The Ideal Trainer

Trainers play an important role in the success of the campaign in a call center. Transferring skills and information based on hands on experience and learning how to simulate it to another person is a very big challenge to any person who opt to become a Trainer. It is because every person has different learning curves. There are people who are so called visual learner who learns by demonstrating to them how a certain procedures work and there are those who are instructional who could follow a certain documented procedure.

Do you have what it takes to be a Trainer?

Let us see the checklist necessary to become a Trainer.

Patience. You will oftentimes hear this in a call center that “Patience is a virtue.” Others, will say that “Patience is a talent.” In whatever punch line it is, as a Trainer, you have to be patient. One wave will come and go and you will constantly meet new faces every now and then. Most Trainers stick to their job because of the fun of meeting new Trainee and getting to know them and the story of their life. Trainees has different personalities as well, meron diyan na mareklamo, meron diyan na tahimik, meron diyan na hindi mo mapulsuhan kung naiintindihan ka o hindi, meron diyan na hindi makasunod thus as a Trainer you have to be flexible to all those kind of variables. You cannot be “kung ano sinabi ko. Period. Intindihin mo!” because remember that it is your credibility and efficiency which will be at stake if your Trainees are not responding to you.

No grumpy mood. As a Trainer, huwag ka masungit. There are those who are really slow learner and there are those who will ask question simply because lumalandi lang pala! You have to be neutral all the time. There are those who are sensitive to criticism thus you need to adjust to their needs by learning to be discrete on how you give feedback.

Superb product knowledge. You should be a product of the production itself for the said campaign. There are call centers who are externally hiring a Trainer who after being certified after one month of training, they have the decency to call themselves “Trainer” whose competence is really questionable. “Experience is the best teacher” as the old adage has tested it. If those who are in production has the propensity to commit mistake and they are learning from that mistake, what type of learning was it for those whose knowledge is purely theoretical? If you become a Trainer who is once an agent for the same campaign, raise your head up above the rest!!! You have the right to do so! Huwag ka mahiya!!

Highly organized. You can’t afford to be a scuttle bug if you are a Trainer. The organization of your thought as well as how you deliver it should all be synchronized to create a better understanding on your Trainees. You have to be systematic on how to correlate one information to the other and what are the implications that will happen if a certain procedure was not followed. You should be able to put your brain into the head of your Trainee and verbalize their thought where the two of you could meet at a certain level to develop a better understanding.

Flexible. Teaching methods are vast. There are a lot of methods you can think in order to liven up the class. If you are a “Powerpoint Queen” who will have an oration in front of the class, some of your Trainees will fall asleep.

These are just five of the most basic characteristic you should possess should you want to become a Trainer. The greatest fulfillment you can achieve as a Trainer is to see your Trainees eventually be regularized and become like you or even better.

Call centers should also give Trainers the opportunity to be trained abroad or sort of “exchange program” where they will be sitting in a similar class abroad just to be able to assimilate the best practices done by counterparts in other parts of the world and replicate the same practices locally.