Beverley Jenkins-Lee

Beverly Jenkins-Lee is a force of nature: a contagious whirlwind of energy that swoops up anyone in her path and invites them along for the ride. As training consultant for Black Horse Call Reception and Customer Services, Bev’s positive energy naturally rubs off on everyone she deals with. Never satisfied, Bev has long been searching for an opportunity to do more than lead by example – she wants to coach/train people how to find that energy within themselves. Find it, utilise it, and improve not only performance at work but quality of life. In 2009 / 2010, Bev found a way to deliver, and the results have been phenomenal.

Setting the Scene
Motivation, purpose and direction are always key performance drivers, but never more so than in 2009. The economic climate resulted in nothing but bad press for the financial industry, and the reality wasn’t too much different, with colleagues being prepared for no pay rises, no bonuses and a manage for value, cost-cutting environment. Her colleagues in the contact centre were feeling more pressure than ever, having to answer to customers for all of the decisions the Lloyds Banking Group executive board had made. The result of this was perhaps best identified in the sickness / absence rate, which had risen to over 11 days per person, an unacceptable level by any standard.

At a time when seemingly no innovative projects were on the horizon, Bev turned a challenge into an opportunity. Motivation was the name of the game, and Team Managers and Telephony Agents needed it fast.

The Plan
Using her consultancy skills, Bev set up a meeting with Georgina Jones and Diane Seaborne from Sing and Inspire, part of the Arts and Business Cymru which Asset Finance had recently joined. Georgina and Diane told Bev about their innovative Vocal Health Training programme, and Bev immediately recognised the possibilities. An NLP practitioner with years of communication training experience, Bev was in the perfect position to know how powerful this training could be for her colleagues.

Bev laid out the objectives for the Vocal Health Training programme:

• Improve the customer experience and motivate the agents to provide better service
• Give the agents the tools to offer better customer service
• Lose the robotic element of the call centre experience
• Improve self confidence by presenting and speaking with authority
• Increased awareness and understanding of your own voice, and offer tips and techniques on producing a better sound
• Provide training and knowledge on how to look after, or physically maintain, their voice -- an oft-neglected aspect of contact centres
• Focus on attitude, pace, tone and empathy using NLP methods Inspire achievement
• Help Call Reception and Customer Service achieve their target of 8 days sickness absence per person (a reduction of 3 full days from the current 11.01 days sickness absence per person)
• Increase Care Index scores, with customers wanting to return and willing to recommend Black Horse

Fantastic stuff, but Bev was also keenly aware that Vocal Health Training on its own, could fail. A support system needed to be in place, a programme for Team Managers that aligned with the values and objectives of Sing and Inspire, and provided them with the ability to follow up on the lessons learned and keep it a part of daily life, not just fade away as a distant memory.

To serve this purpose, Bev, with the help of Diane Seaborne, established an NLP Development programme for team managers. An extremely gentle yet powerful technique that can bring profound improvement to both professional and personal life, NLP provides a tool to help people become happier and more effective in their lives. It provides a framework to have a greater level of comfort and curiosity as to what is possible, rather than fear and confusion at the impossible.

The NLP Development programme would provide managers not only with an opportunity to enhance their communication and development skills with their team, but also increase their self awareness, identifying their individual abilities and barriers.

The programme took the form of bespoke workshops, aimed at meeting team manager’s specific needs. Big picture, the aims and objectives for the NLP Development Programme are:

• Investigate why people behave the way they do
• Communicate effectively in a variety of contexts with diverse people
• Change outdated beliefs and behaviour, learn new skills and take old ones to the next level
• Improve self confidence by presenting and speaking with authority
• Bring out the qualities of the individual members of their team
• Create practical, workable plans
• Understand decision-making strategies, their own and those of others.
• Apply specific techniques which change instinctive behaviour in stressful situations.
• Provide evidence for individual “Personal Development Plans (PDP’s)”

More cost effective than using external training, Bev’s NLP Development Programme would provide an immediate return as it supported the Vocal Health Training of Sing and Inspire, plus have the added bonus of being able to constantly measure and evaluate the course as it progresses.

The Risk
The level of commitment required to initiate one innovative, cutting-edge programme within a risk-averse environment is impressive, but to initiate two innovative, cutting-edge programmes simultaneously is staggering.

The Sing and Inspire programme had only been conducted with one other company: Admiral. Ever resourceful, Bev contacted Admiral and gauged their opinion of the programme. From managers down to agents, everyone in Admiral had nothing but praise for the training.

The innovative nature of the NLP training would require mangers to step out of their comfort zones and have open minds. This type of training was completely new, not only to Black Horse but to each individual manager. After years of training, coaching, and service, the relationship Bev has established with the management team is second to none. They completely trusted her judgement, and agreed to participate in the programme.

Bev engaged with stakeholders at all levels in both Call Reception and Customer Services, followed the departmental guidelines of Operations Training, and created two proposals, both of which were accepted.

The Launch
Sing and Inspire’s Vocal Health Training was launched as a pilot to 20 colleagues in total, 10 agents from each area (Call Reception and Customer Services). The 20 colleagues were drawn from different ability levels so Bev could accurately evaluate the programme’s effectiveness.

The programme consisted of two one-day workshops followed by a personal 1-2-1 session with either Georgina or Diane to establish what their Individual Personal Development Plans were from the programme. The final step was two two-hour evaluation sessions with all of the delegates to ensure that the aims and objectives of the programme were covered.

The pilot for the NLP Development programme was on a much larger scale. The programme would consist of 12 x 3.5 hour workshops with two review sessions built in. The workshops needed to be monthly, and manageable in terms of length and complexity so the managers would be able apply the lessons learned after each workshop in either their workplace or at home.

