A Call for Speakers will go out to the QATC membership this spring, and the agenda will be available in June 2024. You can review the 2023 agenda below to see typical topics covered in our event.
Draft Agenda
QATC Annual Conference
September 26-28, 2023
Monday, September 25
2:30-5:00 p.m. – Registration – Volunteer Ballroom Foyer
3:00-4:00 p.m. – Complimentary Pre-Conference Session
Roadmap to the QATC Annual Conference. New to the QATC conference? Come to this fun and interactive session to hear how to make the most of your time at this event. Review the agenda and learn how these key topics will give you specific takeaways for your organization and help you with business decisions down the road. – Speaker: Justin Robbins, MetricSherpa – Bredesen Room
4:00-5:00 p.m. – Complimentary Pre-Conference Session
Speed Networking. Everyone has heard of Speed Dating. Attend this session for a variation that will help you start off the conference with a bunch of new friends! In our Speed Networking session, you will spend just a few minutes getting to know some of your fellow attendees, and exchange business cards so that you can talk more over the next few days and keep in touch after the conference is over. – Ryman 1
Tuesday, September 26
7:30-9:00 a.m. – Registration & Continental Breakfast – Volunteer Ballroom Foyer
9:00-10:30 a.m. – Welcome & Keynote Address – Volunteer Ballroom
The NEW Contact Center Career. The evolution of contact centers has transformed the nature of the contact center career, altering the expectations and challenges faced by both employees and employers. In the past, contact center jobs offered stability, benefits, and opportunities for growth, albeit mostly in administrative roles or mathematically driven workflow analytics. However, the landscape has shifted. Today, contact centers grapple with difficulties in meeting staffing needs and maintaining reasonable occupancy rates. To understand why this is happening, we must examine whether the position requirements have changed or if our expectations of the environment have shifted. To find the answer, we need to reflect on the changes that have occurred within ourselves as consumers, employees, leaders, and members of our communities. – Speaker: Penny Tootle, Utilligent
10:45 a.m.-12:00 p.m. – Workshops
Defining the Most Challenging Quality Standards: Tone, Empathy, Professionalism, and Ownership. How many times have you listened to a call where the agent did everything right, but they sounded all wrong? Part of the problem is, while we may have soft skills included on our quality forms, we do not have clear and objective behavior-based definitions that explain how to communicate to the customer. In this session, join in the discussion of how to define some of the more challenging soft skills in your Quality Standard Definitions Documents (QSDD). – Speaker: Deelee Freeman, Call Center Training Associates – Bredesen Room
Expanding Your QA Role to Superhero: Finding Big Picture Problems and Fixing Them. At last year’s QATC annual conference, we discussed using data and smart QA practices to help pinpoint problematic contacts, and then their solutions. This year, we will discuss something similar, but with the added twist of considering other contact types than inbound phone to these analyses. But we will still discuss ways to elevate the role of a QA team. There will be graphs and analyses, but we promise to make them fun and insightful! – Speaker: Ric Kosiba – Ryman 1
Home Alone: Training without Trainers. Are you a team of one without a dedicated training team? Are you a trainer but you have far more students than a proper ratio will support? Do you have seasonal ramps that require far more training resources than you have today? This session will help you understand the basics of how to develop and deploy a Subject Matter Expert (SME) supported training model. The aim of this session is to help answer the question how can I train with fewer trainers, when SMEs are not always good at instruction? Come to this session as we journey through how to support an SME model. – Speaker: Marshall Lee, ttec – Ryman 2
Is Coaching Just for Coaches? Coaching is a key component in a Quality Assurance program – and for good reason! The skills and techniques used during these conversations serves to drive performance, but they can also serve a higher purpose. A conversation that you’ve long forgotten may well be remembered by your coachee for many years to come as a pivotal moment in their career. The power to have those significant conversations lies within us all – in this session, we’ll explore how to identify conversation triggers that take us down the coaching rabbit hole! -- Speaker: Chris Mounce, Evaluagent – Ryman 3
