Case Study
A Local Government Pivots to Virtual Customer Service Training During COVID-19 Pandemic
Client Background and Overview
A bustling local county government wanted to raise the bar on customer service and empower their workforce to deliver exceptional experiences to every single resident they serve. That’s where Turnkey Solutions came in—a vendor able to effectively deliver customer service training for its Board of Commissioners’ 2,600+ employees across more than 35 departments.
Turnkey Solutions implemented an award-winning online training solution, TalentLMS. Additionally, Turnkey designed and delivered a customer service workshop consisting of 5 modules (4 units each) and a Customer Service Leadership Nugget consisting of 4 modules (4 units each) for all employees and leadership of the County. These multi-media courses included job aides, reference sheets, videos, gamification, and other learning tools to engage and empower learners. And at the end of each course, employees received a certificate of completion to recognize their hard work and dedication.
For this engagement, Turnkey Solutions went above and beyond to ensure success, providing both administrator and end-user training as well as limited support.
Challenges
Turnkey was initially contracted for 100% on-site training. Unexpectedly across the world, COVID-19 hit, and all in-person contact was significantly reduced or suspended indefinitely. Not wanting to further delay the engagement, the County asked Turnkey Solutions if the training could be offered online.
Solution
Though the County had never offered a fully automated training workshop to its employees, Turnkey Solutions was able to efficiently pivot and advised that the request was feasible and would still be both effective in delivery and robust enough to provide what the County wanted the employees to receive.
To kick things off, Turnkey Solutions developed online surveys and conducted online focus groups with the County’s citizens and employees to gather data about their experiences. They partnered with the County’s Human Resources Department to ensure that the survey questions would provide the critical information needed to get to the core of citizen and employee sentiment around what excellent customer service should look and feel like.
The surveys were deployed simultaneously and made available online and in physical locations throughout the County, ensuring that everyone had an opportunity to participate. The survey data was gathered and analyzed to identify general areas of need, departmental concerns, and areas where the County was doing an exceptional job. The focus groups were conducted with a sample size of employees across all 35 of the County’s departments, including groups of employees as well as groups of County leaders. Focus group questions were designed to provide more in-depth, direct feedback to supplement responses provided within the surveys.
Based on the results, Turnkey Solutions developed customer service workshop modules for level-1 employee training and level-2 leadership training, along with Train-the-Trainer instruction for ongoing continuous improvement. They even provided live support to all 2600+ employees and resource documents for future reference.
Impact and Conclusion
The County was extremely pleased with the outcome of the training program delivered by Turnkey Solutions. They provided glowing reviews, citing the high level of professionalism, employee satisfaction, ease of use, and timely assistance when needed.
In fact, the County was so impressed with the quality of service provided by Turnkey Solutions that they reached out again to discuss additional support for ongoing employee refresher training and explore potential future engagements. This is a clear testament to the effectiveness and impact of the training program delivered by Turnkey Solutions and their commitment to providing exceptional service to their clients.