third party. The programme began in the first half of 2002 with analysis of the call centre staff skill sets.This was followed by Procoach™ orientation - to introduce both the coaching and accreditation process and the monitoring systems that would accompany the programme. Most importantly, AnswerCall Direct and Prosell jointly developed a definition of the business impact expected as a result of the Procoach™ programme.

Identifiable effects of the Procoach™ programme are:

• Improved time management of team leaders
• Increased motivation levels of all staff - leading to improved business results
• Increased agent performance and efficiency brought about through effective coaching
• Increased sense of pride and self worth in Team Leaders

Results

Procoach™ measured coaching behaviours displayed by Team Leaders at the start of the programme as a benchmark. Performance assessment was completed on two further occasions. Ultimately, the Procoach™ programme led to accreditation of team leaders, with an agreed performance target of 70% set for key coaching skills.

AnswerCall Direct Team Leader Coaching Interventions - Overall: :Analysis of team leader performance against 3 key coaching skill areas during 3-month period following ProCoachtm programme. Skills tested are agent engagement, coaching and performance checking. (Client target defined: 70% minimum performance)

As a result of the success of the Procoach™ model and programme, AnswerCall Direct moved to adopt Procoach™ at a number of levels.

AnswerCall have chosen Procoach™ Licence to coach to allow them to utilise Procoach™ material and metrics within the organisation and to ensure that sales coaching practice is delivering measurable results in a long term and sustainable way.

To find out more about Procoach™, please contact us on +61 (0) 2 9007 9833 for Australia and + 44 (0) 870 855 3000 for the United Kingdom or visit www.prosell.com