A Recipe for Contact Center Success from a Competitive BBQ Judge. In this session, attendees will learn from Justin Robbins, a seasoned competitive BBQ judge who has mastered creating mouth-watering BBQ dishes that keep people returning for more. But what does this have to do with customer experience, you ask? Everything. Like a successful BBQ recipe, creating a winning contact center strategy requires a careful blend of ingredients, patience, attention to detail, and consistency. Justin will share how the principles that make a BBQ dish successful are the same principles that can make a contact center strategy successful. You'll discover how to spice up your service recipe with the right mix of customer insights, empathy, and a customer-centric mindset. Justin will also share tips on monitoring your contact center "cooking" progress to ensure it's always on track and ready to serve. At the end of this session, you'll leave feeling inspired and equipped with a winning contact center recipe to wow your customers and set your business apart from the rest. Take advantage of this unique opportunity to learn from a BBQ judge and elevate your CX game to the next level. – Speaker: Justin Robbins, MetricSherpa – McKissack 1
12:00-1:30 p.m. – Luncheon & Keynote – Volunteer Ballroom
The Fight Against Friction: Bringing Harmony To The Workplace. A big part of Customer Experience work is the daily battle against friction. Voice of customer identifies the main causes of friction. Experience design brings intelligent ways to eliminate that friction. Experience management unites the organization together to prevent future friction. As we succeed in stabilizing this foundation, words like engagement, innovation, and loyalty suddenly have room to exist. It's time to awaken our under-cover Friction Fighters. These are people scattered throughout the organization with the superpower of thinking beyond themselves. These are legacy builders who can look past the here and now. They have the same dream as us of making tomorrow a little bit better…turning the tide of negativity and restoring hope. What they need from you is guidance on how. This session will provide suggestions on how to best identify and eliminate organizational friction. Nate will introduce "The Code of the Friction Fighter" as well as providing several best practices to align the organization on improving the lives of customers and employees alike. – Speaker: Nate Brown, CX Accelerator
1:30-2:45 p.m. – Workshops
Exploring AI to Elevate Customer Service Quality and Efficiency. With all of the talk about AI and how it has changed the landscape of creative businesses and academia, isn’t it high time we considered how we might leverage OpenAI in existing customer service platforms to enhance the quality of correspondence interactions and training materials? With the right focus, a call center quality and training professional’s natural tendency to focus on standardized protocols is what is needed to develop solid quality standards when integrating AI into business solutioning. By harnessing dynamic AI solutions, organizations can elevate their customer service experiences, improve response accuracy, and streamline training processes. – Speaker: Penny Tootle, Utilligent – Bredesen Room
Extending Quality Programs to Non-Phone Channels. Applying the exact same processes as a traditional contact center may not be the correct way to drive value and quality from non-phone channels. This panel session will have speakers from different organizations share best practices in monitoring and evaluating customer interactions across e-mail, chat, and social media contacts. We will highlight the most effective ways to monitor and evaluate written interactions, and will answer questions from attendees. – Panelists: Allyson Diffley, Cashapp/Block, & Dawn Mangelsen, Cox Automotive Group – Ryman 1
Back to the Drawing Board: Using Telestration to Increase Learner Engagement. Do you want to spice up your online courses, webinars, videos, and presentations with some visual magic? Then you need to learn about telestration! Telestration is the art of drawing on a screen or video to make your point clear, engaging, and memorable. In this breakout session, you will discover how telestration can transform your learning design, development, and delivery. You will learn how to use telestration tools and techniques to show and tell your learners what they need to know and do. You will see examples of telestration in action, and understand how to add telestration to your setup at various price points. Don’t miss this opportunity to unleash your creativity and boost your learning impact with telestration! – Speaker: Jon Snyder, Renown Health – Ryman 2
Voice of Customer Engine That Actually Moves. So much is changing today in the CX field, but perhaps no discipline as quickly and dramatically as Voice of Customer (VoC). Our customers are offering up feedback in such different ways and in such different places than they were even five years ago. Sadly, for most organizations, the "VoC Engine" (to use a Jeanne Bliss term) has become tremendously out-of-date. It's time for a serious tune-up! As service leaders, there is almost nothing more important we can do for the business than effectively capture the customer's voice and drive meaningful change with it. This session will equip you with a new mentality and new tools when it comes to all things customer feedback! Learn how to modernize your VoC initiative to "listen where your customers are talking;" establish a centralized "VoC Engine" that is capable of accelerating CX transformation; create journey maps that are NOT a dead end; and connect employees to customers in exciting ways. – Speaker: Nate Brown, CX Accelerator – Ryman 3
