Responding rapidly to deliver excellence at BT Retail

Transcription

1 Responding rapidly to deliver customer excellence at BT Retail This case study outlines why BT Retail won the 2011 e-learning Award for best use of rapid e-learning. Not only did their approach to short sharp video content ensure that business critical learning is delivered and developed at breakneck speed, they are also ensuring that BT Retail are able to respond rapidly to their customer s needs as well. BT Retail has over 13 million consumers and 1 million businesss customers. The business is delivering compelling new services to its customers to help them create, collaborate and communicate better than ever before, wherever they are. With over 25,000 employees working across seven main business units, BT Retail aspires to be the best service provider in this converging industry by 'bringing it all together' for their customers. BT Retail strives to deliver great service to every customer business or consumer, and aims to impress with responsive help and support whenever they call, resolving issues in one contact so that customers can just get on with life and business. To achieve this, from a learning perspective, it needs to provide its people with the ability to respond rapidly to meet customer needs. When the priority is to provide a great customer experience, if anything breaks (a process, a system or a relationship) it is critical to get back on track fast!! Within the UK and Offshore Contact Centre operations that support both Customer Services and BT Business, the organisation was facing a major problem with these key breakages. The fourteen thousand advisors connecting with customers have to be kept up-to-date and informed about how to rectify the breakages, but removing staff offline for invested training time would cost tens of thousands of pounds, even for very short periods. Page 1 of 5

2 When time is of the essence Just making the business case for the classroom delivery to address the problem of such a short training needs would also require time that just wasn t available. Building and delivering a classroom programme would also take too long as breakages need to be dealt with quickly. Internal written communications weren't being read and weren t making the impact needed. The organisation has a group- wide learning management system supporting classroom, e-learning and multimedia. E-learning programmes have their use for larger and more detailed learning initiatives, but the approach just doesn t lend itself to addressing those urgent breakages that have to be fixed NOW. The lines of business needed a quick and laser pointed way to address the issue and deliver the quality of service required. Tom Pape (Head of Learning Innovation at BT Group) and Martyn Stevenson-Read (Senior Creative Digital Media Manager at BT Group) decided to design and build short sharp video learning (SSV s) to quickly engage advisors on how to follow the correct processess and procedures across the contact centree operations. This approach allowed the e-learning & Multimedia team to tackle the problem in an agile and effective way. Classroom training was too expensive and slower to roll out. SSV s are simple quick and make a real impact, plus they are engaging and different! Short Sharp Video the agile solution To be effective the videos covering : What is the problem? Why do we need to do it? Here s how you do it. Simple Recap. needed to be short (3 5 minutes) and sharp simply For speed, quality and impact Camtasia was identified to build the videos, supported by stock footage created in Adobe Master Collection suite by training designers. The video style is informal, written in everyday language with warm and non-corporate voice overs, sourced from in-house designers who excel at various voice over styles. Page 2 of 5

3 Staff can access the content as referencing material when required via a central, easy to access one stop shop for all video learning. The Learning Channel is hosted on a specifically built central SharePoint location that also allows collaboration and ratings (similar to the Dare2Share platform in use in other parts of the business) ). Staff are informed of the latest SSV via numerous communications channels including direct , internal communication platforms such as the BT TV network. They also raise awarenesss via manager coaching and via the advisors themselves who use the assets as a reference tool. It is important to make staff access as intuitive and user friendly as possible so there are also links back to the organisation s knowledge management system. Working in partnership The videos were created in close partnership with business Subject Matter Experts (SME s) who worked with agreed set templates and storyboards. A clear two-way service level agreement and 5 Key Design sign off process with operational SME s was agreed and Principles the team works closely with SME and clients to help them build a simple storyboard prior to agreeing final sign off. Agree the content up front with the client. Write a script that puts Tom Pape came from a media background in TV and across the message Radio broadcasting beforee joining BT, including TV and in a warm Radio Broadcasting, and wanted to create a professional conversational way. design organisation that could work in partnership with the Limit the video to 3 minutes through a 450 business to support BT s e-learning needs. The design word limited script team had variable skills so Tom used his media and Use music, animation, business improvement background to develop an on- called Raise The Bar (RTB) and recycle to reduce and screenshots going up skilling programme that covers both software and design principles. RTB authoring time. encouraged team collaboration across the virtual design Choose a brand and make it consistent. team including virtual critiquing, buddying and un/official coaching based on 5 key learning and design principles. RTB s and coaching also support development of voice over skills, critical in the space of multimedia production. Page 3 of 5

4 As part of RTB, hardware and software were radically overhauled so that a great deal of the content could be created in-house using Adobe, specifically After Effects and Camtasia. They also build collateral for re-edit and re-use in-house content. Challenges It was important to get top-dowas the SSV s were launched proactively to support business, not as a result of a buy-in as part of the initial business engagement direct business requested. The success would depend on a culture change that would require buy-in from management through to advisors. It was important to build trust and show that a new approach would work! Trust and buy-in was gained by engaging initial stakeholderss and delivering consistently so that the reputation of the service drove new requirements in a viral way. Productivity was, and continues to be a challenge. Also, adherence to a process to ensure that the client and the media team stick to an agreed level of service is important, as well as reducing the amount of sophisticated animation design without loss of engaging quality, and recycling content to improve design times. Results Staff love the simple focussed approach and one advisor commented that it Will definitely help in achieving the targets set forth by our MD. Another manager said I think this is the best presentation I have seen, straight forward to the point, gave clear and concise direction There are now over 200 SSVs now in circulation across BT Retail since the launch in early 2011 and the videos have had over 100,000 hits so far. Not only has the programme won the hearts and minds of staff but is has also: Helped drive One Contact Resolution in Customer Service by 11% equating to 1.6m saving. Created a direct learning channel for referencing that advisors and managers trust. Reduced the need of classroom training and thus millions pounds of cost. No investment of learning time required - staff engage online as and when needed. Page 4 of 5

5 Rolled out Adobe Master Collection and Camtasia skillset across 17 Training Designers. The SSV programme thoroughly deserves the industry award for best use of rapid e- learning not only are the programmes delivered and developed at breakneck speed in response to business needs, they are also ensuring that BT Retail are able to respond rapidly to their customer s needs as well. 8 Tips for responding rapidly to changing business needs: 1. Be proactive - be in a position to spot what needs to be fixed and do it. 2. Use the most appropriate learning tool for the job (in this case video). 3. Keep videos short and sharp focusing only on what the individual needs to do their job better. 4. Ensure that the content can be found! communicate effectively and disseminate via all relevant channels. 5. Work effectively in partnership with subject matter experts by creating easy to use templates and sign off processes. 6. Ensure that content sits well with the audience through appropriate use of media, voice overs and style. 7. Be proactive in building the skills of the training design team. 8. Help the training design team learn from each other s experience. Page 5 of 5