NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE – August 28, 2012 -- The Quality Assurance & Training Connection (QATC) has announced the finalists for the 2012 Learning Development Professional of the Year Award, which recognizes a learning development professional who has shown outstanding leadership in the industry.  The finalists are Michael Baldwin of C3 Connect, Phaedra Medus of Sentry Insurance, and Jackie Lovell of VF Imagewear.

“These learning development professionals are truly representative of the ‘best of the best’ in our industry,” said Vicki Herrell, QATC Executive Director. “They have all demonstrated great leadership and ability in the field.  I am very proud to present them as finalists for this inaugural award.”

Michael Baldwin serves as Vice President, C3 Performance Optimization (PO).  In his role at C3, Michael is responsible for overseeing the company’s highly interactive and engaging training utilizing adult learning principles.

The C3 PO Team uses the company’s proprietary “Boot Camp Training Methodology” to turn training into a fast-paced, interactive, and highly retentive experience for trainees while maintaining a fun learning environment --- all with no PowerPoint presentations.  The curriculum is developed using adult learning theories and includes interactive role-plays, writing exercises, games, raffles, and other activities that keep the participants engaged throughout the entire training.  The training is supported by skill-based Call Monitoring and Coaching to ensure a closed-loop process with Training, Quality, and Coaching.  All behaviors and skills expected in the monitoring process are trained in class.  This allows Quality Assurance and Training to be calibrated on performance requirements and Coaching to reinforce and sustain specific behaviors and expectations.

Michael is effective at promoting this training philosophy with internal and external customers.  He has been instrumental in designing and developing specific learning solutions that meet stated objectives and goals.  He supports the concept of teamwork and demonstrates it whether he is leading the project, helping to design the training activities, or conducting the training sessions.  He leads by example and is always willing to do whatever it takes to ensure the success of the project and the team.

One of C3's clients wanted to move their Customer Care model from a service only model to a sales and service model.  C3 partnered with them to develop a 3-day certification training program with Michael as the Lead Trainer, and he was instrumental in the success of the launch and roll-out of the training.  Using the success of this initiative, the client was awarded the Chief Learning Officer Practice Award in 2011.

Michael has been successful in partnering with both internal and external clients to drive the differentiation of the C3 PO methodology/concept from a cultural, people, and preparation standpoint to achieve great results.  On one client program, in order to meet a short turnaround time, Michael spent one week at the client facility learning a six-week curriculum which included systems and processes and procedures, developed activities for the training, traveled overseas, and delivered the training.  He remained overseas for two months to develop a “Coaches Toolkit,” designing activities based on identified skill gaps and training the Coaches on how to run the activities and work with their teams to achieve performance.  The program is successful and has provided C3 with opportunities for increased growth.

He is a U.S. Navy Veteran who trained at the Nuclear Power Training Unit in New York. Shortly after he completed his own training, he was named an instructor where he trained hundreds of officers and enlisted personnel over the course of two years. Michael started in the call center industry in 1997 and used many of his skills learned in the Navy to excel at leadership roles and training or coaching others. Michael has worked with a variety of clients such as Wal-Mart, several Police Departments, and colleges in the Hampton Roads area including Old Dominion University and Thomas Nelson Community College facilitating workshops about diversity and inclusion.

According to Lisa Oliver, Director, Internal Development at C3, “Michael is hard-working, cooperative, and is focused on meeting and exceeding expectations.  He willingly shares success and makes everyone involved in a project feel valued and a part of the team.  He takes the time to understand people’s strengths and opportunity areas and to recognize everyone for their efforts.  This is demonstrated in his approach and interactions with clients, trainees, co-workers, and his staff.  Michael’s email sign-off includes the tag line, ‘Making life better 4 others, makes life better 4 YOU!,’ which sums up his beliefs and recipe for success.”

Phaedra Medus joined Sentry Insurance seven years ago at an entry level Customer Service Representative (CSR) position.  In one year's time, Phaedra progressed to a CSR Senior role and became the lead trainer for the Goldsboro, NC call center.  In 2008, Phaedra was promoted to the role of Customer Service Supervisor, where she continued to influence training and began to work with quality assurance and learn the workforce management aspect for the call center.  Phaedra currently supervises a team of 15 direct reports, manages scheduling and training for three call center sites across the country, and maintains quality monitoring and coaching for all direct reports.

Phaedra's learning and development success story started in 2011.  The corporate learning and development team came to the call center sites to help give an objective view of how the center could improve soft skill training for the CSRs (new & existing).  After months of planning enterprise-wide, the corporate learning and development team rolled out webinar training to the call centers within the entire company to utilize in the training of any employee at desktop and meet the business need of staffing the phones appropriately as well.  These were very generic soft skill modules to allow any division within Sentry to utilize them.