Redefining Success by Unlocking Your Quality Program’s Potential. In today's competitive world, exceptional customer experience is the name of the game and is the focus of most contact centers. Is your quality and coaching program aligned to these goals? No matter what stage of maturity your quality program is at, learn how to unleash its potential with a step-by-step plan that advances your program today, tomorrow and the future. Delve into the outcomes of the latest quality program benchmark study, discover best practices, and explore innovative AI-driven approaches to drive your program forward. Prepare to transform your customer experience strategy and propel your contact center to new heights of success. – Speaker: Lauren Maschio & Jaime Standridge, NICE – McKissack 1
2:45-3:45 p.m. – Afternoon Break – Volunteer Ballroom
3:45-5:00 p.m. – Workshops
Scoreless Quality Program - Tracking for Behaviors, Trends & Wins. Do you have a scoreless quality program or are you thinking of moving in this direction? A scoreless Quality Improvement program has many benefits in placing the focus on advancing the growth and development discussions versus debating the score. In this session, we will be discussing ways to create a workflow to track trends, behaviors, topics and interactions within the means and resources you currently have available. Hear about takeaway wins to bring into your Quality Improvement 1:1 discussions with representatives, providing management support and advancing your training. – Speaker: Michelle Chevalier, EquiTrust Life Insurance Company – Bredesen Room
More With Less: Leveraging Technology to Drive Experience. The pandemic ushered in three years of intense focus on Customer Experience – driven in great part by improved agent quality. As we've emerged from the COVID era to a slowing economy, many organizations find themselves in cost-reduction mode. Yet the proverbial genie has left the bottle when it comes to customer expectations of service and support. It is in this context that various technologies – led by a host of AI, ML, and LLM solutions – have grabbed the headlines and captured the attention of the C-Suite. Join Doug Rabold for an exploration of how we can leverage tools like these to deliver qualitatively against enhanced customer expectations while reducing support costs. – Speaker: Doug Rabold, Bold Ray Consulting – Ryman 1
We’re Working From Home – Now What? Most, if not all, of us had to figure out working from home in 2020. We’ve done it for over two years now, but it still doesn’t feel like we’re nailing this. Tech outage policies, maintaining company culture, and how to keep employees engaged are just some of the topics that have to be considered to create a long-term successful work from home environment. Come hear from a panel that’s given some thought as to what we do now. – Panelists: Nate Brown, CX Accelerator, & Craig Brasington, Idemia -- Ryman 2
Generation WHAT? Understanding Generations and Their Impact on the Modern Contact Center. Gen Z, Baby Boomers, Millennials, Gen X – some have names and letters? The years change, and what is a Xennial? Does any of this matter? What is a Yeet? The most awkward moments can come at a holiday meal when you sit around and the now grown up kids are home from college, and their parents are sitting with them, and the grandparents and everyone tries to connect; or it can happen in a Zoom – or in a shift bid. Generations and context matter because the world evolves – change is rapid, but the human experience is constant. In this session we will talk about some of the things that impact how each of the main cohorts in the workforce today can influence what you do, and how they impact your role and even your work as a team. No single session can cover all of generational theory, but we can equip you with some strategies to have some meaningful moments, give some understanding to what the current definitions are, and maybe avoid some cringe. – Speaker: Marshall Lee, ttec – Ryman 3
Unlocking the Power of a Best-in-Class Total Quality Program. In this session, Cigna, a leading global health services company, details its journey to automate quality, deliver real-time agent assistance, and optimize the use of analytics to create a data-driven ecosystem that leverages the power of human and digital capabilities to improve quality and performance. Tapping into the power of such a vast data set, the organization has evolved its quality program to a risk-based model. As a result, it can deliver more timely and specific feedback, enabling faster improvement to tools, processes, and behavior to elevate both advocate and customer experience. Hear how it increased the scope of reviews to 100 percent of calls, automated a large portion of what was a human program, increased accuracy and efficiency, improved speed of agent proficiency, and more! – Moderator: Tricia Manning, Verint – Speaker: Chris McCormack, Cigna – McKissack 1
