Overview

Three is one of the UK’s leading mobile networks, covering 97% of the country’s population, carrying almost half (45%) of its mobile data and supporting the mobile lives of 8.8 million individual customers. Three employs more than 4,400 people in the UK and is rated ‘The UK’s most reliable network’ by YouGov, the ‘Best mobile network’ by TrustedReview’.

With customer experience quality being a high priority for Three, they asked Davies Learning Experiences to initiate a customer service training programme for 1,100 frontline staff across its Indian contact centre operations. Davies went one better, embedding service training and skills development at the heart of the contact centres’ culture.

The Approach

For any training initiative to be successful there needs to be alignment and “buy-in” from the leadership group, this was the case with Three. The programme was championed by team leaders, embraced by advisors and supported by Three’s leadership team.

Initially, Davies Learning Experiences was asked to design and deliver a short training course that would focus on the essential elements of excellent customer experience delivery. However, during our needs analysis phase, we determined that programme success would be dependant on a culture and mindset shift. This shift would take Three from a culture of “command and control” to one of empowerment and continuous
improvement.

The Delivery

The complexity of delivering consistent training for over 1,100 advisors in an offshore, outsourced environment shouldn’t be underestimated. Three, like many companies, struggled to find time for intensive training while continuing to deliver day to day operations. Davies Learning Experiences was mindful that small movements in staff availability due to training (as much as any other cause) can have a dramatic impact on service performance and, indeed, commercial results. The solution presented by Davies prevented this disruption by streamlining training delivery and incorporating it into the regular weekly meetings each team leader had with their advisors teams.

To upskill the Team Leaders, Davies Learning Experiences delivered the content in four-point approach:

By strengthening learning through positive reinforcement, which highlights and celebrates examples of best practices and exceptional service within the operation, this culture shift built the blueprint for advisor behaviours going forward. From here, the delivery of the technical and soft skills training to the advisors was embedded within the day to day operations, ensuring that learning was continuous even during peak call volume periods.

The Feedback

Feedback from Three, Director of Customer Contact:

• “By empowering our people to train and coach, Davies has left a lasting legacy that we can build upon”.

• “The training has helped us achieve many of our customer experience ambitions, but most importantly, it has established a new culture of enthusiastic service ambition across our contact centres that will drive a better experience for our customers as well as business value for Three”

The Results

Since the training roll-out, Three has been able to maintain the seven-point lift in first contact resolution and the 11-point increase in customer satisfaction with advisor performance. Net Promoter Scores, which are indicative of customer advocacy, have also maintained the 8 points increase from the initial measurement. At Davies Learning Experiences, we strive to ensure our training can sustain the increase in measurable business results long after the formal learning has been completed.

We are proud to have played a part in transforming Three’s learning culture that has led to multiple industry awards, but most importantly, its employee engagement scores have surged ahead of industry benchmarks and the company has entered the ‘Best Place to Work’ top 10.