The agenda for each workshop was established from Bev and Diane’s experiences of using NLP and they focused on aspects of NLP that would benefit the managers’ individual development as well as their teams.

Following each workshop, managers must submit evidence at the beginning of the next workshop to show how they were developing the NLP skills.  This evidence section became known as the Leap Frog Activity, as this helped them develop their new skills from one workshop to the next.

Evaluation – Sing & Inspire
Sing & Inspire measured understanding by getting the candidates to fill in a detailed feedback form that not only checked their understanding but also what the benefits of the course were for them.  Georgina and Diane also checked to see if there was an increase in the delegate’s rapport building with the customer. A key focal point of the training is attitude adjustment, and therefore an important part of the evaluation process involved asking team managers to look at the general attitude and conduct of the delegates to see if they noticed any difference following attendance on the programme.

The results came in, and they were glowing:

*Based on average scores for the months of February, March -- May, June (training conducted in April)

Average additional value per person:

• Customer Services:  £667
• Call Reception:     £1,225

Average Quality increase per person

• Customer Services: 6%
• Call Reception:  4%

Average availability increase per person

• Customer Services: 1%
• Call Reception: 13%

Total sum made less training costs £15,802.00

Call handling study
The “call handling” section of the delegates’ quality monitoring covers rapport and soft skills – most relevant to the training programme.

The average quality scores:
February: 85%
March: 86.36% (the training started 31st March 2010)
April: 89.77%
May: 96.05%
Overall results show a 7% increase in call handling results.

Colleague Feedback
One of the key objectives of the programme is to move your service from the “unconscious” to “conscious,” empowering people to develop themselves by taking control of their voice, language, body and attitude. Quick results will be hard to demonstrate, however the fact that people are using and improving the skills offered is a clear sign that the programme has achieved what we set out to do:

“I’m slowly becoming more confident in the exercises, but it’s still something I’m aiming to improve”.  Kevin

How can a training programme make a difference in someone’s life?  If you show people their potential and what they can offer they will pass the benefits on to the company.  Confidence is key.

“The vocal exercises that George suggested I’m finding very useful and I really feel myself and the business have benefited positively from the session”  David

“I’ve already started working with the techniques George showed me to help bring my voice forward to help me sound more in control on the phones and build rapport” Ryan

“I'm really trying to do the exercises George and I discussed each day, and am mindful of them, especially after calls that are complaints related to open up my voice again”. Jo

Has the training gone beyond the work environment and impacted the delegate’s quality of life?

“The skills I have developed thanks to George and Diane have had fantastic results for me so far. To date, it has helped me a lot on complaints calls to build rapport with difficult customers, but perhaps the most significant result of the course has meant that I successfully got a role in compliance I went for, due to me taking the posture and vocal techniques into the interview”
Rachel

Has the programme refreshed delegates suffering from “burn out”?

“I have re-focused my skills to improve my approach to callers with a limited awareness of financial matters” Jeff

The common thread in all the feedback is that people are trying and mastering the techniques they were exposed to in the programme. Reputation is the mother of all skill and with this approach they will give lasting value to Black Horse.

Evaluation – NLP Development Programme
As the NLP project is still ongoing, Bev and Diane are evaluating each month’s workshop; however the recent workshop was a review session to ensure that all managers were comfortable with their progress.

Here are some of the comments from that review session:

What specific areas have you used and how has this affected how you are operating, either at home, at work or both?

• Work - Helped the two specialists with ‘Cause and Effect’ become more effective in their communication
• Home – joined a gym – this would never have been achieved without the help of NLP
  Debbie

• Areas now being used in Loans processing:
• Everyone has to think about their Mindset during their morning huddles
• VAK questionnaire with managers – now every time they meet up they can talk in the preferred style of the person they are talking to.
  James

• I’ve tackled my confidence issues and have become the person that I always wanted to be. I now believe in myself.
• Met with David Morpeth (Head of Customer Operations) on my own, this would never have been contemplated 12 months ago
  Nadine

Legacy
From the excellent results of the Sing and Inspire pilot, Bev is now currently in the process of presenting a new business case for Vocal Health Training to be conducted to the 200 telephony agents within Call Reception and Customer Services and to the 20 Team Managers within these departments. The training would also be included with the existing Induction Programmes, making the course a Business as Usual project.

To help support the Vocal Health Training all managers would need to attend the NLP Development programme. However because it is designed as a people development toolkit, it can also be used as a stand alone training programme, which means that the whole of Asset Finance can benefit from this training programme.

Final Thoughts from Bev
Speaking with Bev, she will tell you that the most satisfying moments of this amazing year has been seeing her colleagues on the final session, and noticing the undeniable changes in their voice, posture, and attitude.  Empowering people like Rachel (above) to discover self-confidence long buried within, and watch her “nail” an interview and land a dream job makes all of the effort worthwhile.

After 10 years of loyal service to Black Horse, she is living proof that innovation and inspiration are not only possible, but necessary to feel truly satisfied with your work.  Listen to her words:

“They say that everything comes to those who wait, well, this project for me was a dream come true. Diane has really energised me and stretched all my abilities and the end results and truly very rewarding.

To see these managers who were very sceptical at the beginning of the programme now be embracing every workshop we run and using the new skills and techniques that NLP can give them is a rewarding sight to see. All the time and effort we have to put into each workshop that we are developing on a monthly basis truly makes it all worthwhile. Even more so, this programme will be able to give so many more people the ability to achieve whatever they desire by using these fantastic NLP skills.”

Dedication, commitment, and extraordinary performance.  Beverly Jenkins-Lee is a star, and a role model for not only her Operations Training team, but all of Lloyds TSB Asset Finance.  Her achievements in 2010 made her a worthy winner of the Welsh Contact Centre Trainer / Coach of the year for 2011.