Global printer RR Donnelley believes so, and it's spending time and resources on customer service training and development to make certain its customers never have reason to take their business elsewhere. RR Donnelley is working with trainers around the world to drive customer service continuous improvement across its business units. The customer service training and development initiative is designed to:

Reduce miscommunication between customers and RR Donnelley customer service representatives(CSRs), among CSRs from shift to shift, and with their supervisors and unit managers.
Ensure on-time delivery of printed materials, reduce costs, and reduce waste by listening better to customers and communicating customer needs more accurately within RR Donnelley.
Deliver superior products on time, and trouble-free for customers. No business unit within RR Donnelley is more susceptible to miscommunication errors and resulting waste than the complex Financial Services business unit. Its client base consists of banks, insurers, lawyers, investment houses, and the like. The unit prints customers' annual reports, compliance filings, and other financial documents, as well as such publications as 401(K) prospectuses, capital markets transactions, and other highly detailed and regulated financial vehicles. Its service centers are open 24/7/365. RR Donnelley services this business segment through:

Highly personalized and round-the clock service
Single-source deal solutions
Deal management
Worldwide regulatory expertise
Insight drawn from experience and achievement
Industry-specific products and solutions

"This is a tremendously service-driven business," notes Tim Morrow, Director of Training and Development for the Financial Services business unit. "It is very competitive and it is always changing because of new regulations and new technologies, and it's imperative that our service to Financial Services clients be exemplary."

A FOCUS ON IMPROVEMENT

CSR turnover within the Financial Services business unit was traditionally low and therefore CSR depth of print industry knowledge was extensive. As such, formal customer service training for the unit's several hundred CSRs had not been required to maintain high service levels. However, continuous improvement requires organizations to consider new strategies. In addition, maintaining a competitive edge and integrating RR Donnelley's 2004 acquisition of printer Moore Wallace created fresh challenges. RR Donnelley's Jim Graham, vice president, Global Training and Development, and Shirley Lloyd, manager, Customer Service Training, knew the timing was right to initiate a business-wide customer service training and development strategy.

"Our goal was to use training to drive behaviors and therefore results, that is, drive our service deliverables beyond customer satisfaction and let customers know throughout all business units that we are here to take care of them . and for us, internally, that training here going forward would be a process and not an event," Lloyd said. Just prior, Lloyd had already begun a customer service improvement initiative that involved carefully selected leaders from each business unit; they were to explore customer service training needs across the business. RR Donnelley then reviewed three training firms to help it deliver the comprehensive all-units' initiative. One firm, AchieveGlobal, presented a proven workshop curriculum that encompassed service improvement training, from senior management planning to measurement metrics. RR Donnelley liked that these modules could be quickly customized to address RR Donnelley specific needs and objectives.

IMPROVING A STEP AT A TIME

Lloyd worked with AchieveGlobal to create a five-phase customer service continuous improvement process. Part of this process resulted in RR Donnelley staff being certified to present AchieveGlobal programs. By leveraging certified internal trainers, the company was able to deliver AchieveGlobal training at the local levels. Spearheading the program within Financial Services was Roseann Ferrick. The Financial Services business unit's training and development project manager is credited with supporting and driving the implementation for the AchieveGlobal programs in Financial Services. Given the business' high-level client base, it is important that CSRs servicing these clients via one-on-one telephone and e-mail communication be most professional, the service excellence training provided to CSRs has made significant improvement in the quality, duration, and outcome of the conversations CSRs have with their C-level clients.

"The Financial Services' pain was the greatest in the organization because of how closely it works with its customers and how critical it is for its CSRs to have the skills and knowledge to perform," said Graham of RR Donnelley Global Training and Development. Added Morrow, training director for the Financial Services business unit, "The goal was to bring these communications alive . and create fresh energy around it." Initial AchieveGlobal programs delivered were Reaching for Stellar Service® and Caring for Customers®. "Our first objective focused on teaching CSRs to understand and speak the same common language and support the same common initiatives around our services throughout all of RR Donnelley's regions," Ferrick said. "This training was tied to development opportunities for frontline CSR supervisors and for high-potential employees who needed more development to become supervisors," she added. By developing this common vocabulary around services so CSRs (in fact, all who work within the Financial Services business unit) use the same vocabulary and terminology terminology, better communication, fewer misunderstandings, and fewer resulting errors and relationship bruises would occur. "Response to the programs was immediate and dramatic," Ferrick recalled. Ten-year CSRs completed the one-day classes making comments, she said, such as: "I thought I knew it all about customer service and now I have a new way of talking to customers." "I need to do that (use a specific skill or technique) and I don't anymore and that's not right for my customers . there's more I can be doing for them."

