From November 2007

By Rebecca Logan

At the Vermont Teddy Bear Co., contact center agents who choke on the cost of critters or struggle with the sizing of silk pajamas will soon be watching some videos. Anthony d’Andrea, who coordinates agent training at the Shelburne, Vt.-based bear manufacturer, is armed with a library of “eLearning clips” designed to target specific problems – and he can make new clips within a matter of minutes by using technology from Envision Telephony.

Vermont Teddy Bear uses Envision’s Click2Coach solution, which also comes with Envision’s quality monitoring and e-learning offerings. These are designed to work together to deliver immediate feedback to sales agents’ desktops.

Gone are the days of waiting for end-of-month incident reports to identify and correct problems, d’Andrea says. Reaction is now immediate should agents forget to identify certain credit card information or verify contact numbers. By using Click2Coach, d’Andrea simply whips up some clips, pushes them out, and “within a week, those problem areas no longer exist.”

Identifying and fixing such problems is critical for a company like Vermont Teddy Bear, where agents are encouraged to cross-sell and up-sell, says Connie Smith, chief evangelist for Seattle-based Envision.

“They’re not just taking orders, so this was huge for them in terms of finding out who it was that needed that additional coaching to be able to sell a candy bar to go with the teddy bear,” Smith says. “And they have clips for all of that.”

This is not the plodding, hour-long training that may leap to mind when somebody mentions computer-based learning, Smith says. These videos are quick – and they’re specific.

“It can be so easily customized, and that’s the key,” she says. “I’m not at all technical and I can create a clip.”

In addition to cuddly creatures, Vermont Teddy Bear also sells the wares of sister companies PajamaGram, Calyx Flowers, TastyGram and Gift Bag Boutique. That can mean plenty of promotions for agents to keep up with. Using Envision, they are able to quickly educate or refresh themselves on a particular promotion.

Click2Coach also allows for motivation along with education, says d’Andrea, who regularly selects examples of well-executed calls and combines them in a “kudos” clip sent out to the entire center.

Agents hear specific evaluations of their own calls – and actually listen to those calls – at least once a week. Agents also learn through other agents’ successes, he says.

Empathy and tone
Envision offers customizable templates that help measure agent performance against specific metrics. These can be linked to recorded calls or chats. Establishing the correct metrics can be a challenge for many companies, says Smith, who spends plenty of time on that topic with Envision clients.

“I work with them on how to define things like empathy and tone, which are two of the hardest things to evaluate,” she says. Subjective questions, such as “Did she sound empathetic?” or “Did she have a good tone?” don’t accomplish much, she says: Better questions might be, “Did the agent say she was sorry?” or “Did her inflection go up and down?”
D’Andrea says he’s a stickler for details during evaluations, and after a few months of intense training of the roughly 44 agents working at Vermont Teddy Bear during the summer, the lowest score on an evaluation was 91 percent.

That type of performance will be vital in coming weeks as Vermont Teddy Bear swells its call center ranks. The company expects to need about 700 agents during peak times when radio airwaves will be crackling with bear promotions.

“I want to have 44 awesome agents leading out there … so that the 700 we bring on will be taking their lead,” d’Andrea says.

And those agents will have back-up in the form of the systems put in place through Envision. “Whether it’s 45 or 700, they can find out where the skill gaps are,” Smith says.

Click2Coach clips combine voice and visual clues to appeal to a variety of learning styles. D’Andrea describes the reaction of a new agent fresh out of high school. “She thinks this is the neatest thing ever,” he says. “With someone who has been here for years? It took a little longer to convince them. With them, it’s more of a sell.”

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