CaseStudy /

Telstra has been undergoing a significant transformation from a technology-focused company with pride in its network and engineering capabilities, to a customer-focused company with pride in the quality, value and reach of its customer experiences.

Telstra gem coaching mastery - Inspiring direction

01/ The SituationTheir mantra is ‘to change the way customers talk about Telstra.’ To support the development of its people in its Customer Contact Centres (CCC) Telstra deployed a web-based system called GEM. This system is designed to track the quantity and content of coaching conversations between leaders and their people. This was a significant investment in capital for Telstra and had the right intention around leaders engaging with their people. Its major risk was not having leaders with the skills and mindsets needed to commit to deliver great coaching to front line customer-facing consultants.

“Applying our 5Es project methodology; Evaluate, Excite, Engage, Embed and Evaluate. 5Es are bookends to the training components with evaluation and alignment at one end and embedding and evaluation at the other. This meant that we deployed a 24 week project with rogenSi deeply embedded in the business and completely committed to building new habits and delivering outstanding results.”

The big challenges in any contact centre are providing a first rate customer experience, resolving issues on the first call and handling calls efficiently. To achieve this, the centre needs reliable, engaged people who have the right skills and mindset to deliver consistent high-quality customer service.

02/ The ChallengeOur mission was to work with the Telstra 717 Bourke Street Centre Managers to create master coaches whose mastery would be defined by their commitment to coaching their team leaders, role modeling the right tools and techniques, and tailoring their coaching style to suit individual team leaders.

As an outcome, rogenSi and our Telstra stakeholders wanted to be able to see team leaders who had an improved sense of direction and greater energy to perform the key aspects of their role. In rational terms we were tasked with lifting the usage of the GEM System and the number of coaching session each month at 717.

There was also a need to create ‘role models’ in the Centre Manager group, as team leaders look to their centre manager when developing their leadership identities and organizing their time and choosing their priorities.

03/ The SolutionThe rogenSi solution employed three principal components:

• Attacking the challenges using our Exceptional Performance formula and ensuring that we worked as hard on process and skills as we did on belief and identity as key mindset components

• Using our proven coaching skills programme that incorporates well known coaching tools and models like GROW and the Feedback Model as well as heritage rogenSi components in areas of communication skills, individual coaching strategy and diagnosis.

• Applying our 5Es project methodology; Evaluate, Excite, Engage, Embed and Evaluate. 5Es are bookends to the training components with evaluation and alignment at one end and embedding and evaluation at the other. This meant that we deployed a 24 week project with rogenSi deeply embedded in the business and completely committed to building new habits and delivering outstanding results.

04/ Participant feedback Each centre manger was asked to be involved in the design of the programme by being interviewed by rogenSi, and this certainly contributed to a tightening of the programme design as well as increasing ownership of the process and the outcomes by these key stakeholders.

Each leader completed a 360° survey that asked them to evaluate their capability in the area of coaching. They were rated against a range of criteria in the areas of Knowledge, Skill, Process and Mindset.

Feedback from the leaders involved was encouraging in terms of how rogenSi stretched each person well outside their comfort zone. Despite having lots of experience in the area of coaching, each leader valued being ‘put back under the microscope’ and being given a chance to re-evaluate their own capability.

The most highly rated component of the project was the in-field embedding coaching sessions. Each centre manager was given 8 sessions with a rogenSI consultant. Our consultant’s role was to observe the manager coaching a team leader. Our consultant would then facilitate a detailed feedback session. We witnessed the manager’s ability to take the theory from the training programme and apply it in real-life situations. I It certainly inspired a belief in the process and the power of coaching as a driver of capability.

“The most highly rated component of the project was the in-field embedding coaching sessions. Each centre manager was given 8 sessions with a rogenSi consultant. Our consultant’s role was to observe the manager coaching a team leader.”

“Cristal Fernandez said “she loved the one-on-one coaching’ and added ‘embedding is the key’. Her colleague Alisha Armstrong commented that “improving the quality of her observation has sharpened her diagnosis and gets her greater buy-in from the people she coaches.”

The following verbatim comments from Telstra’s group of leaders validates the approach taken by rogenSi:

Cristal Fernandez said “she loved the one-on-one coaching’ and added ‘embedding is the key’. Her colleague Alisha Armstrong commented that “improving the quality of her observation has sharpened her diagnosis and gets her greater buy-in from the people she coaches.

