Ensuring an exceptional customer experience and resolution of the accounts placed is important work for Transworld Systems Incorporated (TSI) clients. In 2023, TSI provided the kind of training to its team of employees that made a high level of satisfaction for its clients much more likely.
TSI’s clients know that in this outsource partner they have people who can make sure they stay on top of their game. The learning and training programs TSI delivered last year made all the difference to those who rely on the TSI team for an efficiently run business and helped the company achieve a fourth consecutive Top 10 ranking on the Training APEX Awards list. This means TSI is eligible for induction into the Training Hall of Fame in 2025.
DEFINING GOALS
As defined by TSI Chief Executive Officer Joe Laughlin, three of the organization’s primary goals for 2022/2023 were:
- To leverage the company’s industry-leading compliance with laws and regulations to grow revenue and create shareholder value.
- To implement a global labor strategy to improve talent acquisition, retention, and productivity.
- To make TSI a great place to work.
- Although the application and means of achievement may change each year, these three goals are consistently among TSI’s top priorities as an organization.
TSI STRONG WELLNESS PROGRAM
“TSI’s Talent Development and Training Team is perpetually recognized by our CEO and executive leadership team as a competitive business differentiator and key contributor toward accomplishing organizational and client goals,” says Vice President of Talent Development and Training Tiva Abreu.
One training program that substantially supports these goals is the TSI Strong Wellness Program. In 2022, TSI’s Talent Development (TD) team fulfilled the CEO’s request to provide the organization with support training resources (in response to the COVID pandemic). The TD team built a holistic and multifaceted employee well-being video program that addressed multiple aspects of wellness.
This interactive approach to promoting health and wellness includes employee training, leadership training, and a network of resources available for employees who need additional support. “The TSI Strong Program provides proactive best practices to encourage work-life balance, along with physical and mental wellness. TSI’s leadership training assists managers and supervisors with encouraging wellness among their teams and recognizing employees in need of assistance,” says Abreu.
The TSI Wellness Series comprises YouTube-like video courses focusing on mental wellness, work-life balance, physical wellness in the workplace, work-at-home best practices, resilience, and optimism.
“Critically, this program also provides guidance to employees who may need to utilize the TSI Employee Assistance Program (EAP),” Abreu says.
Lastly, the TSI Strong Source Page on the organization’s intranet repository is designed to provide a hub for wellness resources that can be accessed any time an employee may need support or guidance.
NEW LEARNING CENTER
In 2023, TSI partnered with one of the organization’s newest clients to lead the return to office initiative in TSI’s Atlanta Center of Excellence.
In this Center of Excellence, the TSI Talent Development and Training Team expanded its onsite instructor-led training programs into four state-of- the-art learning labs.
The onsite facility will come in handy as TSI works toward meeting its top learning and development opportunities, cited by CXBPO clients and Operations leadership:
Validating learners’ comprehension of call flow and applied communications training in a digital learning environment. “In an ideal world, the trainer would do multiple instructor-led face-to-face full-call role-plays with each new hire to validate their ability to navigate the call flow while applying professional communication skills,” Abreu explains. “To meet the business need of high hiring volume during peak times, the TD and Training Team designed an innovative solution—digital artificial intelligence (Al) role-plays using avatars and a complex response tree.” This approach allows the trainer to be able to have an assessment of all full role-plays to provide critical feedback and analyze trends.
As the organization acquired a large entity in the accounts receivable management industry, the TD team faced the challenge of carrying TSI’s compliance standards to the newly acquired entity. TD partnered with compliance leaders to design a lesson that was customized to emphasize the difference in TSI’s compliance standards compared to the acquired entity’s previous guidelines. Once the lessons were designed, TSI’s TD team opted to foster ownership in the acquired entity’s training team by facilitating train-the-trainer (T3) sessions to empower the acquired entity’s trainers to deliver the content directly to the entity’s employees.
To further support the acquired entity, TD built a dedicated page within the knowledge-based repository as a resource outlining the compliance changes and providing applied examples of each expectation. “Throughout the integration of the acquired entity, acquired trainers and leaders had a direct line to the TD team, which was available to accept feedback and answer questions,” says Karina Abiog, senior manager of Instructional Design, TSI. “This strategy proved essential in not only ensuring that this acquired entity exceeded expectations of compliance, but also served to forge a strong partnership for training and design innovations to come.”
CUSTOMER SERVICE TRAINING
Customer service, like compliance, is another place where consistency is essential. Fortunately, TSI has a training program that addresses this need. “TSI’s Insurance Servicing Training Program has consistently been recognized by clients, continuously exceeds set goals, and has been a strong component of the organization’s success in achieving new market share,” says Sunita Shetty, director of Training. “One thing that sets this program apart from others is the ability to use regularly administered customer satisfaction surveys (CSAT) as a barometer for training success.”
TSI sets a high standard for providing exemplary customer experience and overall customer satisfaction. The organization utilizes modern and progressive proprietary customer experience analytics tools, which are crafted internally to assess data that is most relevant to quality employee/ customer interactions. This data is used to inspire front-line employees to make the best decisions and be empowered with key skills to produce quality customer interactions while exceeding client standards.
Mercedes Small, senior manager of Training, explains that TSI believes first-call resolution is an important aspect of a quality interaction in that it ensures an efficient use of client and customer time. To support this efficiency, TSI’s customer service lessons demonstrate:
- Piloting the call, even when the customer displays emotion.
- Identifying customer needs and questions as soon as possible.
- Offering solutions that satisfy customers and adhere to client guidelines.
- Producing satisfaction for the customer by owning solutions and creating an exceptional customer experience.
“TSI believes that learning continues far beyond the classroom. Through cutting-edge analytics, frequent call calibrations, carefully integrated reinforcement, and on-the-job training, the TD Team partners closely with business leaders in the Insurance Servicing department to ensure an ever-improving customer experience,” Abreu says.
In 2022, TSI’s Insurance Servicing business unit closed the year with an average of 90 percent positive CSAT scores compared to the goal of 80 percent. “Business leaders attribute much of this improvement to the TD Team’s continued analysis and reinforcement of customer satisfaction topics,” Abreu notes.
PREPARED FOR VIRTUAL WORK
While some organizations scrambled at the start of the pandemic to adjust to the virtual work world, TSI was already prepared. “TSI has been an industry leader in virtual, digital, and hybrid learning for more than a decade, and the TD team is committed to continuously improving virtual delivery methodologies,” says Abreu.
In 2023, TSI’s TD team began using the social learning feature of the organization’s learning management system to host asynchronous workshops, which allow learners to post questions, share knowledge, and collaborate at the speed of business.
Another innovative evolution of TSI’s virtual learning methodology is found in the organization’s virtual job shadow activity. “This collaborative on-the-job training activity allows multiple new hires to shadow one tenured employee, with the on-the-job training facilitator available to discuss each call and answer questions. While the tenured employee is going about their daily duties, multiple new hires are learning from them,” says TSI Training Manager Marquetta Skeet Cutshall.
A DATA-DRIVEN APPROACH TO LEARNING
The coming year promises great strides in learning and development at TSI. “In 2024 and beyond, TSI’s TD Team will continue to evolve and perfect their data-driven approach to learning,” Abreu says. “TSI’s TD team believes that clues to learning success can be uncovered in all aspects of business, and as technology gets better and faster, the team will be able to leverage more data points than ever.”
She emphasizes that the key to succeeding in learning and development is having the right guidance. “One piece of advice that can benefit any new L&D professional is to find a great mentor or coach,” she says. “Surround yourself with people who want to see you succeed and find joy in the fact that you will never stop learning.”