Appletree Answering Service

When it comes to Customer Service, our front line agents take the prize.  Here at Appletree we are very proud of the product our agents deliver to our Customers and their Customers.  Managing the efforts of our front line staff is an elite group of individuals we refer to as our Team Leaders.  The Team Leaders’ job is to educate, hold accountable and cultivate our front line agents.

The week of January 5^th, Appletree brought in 30 Team Leaders from all of our 12 sites for an aggressive training, tour of the Corporate Office and Management Presentation sessions.  The focus was to drive home the value our Team Leaders add to the organization, while giving them additional tools to do their jobs.  John Ratliff, CEO states, “The number one way to create a culture and pass down the company’s DNA to our front line agent is to empower the people that manage their efforts.”

Several modules were developed in an effort to support and educate our Team Leaders.  Human Resources and Employee Fulfillment Directors presented on many topics to share risks, techniques and legal regulations associated with managing people.  Information Technology Directors presented on the do’s/don’ts with our systems and the Q and A session was valuable as our managers began to share best demonstrated practices.  With the recent roll out of Salesforce (our Customer management tool), our Team Leaders were granted access to the system with a very detailed process to assist with consistent documentation and Customer Service.

The bulk of the time was spent with the Operations Directors, who focused on industry specific education.  Opening the lines of communication and introducing this level of management to one another to help with overflow traffic, sharing of resources and training techniques on difficult accounts. 

The investment back to the company and the service expectations that our Customers can expect from this experience are simply put, worth it!  Measuring employee turnover, Customer attrition and quality will be the tangible evaluation and reward.