Barclaycard wins Training Department of the Year

2011 was an interesting year for the Barclaycard Training Team. The team had been told customer service calls for personal credit card customers were moving from Teesside to Manila and that eight members of the Training Team would be working on the training project for migration.

Why did the team decide to enter this project for a training award? It was a challenge – could they win a training award for something as controversial as migration training?

Background

Barclaycard decided to work in partnership with FirstSource after going out to tender for the contract to manage Barclaycard’s personal credit card customer services. FirstSource is a high-profile company in terms of global call centre solutions all over the world and the calls for Barclaycard would be managed in Manila.

It was the Barclaycard Training Team’s responsibility to design all material and accredit the FirstSource trainers to enable them to deliver all training in support of a significant migration of work.

How the Training Team ‘broke the mould

The project success was rooted in the collaborative approach the team took, as they proactively adopted their training counterparts in Manila. The Barclaycard Training Team knew that key to the success of this extensive project would be an appreciation of the cultural differences between UK and Philippino agents. To this end, a number of sessions were organised ahead of the design work to ensure the learning material was both written and delivered to complement Philippino learning styles to ensure maximum success. Twelve trainers travelled to the UK from Manila for twelve weeks for the train the trainer events.

This was vital for the project success as it was necessary to guide the trainers through all the materials as delegates and support them with co-delivery and then eventually accredit them as ‘ Barclaycard’ trainers.

All trainers received intensive coaching and instruction, and the Barclaycard Training Team produced twelve accredited trainers who were ready to go back to Manila and deliver a first-class range of training interventions.

The relationship built during their time in the UK was the foundation for the migration. The two training teams had lots of opportunities to share and learn that proved invaluable. It was a chance to learn about the strengths and development areas of the trainers to allow bespoke support to be designed and implemented.

The trainers returned to Manila and trained 15 groups of 20 delegates. During this time the support from the onshore team was of vital importance, so, given this had to be conducted across thousands of miles, daily calls were introduced to discuss any issues or concerns and provide expedient answers. A dashboard to track delegates’ test scores, at a training group level, was used to ensure immediate support could be provided to the FirstSource trainers where the data provoked concern; this ensured that support and development was immediate and malpractices were not able to embed themselves.

Measurement

Following a three-month bedding-in period the business needed to measure the effectiveness of the training beyond the simple Level 1 reactionnaire, which had already indicated that the training delivery was being exceptionally well received. Using the CSAT scores (JD Power results) the business looked at what the customers were telling them. In line with the reactionnaire scores which showed the training had been appropriate, the JD Power results went on to confirm that the training had been effective, with the scores showing the Manila advisors had received a score of 790 against the Teesside score of 800.