Client case studies

Star Technology

Delivering customer service training for IT support teams at Star Technology, the leading provider of managed technology services to mid-sized businesses and public sector organisations in the UK.

The challenge

A highly successful company, Star grew rapidly – quickly making the transition from a small entrepreneurial business into a substantial organisation. Star’s rapid growth meant that there hadn’t been time to implement many of the systems needed by a company of its size. This was especially true of the technical support team, who, felt Bryan MacPherson, Star’s training and development officer, would gain particular benefit from telephone communications training.

The solution

Star wanted to make sure the course would be exactly right for its needs. Said MacPherson: “What I felt wouldn’t work for this team was a generic telephone communications course.”

Technical by nature, the support team spend time with customers answering technical queries, problem-solving and trouble-shooting – dry topics, which are difficult to communicate in a lively way with non-technical callers. “We wanted a more upbeat, interesting, positive, style of communication,” said MacPherson. “We’ve always been good at solving our customers’ problems; we wanted them to feel good about their relationship with us, too.”

Star chose the soft skills training division of Xpertise. Star was especially encouraged that the division had a proven track record for training of this nature and understood the learning and cultural issues.

The idea of communications training was not initially met with great enthusiasm, so it was decided to pilot the programme to the team leaders. This proved to be a successful move – as the team leaders were very quickly won round to the style of the training, which was highly engaging and participative – using a lot of group-based activities. Another success factor was that the course was also tailored to the particular learning style of the technical team – who were very process-orientated, communicating in logical and factual language. The programme itself got the same positive response from the technical teams.

It was also important to assess the effectiveness of the learning – so Xpertise developed a call-monitoring sheet, so the attendees could self assess and be assessed. This was used before the course and a month after, to compare performance improvements. The training was a great success – although the target had been a 10% improvement in quality, a 16% improvement was actually achieved. Due to its success, the assessment sheet was adopted by Star as part of its ongoing personal development planning process.

Ultimately, the impact of the service which Xpertise provided went beyond just one training programme, with the growth of a learning culture, as peer coaching and training now take place on an ongoing basis. MacPherson summarised: “The training which was provided was of excellent quality – but what they left behind, in terms of process and culture change, has been immensely valuable.”