Bespoke Customer Service training programme for GTT

Pink Elephant EMEA builds on the success of a GTT’s customer service offering with a bespoke virtual training programme. Find out more below about the objectives, challenges, and successes of delivering a training programme to 250+ GTT employees, in three countries, across three time zones.

About GTT

GTT is a managed network and security partner to global organisations, designing and delivering solutions that leverage advanced cloud, networking, and security technologies. Founded in 1998, the multinational company employs 2,100 staff in 25 countries, including the US, UK, India, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, and France.

Background to Bespoke Customer Service Training Programme

Customer Service is a vital aspect of every organisation striving for optimum client satisfaction and brand loyalty. Traditionally, products and pricing have been considered key customer service components but, in today’s technology marketplace, the critical business differentiator is now customer experience.

Pink Elephant Principal Trainer Jon Kersey said: “It is the people and how companies treat their customers that is the key difference now, even huge global companies have struggled due to the lack of service provided.”

In May 2022, GTT, the leading global provider of secure cloud networking solutions for multinational organisations, launched an improved Quality Programme within the Service Assurance division to support its customers served in over 170 countries. Managers evaluated the Tier 1 and Incident Management customer communication, combining results from direct customer feedback as well as internal performance metrics.

This analysis and insight identified soft skills management as one of the key areas of opportunity to improve. GTT selected Pink Elephant to enrol 250 of its Assurance organisation employees on its Customer Service training programme.

Rania Karatza, Director, Client Experience, GTT, said: “Our goal is to move from a ‘tactical’ support organisation to a ‘service’ organisation, where we approach our problems and issues with a proactive mindset and deliver a tailored experience to our customers.”

Why Choose Pink Elephant for ITSM Training?

Pink Elephant EMEA has more than 40 years’ experience in the ITSM industry and boasts an award-winning e-learning portal. As global thought leaders, the company attracts top expert trainers for its vast array of courses, from ITIL® 4 and Kanban to Customer Service Training and business simulations.

Whether it’s a virtual classroom or an on-site classroom, Pink Elephant always conducts an initial consultation with clients to understand their needs, ensuring clear communication and the ability to tailor the course to achieve optimum outcomes.

Crucially, Pink Elephant’s trainers bring a wealth of expertise to the table, each possessing qualifications in a diverse range of areas, including profiling tools. With extensive experience in various fields, and having held similar roles to those of their clients, they are uniquely positioned to offer practical, real world examples and successful solutions.

Lyudmil Tsonev, Talent Development Manager at GTT, said: “We have been working with Pink Elephant as our training provider for more than a decade. Over the years we have been consistently pleased with Pink Elephant’s customer-first approach, communication and overall training delivery.”

He added:

“One of the key reasons we chose to work with Pink Elephant was their willingness to achieve excellence and go the extra mile. This is how we approach our customers and wanted to ensure that the programme was delivered by a vendor with a similar mindset as ours.”

Enquire: Get In Touch with our Head of Education

Objectives and Challenges around a Bespoke Customer Training Programme

Pink Elephant Principal Trainer Jon Kersey conducted an initial consultation, during which GTT shared quality evaluation trend analysis data. The data shared by GTT created the success metrics crucial for effectively assessing the impact of the training, which would build upon the team’s already strong customer interaction skills to optimise communication between both parties.

The consultation concluded with a decision to prioritise delivering exceptional customer service, focusing specifically on the areas used to measure agent quality. With the direction of training decided, two key challenges had to be overcome before the course could commence.

Firstly, delegates were situated in three different time zones across GTT’s Network Operation Centres in Texas, United States; Sofia, Bulgaria; and Pune, India. Secondly, there was the challenge of training a high volume of employees – 250 – while maintaining an even distribution of attendees from each team to ensure that business-as-usual operations were not disrupted during the training sessions.

Bespoke Global Customer Service Training Plan

Based on the consultation sessions with GTT, Pink Elephant designed a customised training plan that addressed the needs of the GTT delegates. The focus areas included customer types, cultural differences across countries, and performance management to enable senior managers to manage their teams effectively and with purpose.

During the training course, Jon used a combination of slides and interactive group activities to encourage participant involvement in areas covering interpersonal skills, natural authority, and managing the customer.

Activities included a skills demonstration and role-play practice sessions that applied to a variety of customer service functions across the customer life cycle, and which could be successfully implemented in a virtual classroom.

Outcomes and Successes of Customer Service Training Programme

Thanks to the pre-course planning and consultation processes, as well as to Jon’s teaching expertise, Pink Elephant successfully delivered the Customer Service training programme to more than 250 employees, in three countries, across three time zones.

Lyudmil said: “Jon was great to work with, he brought a wealth of experience and ideas to the table. His delivery wasn’t the typical one-way lecture; he presented the training in a manner which encouraged participants to remain engaged throughout the training.”

He added: “Jon got the audience’s buy-in by putting them in groups to discuss and brainstorm the best approaches to a variety of service-related situations.”

Jon said: “I am very pleased with the outcome. We had a great working relationship with the client and were able to monitor and make small changes throughout the project.”

Adaptability of Pink Elephant’s training services

A key differentiator between Pink Elephant and some other training services is a willingness and ability to adapt training courses to suit the needs of the client.

Sam Taylor, Director of Service Assurance, GTT, said:

“From the first discussion, we were impressed with Pink Elephant’s commitment to our needs in developing a structured plan. We really appreciated their willingness to re-visit the plan amongst multiple challenges, new priorities and changes to the target audience. In developing this programme, we felt they were willing to spend as much time as needed to understand our goals and how we can improve.”

Lyudmil added:

“There were many occasions when we needed last-minute changes such as moving participants across sessions, removing delegates, and adjusting the time and duration of the course – Pink Elephant accommodated all of these requests.”

Conclusion

Pink Elephant successfully launched the first phase of GTT’s Customer Service training programme that educated 250-plus employees situated in three countries and across three different time zones. Pink Elephant Principal Trainer Jon ensured the course adapted to GTT’s needs and created an interactive programme that applied to staff from all tiers and all cultural backgrounds.

The result is a transformed mindset that has moved the working culture from providing customer support to delivering customer service.

Lyudmil said:

“Pink Elephant brings a wealth of experience and suggestions to the table and delivered the training in a manner which ensured knowledge transfer and a willingness to act on the concepts delivered in the class. Furthermore, Pink Elephant aligns to our values of ‘Collaboration’ and ‘Curiosity’, which we believe are key to our success with our training initiatives. We value Pink Elephant EMEA as an effective training partner.”