Tracey makes perfect call to collect NW trainer of the year award

Refusing to follow the script has seen Tracy Mercer, a Senior Training Consultant at Carole Nash Insurance Consultants, winning North West Trainer of the Year trophy at the North West Call and Contact Centre Awards 2006. Tracy’s “Perfect Call” training solution took the title at the annual awards’ gala dinner at Manchester Town Hall, hosted by organisers CallNorthWest, a champion of the region’s call centre industry backed by the North West Development Agency.

Perfect Call reflected Carole Nash’s existing policy not to use call scripts due to their unpopularity with customers and staff. Prior to the introduction of the new strategy the company only trained staff to incorporate important points within their conversation. Perfect Call extended that structure-but-not-scripted philosophy to promote three additional areas identified by research as being most important in encouraging clients to recommend a company - accessibility, consistency of service and employee knowledge and expertise. The key aim of the initiative was to increase customer recommendations by enhancing service.

To achieve her objectives, Tracy devised an innovative implementation programme which included involving line managers, advisors, call listening and customer satisfaction analysis in its design and delivery. She also reviewed the company’s call evaluation software to ensure it was suited to the structured-but-non-scripted Perfect Call approach and created one and two day courses which were delivered to over 70 managers and advisors over a three month period. These were followed up with monthly consistency workshops whilst Tracy also equipped junior trainers with enhanced skills through initiatives such as Train The Trainer courses, on-job observation and objectives linked to individual appraisals and Personal Development Programmes.

The judges praised Tracy’s solution saying that: “Carole Nash has made a big impact on Customer Service Representatives and this is a good example of what can be achieved by a highly motivated Trainer.” They added that the company’s trading figures “show the extent to which the training produced results in the workplace.”