Once these were rolled out for use, Phaedra took these trainings one step further.  She took each of the 10 web trainings built by corporate and created a call library that aligned actual calls to the call center to the soft skill being trained.  Phaedra built a strong interactive facilitator module by splicing call sections, creating interactive questions for the group to discuss and understand the expectation of the customer experience we want our CSRs to create for every caller.  These trainings assure consistency in rollout by any trainer because of the detailed facilitator guide created and the real call examples used.  The trainers have given strong positive feedback to how much these additional training modules trained in tandem to those on the web from corporate help to drive home the concept of the critical skills.

These skills have also been incorporated into the quality form for monitoring calls with Phaedra's help in this area to assure that when measuring the customer's experience, we support the vision of the critical skills identified for our call center.  These trainings are currently used in all three of the call center sites and with every new hire class.  Existing staff are also executing these trainings in team meeting environments to assure all CSRs experience the training developed to define the customer experience expectation of every call.

Phaedra is very computer savvy and thinks out of the box about how to utilize technology to create a more hands on realistic approach to training new hires and existing staff on critical skills identified by the call center to shape and create a legendary service experience for our customers.  She is constantly looking for ways to strengthen the organization’s trainers by observing training execution and providing feedback.  Phaedra also takes what she has observed and creates materials that ensure that the training is interactive and real.  Her goal is to create a realistic hub to train and prepare the CSRs for what the job will really be like once they come to the phones.

“Phaedra has a passion for training,” says Hope Gay of Sentry Insurance.  “Her interactive technique made her very successful in her role as a trainer and continued to advance her personal development as a leader within the call center.  She keeps things fresh, brings concerns forward and never settles for ‘TTWADI – That's the way we have always done it!’  She brings a strong drive for success and looks for every opportunity to avoid anyone failing in the position.”

Jackie Lovell has 39 years of service with VF Imagewear.  Jackie worked as an administrative assistant in the office of one of the company’s manufacturing plants that sewed work shirts.  Years later when that plant was closed, Jackie decided to remain an employee of VF Imagewear and currently serves as a trainer in the call center.  Over the last four years, Jackie has trained 42 new hire representatives to provide the very best customer service.   Of the 42 new hires, 93% are top performers with excellent quality assurance scores and monthly score card results.

The most outstanding thing about Jackie is her work ethic.  Jackie drives 64 miles each way to work in the Nashville location.  She also wants to make sure everyone that she trains also has a good work ethic, to make sure the company excels, and to always take care of the customer.  While in training, Jackie provides a perfect example of what a professional customer support representative should be like.   Jackie “walks the talk.”  She logs in and out on her telephone even though she is not required to and makes sure her new hires get into the great habit of adhering to their schedules from the very beginning.  She preaches perfect attendance and punctuality so all calls may be handled by the call center.

Besides training the basics to her new hires, Jackie develops her students’ critical thinking skills and customer service skills by becoming that special customer, “Sally,” throughout training.  After each model of the training manual, Jackie (as Sally) role-plays situations to drive home what she has taught.

Jackie trains to the information that the representatives must know to do their job, but also trains the big picture of “WHY” and shows daily reports that impact our company’s results.   Games, training tapes, field trips, role play, and side-by-side listening are all used to create a well-rounded representative.   At the end of the eight weeks of training, the representatives stay in the training room for a nesting period.  They take normal calls just like everyone else, but Jackie is there to answer questions that may come up and also listen and observe on calls to fine tune how the representatives sound on the telephone.

Jackie is open-minded and has a willingness to learn all that she can. She attends training seminars and reads to keep up with the latest training techniques.  She has been presented awards for perfect attendance and perfect monthly score cards month after month, year after year.

Jackie’s nomination form included an e-mail from one of the call center’s customers:

I know the powers that be at VF Imagewear are happy and grateful to have Jackie, but more importantly, we the customers are. When calling in orders (which I have been doing for 28 years), even though I don't talk to Jackie (unless I get lucky and the newbies are working with her and I get to say hi), I still get the benefit of her training with each phone call I make to customer service. I have said if someone didn't make it as a CSR there, they either didn't want a job or had a really bad attitude, because Jackie is amazing.  I think she must bring her own sunshine with her, because I have never had an unhappy newbie on the phone.  Jackie has a great attitude and she passes that on when she trains. I always know when I call, I'm getting the best, because they were trained by the best.

Janet Sexton of VF Imagewear says, “I believe Jackie Lovell should receive the 2012 QATC Contact Center Learning Development Professional of the Year award because she deserves the recognition due to the great job she does preparing our new hires to be the best customer service representatives.”

The QATC Board of Advisors selected the three finalists from nominations submitted on the QATC website.  The Quality Assurance Professional of the Year award is chosen from the three finalists by the Board of Advisors and announced at the 2012 QATC Annual Conference.