Company Background

Employees at the Request Management Centre for EDS in County Durham are responsible for ensuring that clients’ end user help desk business needs are executed in a timely and professional way. Calls range from a simple application software problem, to far more complex hardware queries.

Each team within the EDS Request Management Centre (RMC) works to specific performance criteria. Performance measures are expressed in a Service Level Agreement for each client, with the central performance criteria based on the average speed of answer.

In order that these performance standards are maintained and sustained, team leaders are required to optimise their team’s performance through sales coaching. They must also deal with management reporting and troubleshooting, and respond to client requests for change in a very dynamic environment.

The Challenge

EDS needed to improve and sustain their agents’ performance against target, by increasing their team leaders’ capabilities as effective coaches.

EDS were also committed to ensure that RMC Team Leaders have the necessary skills and processes to sustain a high level of performance in line with business goals through the application of effective and consistent coaching methods.

The Solution

An 8-week Procoach™ programme was implemented within EDS during 2002.This involved 10 Team Leaders and 10 RMC call handlers. Team Leaders completed a 5-day development programme, enabling them to fully understand “best practise” sales coaching techniques, and how to use these effectively to increase staff efficiency in the RMC. RMC agents were then exposed to 10 days of hands-on, focused personal coaching from a Prosell coach. By modifying the client’s existing sales coaching and development tools, sales coaching was delivered to agents to align behaviours to business objectives.

Why EDS chose Procoach™

EDS were determined to capitalise on their sales training investment and selected Procoach™ with a clear brief to link the programme to overall business objectives - specified as follows:

• Measurable increase in productivity
• Measurable improvement in customer satisfaction
• Quantifiable improvement in service delivery

Implementation

Prosell identified the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that would enable EDS to measure the consistency of Team Leader coaching throughout the RMC, and track performance change and business success. A minimum 5% improvement was agreed in relation to key KPIs linked to productivity and service delivery.

With commitment gained through Procoach™ awareness workshops, Team Leader and agent development took place simultaneously, giving Team Leaders the opportunity to observe live sales coaching sessions taking place on the floor. These sessions were driven and facilitated by Prosell coaches.

The programme was then implemented over a 3-month period, and culminated in successful accreditation of EDS Team Leaders. Procoach™ Professional accreditation meant that these managers were equipped and ”licensed“ to deliver Procoach™ programmes internally, effectively auditing team leader adherence to best practice coaching in the workplace.

Results

Performance improvements:

• An increase in the motivation of staff now being managed in a more inclusive and focused manner
• Increases in Customer Satisfaction Indices were achieved through calls with more structure and empathy
• Service calls in general were being processed more efficiently
• Team efficiency increased as individuals were encouraged to take ownership of the working ethic and direction
• Team Leader time management improved through more effective delegation

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