In a business largely differentiated by customer service excellence, investment that creates award-winning call centre performance is money well spent.

Such is the position now held by one division for Bright House Networks, a national TV, home phone and high-speed Internet company and part of the Advance Newhouse Corporation, Syracuse, NY. The award-winning operation is based out of Tampa, FL, and is responsible for the performance of seven call centers that service more than 1 million customers in seven counties. Their performance according to quality measurement firm J.D. Power and Associates is the highest in the southeast U.S.

It wasn't always so. "We started out with low customer satisfaction scores," notes Pete Ward, Director of Learning and Development for the Tampa operation. He and senior director Cindy O'Neil are largely responsible for implementing training and development programs that have helped create award-winning customer service for their company.

The Learning and Development Department's resolution was two-pronged:

Engage international business improvement company AchieveGlobal to develop stellar customer service skills among Bright House's call centers Develop a quality assurance program to measure adherence to the customer service skills training.

"Since then our customer service has shot up dramatically and over the years we have had the highest customer service index ratings in the industry in the southeast U.S.,"

Ward says. "We take a lot of customer service calls and as a result of the AchieveGlobal training we've decreased call handling time, decreased the number of repeat customer calls, decreased escalation to supervisor incidents and increased compliments."

O'Neil says company management credits the Learning and Development Department for making such change happen. "We're given credit for improving customer service and sales numbers, but it's our associates' actions that changed after the training that contribute to that."

Focus on pain points

While not always the case, Bright House management today is entirely behind the Learning and Development teams' training and development initiatives. The culture change had to wait for the most pressing need - correcting front line employee low CSI performance and reducing repeat service calls. Over time that initial focus on dealing with the most critical pain points in the company did get management's attention and resulting support for other, organization-wide development initiatives.

Low front level, customer-facing performance meant low morale and low job satisfaction - losses the Learning and Development team was determined to slow. Using AchieveGlobal programs and internal AchieveGlobal-certified Bright House trainers, all customer service agents, their supervisors and their managers developed and learned to use the right kind of skills to improve performance and increase job satisfaction.

Bright House required all call center managers to participate in a series of AchieveGlobal leadership development training programs. Programs included Coaching Others for Top Performance, Giving and Receiving Constructive Feedback, Developing Others, and Giving Recognition. As a result of participating in these leadership training programs managers learned to apply these new skills and in so doing found new levels of engagement and personal satisfaction in their jobs.

"We were successful enough that the division president created division-wide support for these programs, and we saw enough trending in value that other areas of the company noted and ultimately embraced what we were delivering at the executive level," Ward recalls.

Creates Hi-Def Outcomes

Initially call center personnel participated in the first AchieveGlobal development classes. Courses were -- and remain -- instructor led through a centralized training initiative called Bright House University. Program mechanics and measurement are administered by the company's learning management system, which employees call MyCampus. As coursework is completed, employees receive certificates.

All new employees or any interested employee may enrol in a series called Steps to Success, which is comprised of seven different AchieveGlobal classes. Other courses include Creating Stellar Customer Relations, and for more advanced call center personnel, three classes built around AchieveGlobal's Meeting the Challenges of Stellar Service.

Other programs revolve around helping managers improve the employee review process. These programs included Planning for the Performance Discussion, Clarifying Performance Expectations and Conducting Performance Reviews.

"We now, organizationally, have a common development language that everyone understands. These buzz words, like stellar customer service, even show up in our general manager's press releases. Executive support and buy-in was hard fought, but we succeeded with guidance from AchieveGlobal account executive Christine Fisher," O'Neil notes. "And just this last year we succeeded in bringing in AchieveGlobal's Bridging Strategy to Outcomes course and delivering it to the general managers in each of Bright House's regions."

Ward said collaborating with AchieveGlobal to address Bright House Network's initial front line pain points - and then further develop skills through the organization - has resulted in:

Verifiable improved CSI scores
Verifiable improved management capabilities
Greater customer confidence in a solid communications vendor

"Our metrics are tied to third-party prestigious awards, like the J.D. Power rankings. While the AchieveGlobal courses will neither increase nor decrease the time spent with the customer, investment in the courses has meant a measurable increase in the quality of the interaction for the same amount of time."