The GM of 717 Shane Abeyratne said “that the recurring coaching sessions added new insights at every occurrence”. This was ‘extremely powerful”. According to Wayne D’Rozario “Having a structure and better questioning and listening skills helps me identify more triggers and greater insights”

When asked, Centre Manager Mary Quinn had no hesitation in saying “the key part of our success was the observation and feedback from our rogenSi coaches” , in terms of re-setting the bar Centre Manager Kevin Watts commented “ I thought I was good before, but I now I know I’m getting better especially in the area of diagnosing and coaching mindset”

04/ Learning OutcomesOur approach to complementing classroom style training with in-field coaching gave us a very clear picture of what leaders at 717 Bourke Street were able to do differently as a result of their engagement with rogenSi. The following areas were observed since our first contact with leaders at 717:

• Increased visibility of coaching tools to support models like GROW• Greater education of team leaders and consultants in the purpose

of the coaching session, their role in the session and the expected outcomes

• A significant shift in ownership of the session from the centre manager to the coachee as evidenced by note taking, capturing of outcomes and recording of commitments by the coachee

• Time being allocated to capture coaching session outcomes in the GEM system

• Demonstrated confidence in the use of tools and techniques like GROW and the Feedback model

• Improved diagnostic capability of the coaches helping them initiate more rapid changes in the performance of their people

05/ Behavioural ChangeWe asked the leaders to document some of the ways that their new skills and mindsets are being used in dealing with the challenges and opportunities in the centre.

Cristal Fernandez, worked with Tara her Revenue Lead on how to shift First Call Resolution (FCR). Cristal used the GROW model as the framework for this initiative and invested heavily in gathering quality information before making decisions with Tara about what action should be taken. Together their actions focused on deployment of the “Call us Once” plan through collaborating with and educating team members. They also used what they call ‘ride on coaching’ sessions to support implementation. Cristal and Tara’s outcome was a 4% positive move in FCR between August and November.

In another area David Murphy had a challenge with the high amount of administration time after calls had concluded. This meant that time spent with customers was under pressure. David coached his team leaders to change the focus from the negative statements like “don’t spend so much time wrapping and doing admin” to a positive mindset message around “let’s get more time to give to our customers and then let’s give them great service”. David used tools from the coaching programme to help his team leaders support this initiative in a structured and consistent way. David and his teams’ outcomes were to lift their customer time percentage from 54% to 73% in just two months whilst at the same time lowering their average call handling time.

Meanwhile Wayne D’Rozario, had the challenge of up-skilling Danny, a new leader in the business who had limited knowledge of being a coach. By being quite directive Wayne was able to help Danny prioritise his activities and create an operating rhythm. Wayne invested time with Danny teaching him how to diagnose a problem using the coaching tools from rogenSi. Wayne deployed a very structured coaching approach with lots of side-by-side coaching activities and plenty of constructive and encouraging feedback.

As GM of the 717 CCC, Shane has the greatest influence over the capability of his leaders and their ability to lift the capability of their teams. So when a big challenge like lifting First Call Resolution (FCR) came along, it had to be led from the top. Shane decided that a mixture of approaches was required to understand the challenge and lift performance:

• First he engaged his leaders to establish some basics around FCR,

• Next he asked them to lift their inspection routines and • Then he wanted to shift the mindset of the centre towards a living

and breathing commitment to customer service through making sure customers only need to call once

In each case the leaders at 717 used the tools, concepts and skills that were developed by rogenSi to help design and execute strategies to lift performance at 717.

“The second area under the microscope was First Call Resolution (FCR), which is a key measure in the customer service contact centre environment. Since we started working with the team at 717 in August 2011, their FCR score has moved from the 71.8 to being consistently in the high 70s, with April being at 79.1.”

06/ Impact on thebottom line Since we first engaged with the 717 CCC in August through to the final evaluation stages at the end of Q3 2012 the following key indicators have shifted:

Our key objective was to help team leaders and centre managers to drive a coaching culture at 717. In August last year usage of the GEM Coaching System was at 1059 session a month.

In the first four months since engaging with rogenSi the average number of coaching sessions has lifted to 1200 per month, an increase of 13%. The real test was how sustainable the change was especially once our intense period of coaching and support ended, so a GEM usage result for February of 1222 was welcome news.

After months of being behind target the 717 contact centre has beaten their FCR target for 7 out of 8 months since we first engaged with them last August.

To summarise, a lift in the amount of coaching at 717, coupled with improved coaching effectiveness has helped this Telstra contact centre drive up First Call Resolution and maintain it – that’s great news for Telstra customers and a results to be proud of for the 717 leadership team

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