INVESTING TO WIN

"If you're not coaching for success, what leads you to believe you will be successful?" Morrow said. "These programs focused us on what a high level of service looks like . and provided opportunity for more sophisticated development for our frontline leaders to build their skills around project management and leadership, and around their coaching and facilitation skills." Morrow and Ferrick found the AchieveGlobal programs to be comprehensive and complete. "AchieveGlobal lets us develop internal staff having the right aptitude for training, but not the experience-to deliver sophisticated training and development themselves," Morrow said. "This lets us build field bench depth and then more effectively extend these programs to our local and regional development needs." CSRs for the Financial Services business unit recently started a third AchieveGlobal program, Guiding Customer Conversations®. It is designed to help the CSRs not only sharpen their basic conversation skills, but to ask better questions of customers. The end result? "Our teams are doing better with our customers, and clearly we have anecdotal evidence to say this initiative is working for us," noted Graham. "I have to compliment AchieveGlobal on its responsiveness, listening, and on getting the job done," he added. "I'll use the term partnership, a term I do not use loosely; we use very few outside suppliers, and AchieveGlobal is one that adds value to us."

FIVE SURE-FIRE STEPS TO CUSTOMER SERVICE EXCELLENCE

Shirley Lloyd had been on a mission for some time. Her goal: To integrate a common customer service culture, language, and drive for excellence among customer service representatives across many of the different business units within global printer RR Donnelley. "I was a team of one . and my charter was to make sure the training was effective, was aligned with the corporate strategy, and would be a process and not a one-time event," said Lloyd, customer service training manager. She is located at the company's U.S. headquarters in Chicago. In response, she created a Customer Service Training Advisory Council, whose members represented each business unit. They would help identify key training and development needs specific to the customer service nuances of each unit. Resources to help deliver solutions for the identified development issues were evaluated. "AchieveGlobal delivered a training tool that would drive measurable behavioural changes and would generate positive results for our customers," Lloyd said. Lloyd and the Advisory Council created a service impact map; it identified the skills and knowledge that the training would need to develop so appropriate customer service objectives would be met. The program strategies were also aligned with the corporate business strategy to ensure that training supported the business' goals. The off-the-shelf AchieveGlobal programs were customized for RR Donnelley. From that customized curriculum was devised. Over the course of two years, RR Donnelley would introduce more than 1,500 CSRs across all business unit service centers to a five-stage program:

Learn
Practice
Apply
Grow
Recognition for high performers

Phase one a self-paced online Professional Skills Development program in Spanish, Cantonese, Mandarin, and English, focused on service expertise, fundamentals of exceptional customer service, optimizing e-mail at work, and serving the internal customer. As CSR tenure ranges from new hires to 30-year veterans, CSRs could "test out" of this phase if an online assessment demonstrated a 90 percent or higher awareness and experience in the subject matter.

Phase two a two-day classroom workshop, based on AchieveGlobal's Creating Stellar Customer Relations, focused on effective communication that would dazzle customers resulting from the overall service experience. "CSRs trained to communicate better between shifts with both external and internal customers, and who know how to ask better questions, deliver better service," Lloyd said. "They stop making promises they can not keep, they reduce cycle times by eliminating or reducing delivery delays or redundancies, and they make fewer mistakes and errors on customers' products."

Phase three at-work reinforced skills learned in the first two phases. The phase also focused on helping CSRs continue to improve their individual job performance. CSRs were required to sign a Performance Agreement attesting to their commitment to using their newly acquired skills. CSRs also partnered with management in a leadership/ mentoring role.

"A commitment might be, 'I am going to continue to work on my communications so I can make a difference in being more consistent in meeting ship dates,'" Lloyd said.

Phase four helps CSRs polish recently learned skills. The AchieveGlobal programs include: Reaching for Stellar Service, Caring for Customers®, Healing Customer Relationships, and Dazzling Your Customers. Other programs part of phase four are Guiding Customer Conversations, Serving a World of Customers, and Teaming Up for Seamless Service. This phase also allows some CSR top performers to choose to become AchieveGlobal certified and then present these modules at local levels. The final step toward stellar customer service, phase five, is a second-level RR Donnelley recognition program, known internally as the Wall of Fame. This phase allows top performers to gain service certification and to be able to gain recognition of being a Wall of Fame recipient. Lloyd, CSR supervisors, business unit managers, and a member of the customer service training advisory council serve as the "certification board" making the determination of this process. Upon completion of the practicum review, the following process takes place:

The "certification board" deliberates and makes a decision of certification within one day. The "certification board" implements an Action Plan to complete certification if not achieved during the review.

Lloyd, CSR supervisors, and business unit managers all are excited about the results the better-trained CSRs are now delivering. "We're meeting our objectives," Lloyd said, "which not only retain and grow the customer base, it lowers costs by avoiding mistakes that result in reprinting of customer materials because of our errors. We are exceeding our corporate goals but also exceeding our compliance requirements, and most important, we're meeting our revenue targets."