The A-bay Training

As mentioned, the theoretical side of the training is the classroom training and the practical side of the training is the Abay Training.

In Abay Training, you will take live calls, however, before you take live calls there is a so called “mock calls” which is a simulation of the live calls and that is done a week before the Abay training or integrated during classroom training. In “mock call” simulation, you are in a controlled environment thus the probability of you committing an error is minimal.

In Abay Training, “pressure” is everything. Al Pacino says in the movie “The Devil’s Advocate,” “Pressure changes everything. Some people, you squeeze them, they focus. Other's fold” This quote is true in Abay Training, whatever you learned in classroom lectures, even if, you are on top of the class will simply be sip out by the AC once you are rattled or cursed by the customer. Your personality plays a very important role in handling pressure. Some people cry when pressured, others remain calm and you will hear their teammates utter, “Grabe! Walang ka–effort–effort ha!!! However, those people who are calm when taking calls are people who are “technically” numb. These people are “apathetic.” When you listen to their calls, they are quite straight forward, focused and very efficient. There’s just one thing that they don’t display – “emotion.” It has a good and bad side. Good side is no matter how many times the customer curse them, it’s nothing! The bad side is, even if customer were already crying out loud or totally frustrated, still they feel nothing!! Psychologically, people who became numb with emotion are people who have been through a lot of misery and shortcoming as a child that’s why they emerge stiff as an adult. The only repercussion of this as an adult is they become “socially indifferent.”

Having said that, it is important that the “Abay Team” be diplomatic in approach in handling Abay trainee so as not to add pressure. Abay coaches who are expecting perfection from Abay trainee is delusional.

Producing quality trainee is always the aim of Abay Team. However, that could only be achieved if the Abay Team has quality themselves. Again, product knowledge is the key to quality. Abay coaches should be a product of the production floor itself. Abay coaches should come from the account itself. How would you be able to correct someone’s mistake if you don’t even know what is right?

Abay training usually last for a week. If you pass the training, you will then be endorsed to production where you are on your own to take calls with minimum supervision.

There is also a so called “extended Abay” wherein you will be extended for one more week because you are just short to pass. Most trainee feels “self–pity” when they knew they will be put on extended Abay. Some will say, “feeling ko ang tanga–tanga ko kaya hindi ako nakapasa.” Technically, the feeling is “self–pity” at first but when you face it, one thing is for sure, that is the best thing that would happen to you. If you don’t face it and go AWOL, pride na lang yan! This is where you will see who is really committed and serious for the job.

Just for the record also, 40% of those who are put on “extended Abay” always emerge stronger. They are the one who also stays longer in the company and grows with the company. Those who were endorsed at the right time on the production, by the end of six months, consider your site lucky if 10% of them are still intact.

If you will be put on “extended Abay” take the most of it. Your mindset should be, “this is the opportunity for me to vacuum all the knowledge this Top Agent / SME has!!!” And if you are a SME, huwag kang mailap and stay diplomatic and accommodating.

What are the steps to be done in order to produce quality agents from Abay training?

If in classroom training, trainee are doing side by side (SBS) with top agents, in Abay training, those top agents should be the one to do SBS with trainee so that they would be able to coach the trainee about the product, call handling techniques and system navigation.

To allow real time coaching, it is important that every after call, Abay Trainee should be allowed to go on ACW so that the Top Agent or SME who are doing SBS would be able to provide feedback to the Trainee. In giving feedback, it is important to teach what the correct procedure is and what the repercussion is if a certain procedure would not be followed.

Since one Top Agent / SME has different skills and handling technique it is important that they are the one who will be rotating from one agent to the other so that they would be able to transfer their best practices from one Trainee to the other. It is also important that they have an evaluation log of different call types of different agent so that they will be able to log the weaknesses of all the Trainee and those weaknesses can then be discussed during the debriefing session.

The debriefing session should be after the last break of the Trainee. In this session, Trainee would then be assembled back in classroom to discuss those evaluation log that needs further emphasis. The debriefing session is not meant to highlight mistake of one trainee, it should be an opportunity for a deeper learning process for all the trainee.

Trainee's Name: Harold Munoz			Date Evaluated: July 02, 2014
Evaluator's Name	Account Number Handled	Call Type	Learning Opportunity	Debriefing Action Plan
Carmen Schiller	123456	Payment Arrangement	Has difficulty evaluating eligibility of the customer and where to find the information to come up with a decision	Enumerate step by step as to where to find the information to be able to evaluate customer's eligibility
Dominic Dela Fuente	567891	Authorization Release	Miss to provide information on the timeframe for the release of the authorization thus money was release prematurely	provided the document ID from knowledge base of schedule of authorization release
Jimwell Stevens	234567	Cable Plan Upgrade	Took a long time to change the plan because cable boxes not matching with the selected plan	Enumerated the steps as to what needs to be removed first and what is to be substituted after to prevent pop up error
Ariella Farida	345678	Adding a line to existing phone	Failed to do credit evaluation. Informed the customer not eligible though eligible if deposit could be made instead	Show the tab where customer eligibility can be seen aside from the credit check tab which he used as a sole basis for evaluation
Claire Guzman	456789	Adding Missing Minutes	Added minutes on the account without checking whether there was really a promotion for such thing or not	Show the tab where he can see whether the promotion is valid or not because customer is just fabricating story.
Zoie Cruz	678910	Voicemail Reset	Failed to assumptive offer the mobile application so that customer can do it in their end. Customer called three times in a month just because password was forgotten.	Walkthrough on mobile application. Provide screen shot to get synchronize with the customer
Jenny Punongbayan	789654	Bill explanation	Confused on how to start with the bill explanation. Customer has provided a lot of background information.	Coached to start with the last paid amount then remaining balance then current charges then breakdown of those charges

By logging the weaknesses of agents during the Abay Training, the Abay Team can then provide those feedback to the Training Team so that the Training Team could then further formulate plans or curriculum in order to modify their approach in classroom training. Likewise, it is also an avenue to evaluate the competence of the Trainer in producing results. It could be that agent is weak on system navigation or product knowledge or use of knowledge base. It could also be that most Trainee would just be weak on just one specific call type and aces the other call type. These are just some of the variety that could possibly happen.

By logging the weaknesses of agents during the Abay training, that would serve as a baseline for further studies on part of the Training Team. They would be able to develop new approach or technique in order to ensure that training would be of highest quality wherein they will know that once they hire an employee, they will be confident enough that their technique is proven effective and will produce results. It’s like a franchise system where it can be replicated many times. If you go to any Jollibee store, you will notice that the food all taste the same and the serving time is all the same. By perfecting the training system, the Training team wouldn’t have a hard time then accommodating other accounts from potential clients for they will know that their training system is proven effective.

Most HR in a call center has a difficult task of assembling a class for training because of the skills that is necessary for the account. If the Training team would be able to find the secret formula that they can apply to any trainee that has the most basic qualification, hiring an employee wouldn’t then be difficult because it would be like a franchise system where the product can be reproduce anywhere and get the same result.

Those call center who are externally hiring Trainer or Trainer who was just certified after just one month of training, it really makes me question about their competence.

If you have a Trainer who comes from the same account who happens to be an Education graduate, huwag niyo na pakawalan yan!! Most especially kung isang License Teacher yan. Because that Trainer will have a very important role in curriculum management of the training. It’s a means to an end of professionalizing the overall performance of this industry.