The Call-Center Training Handbook: A Complete Guide to Learning and Development in Contact Centers

Article Type: Suggested reading From: Human Resource Management International Digest, Volume 18, Issue 5

John P. Wilson,Kogan Page,2009,ISBN: 9780749450885

The Call-Center Training Handbook provides practical guidance for training and development specialists working in the industry. The book draws on John Wilson’s experience as director of the European Leonardo Da Vinci call-center training and knowledge-transfer project, and includes contributions from writers with experience of call-center operations in the UK, Europe, China,India and the United States.

The book strikes a balance between academic rigor and practical advice, and contains a number of case studies that may provide ideas and comparisons for those designing learning programs in their own organizations.

Each chapter addresses a specific theme and is logically ordered, with clear signposting of the chapter aims, content and conclusions.

In the first chapter, Wilson examines the learning and development issues the contact-center industry faces. This is followed by a chapter on how to structure call-center training activities. This section stresses the need to link training to organizational objectives. It also includes discussions on issues such as the duration, content and delivery of training.

The third chapter considers the competencies needed by contact-center advisors. It presents three tables drawn from research and the e-skills contact-center career and skills framework. These provide an excellent overview of the area, and should be of use to practitioners who wish to draw up their own competency frameworks for use in recruitment or training. Following this,chapter four completes the picture with a discussion of the recruitment,induction and socialization of new employees.

Chapters 5 and 6 mark a departure from the primarily structural debates of the previous chapters, and concentrate on practical communication and customer-service skills. Like a later chapter on emotional intelligence, these sections provide a range of models, exercises and best-practice suggestions that may provide useful content when designing training sessions on these topics.

Since much of the training in contact centers is performed by team leaders,chapter seven provides a short introduction to the techniques involved in coaching. This is followed by a chapter on “hard” system skills,which emphasizes the need to consider the learning and training cycles when providing technology training. While much of the material in this chapter will be familiar to experienced trainers, it is both unusual and refreshing to see technology training addressed so directly in a general handbook.

The remaining chapters are more technical, and include a somewhat academic discussion of management development and a discussion of the issues involved in communicating across cultures. The final chapter provides an overview of performance management and training evaluation, although it omits any discussion of the role of incentivization and the impact this may have on call-center performance.

The book is well researched and extensively referenced. It is an ambitious attempt to provide a comprehensive yet pragmatic guide to the topic. However,the breadth of coverage means that some minor aspects are treated only lightly and, in places, the book would benefit from tighter editing to ensure a more consistent balance between practicality and academic rigor. Additionally, since the key references pre-date the recession, the book contains no discussion of the pressures that may have been introduced as a result of the economic downturn.

Taken as a whole, the book provides an authoritative overview of learning and development in this fast-moving and dynamic industry. As such, contact-center trainers who wish to ground their work in solid research are likely to find much of interest and benefit in the book.

Reviewed by Rob Palethorpe, Rob Palethorpe Training, Wrexham, UK.

A longer version of this review was originally published inIndustrial and Commercial Training, Vol. 41 No. 7, 2009.