5:00-7:00 p.m. – Networking Reception – Volunteer Ballroom
Wednesday, September 27
7:45-9:00 a.m. – Breakfast – Volunteer Ballroom
9:00-10:15 a.m. – Workshops
What Works Best: Quality Evaluation Form Design Discussion Forum. If you want to learn how other call centers have designed their quality forms, this session is for you! Participants will be placed in small groups and given quality form-related topics to discuss and share what has worked best in their centers. Next, the group as a whole will create a master list of best practices. Some of the topics will include: Form layout (i.e., number of attributes and categories), scoring, use of auto-fail, bonus points, and how to make quality more objective. – Moderator: Deelee Freeman, Call Center Training Associates – Facilitators: Chaunte Johnson & Dawn Mangelsen, Cox Automotive, & Erick Sawyer, inhabitIQ – Bredesen Room
Your Coaches Need Coaching, Too! Coaches play a key role in the success of your employees. Has your company adopted a particular coaching model and have all your coaches been trained? What do you do beyond that training to ensure your coaches are using the model properly and encouraging the reps for good work while also lining up plans for opportunities to improve? The panelists for this session will share what they’re doing and provide insight that could work in your contact center. – Panelists: Gerry Barber, Contact Management Solutions, & Penny Reynolds – Ryman 1
Remote Quality – Measuring Behaviors Unique to the Remote Environment Without Being Too Prescriptive. How has the remote work environment shaped the approach and outcome of your quality program? In this session, we will talk about the importance of focusing on key elements that truly impact the customer experience while leaving behind outdated indicators tied to on-prem conventions. We will discuss the opportunities that remote quality programs have to highlight behaviors to benefit the company that were previously difficult to consistently measure. Ultimately, the goal will be to provide participants with actionable insight into how quality programs can adapt to accommodate and elevate the advantages of the hybrid work environment. – Speaker: Penny Tootle, Utilligent – Ryman 2
It’s all about Balance – Is There a Secret Formula? Frontline leaders are constantly challenged with balancing service goals with the development of the employee. Is there a way to achieve both? Hear from industry leaders share their tips to maximize training and development plans along with the customer experience. – Panelists: Michelle Chevalier, Equitrust, & Hope Gay, Sentry Insurance – Ryman 3
Call Center Chronicles: A Journey to a Quality Culture. Creating an effective quality practice can be a bit of a puzzle. Knowing where to start, who needs to be involved, and what elements to include can be a bit of a mystery. We will explore the essential steps and strategies to foster a culture of quality. By emphasizing the significance of a quality-driven culture, we can enhance customer satisfaction, boost employee engagement, to drive long-term business success. Join us as we delve into the key elements necessary for creating a culture of quality. – Speaker: Therese Fruth & Jennifer Docken, Calabrio – McKissack 1
10:15-10:45 a.m. – Break – Volunteer Ballroom Foyer
10:45 a.m.-12:00 p.m. – Workshops
Quality Assurance Program: It Takes a Village to Build It. To create and build a robust Quality Assurance program, it takes the investment of various areas within the department or even the full organization. There is a great deal of planning in advance, including testing, modifications, evaluation and then the fun part, implementation. Find out what the Quality Assurance & Control group, with the Asset Recovery department at Security Service FCU, learned while working on their program, and how it does take a village to build it. – Speaker: Debra Manske, Security Service Federal Credit Union – Ryman 1
Promoting Inclusivity & Wellness in a Training Class. Come to this session for a discussion on prioritizing wellness and inclusivity, which are essential in a healthy training environment. This improves employee morale, which boosts retention. In this lecture, the four main concepts used to encourage this are: establishing connection through communication, making mental health a priority, providing agency through accountability, and setting an intentional rhythm for fun and games. – Speaker: Maleeka Holdson, Vibrant Emotional Health – Ryman 2
The Pizza Party Problem. One of the biggest challenges in the contact center is inspiring frontline employees to deliver exceptional service. Is it because they want to fail in their job? Of course not! But then, why do so many incentive programs fail to produce sustainable results? In this session, you'll learn the most common mistakes made when offering incentives, gain insight into effective ways to drive performance and have an opportunity to share and discover reward and recognition best practices from other contact center leaders. – Speaker: Justin Robbins, MetricSherpa – Ryman 3
A Panel Discussion on Today’s Hybrid Work Environment. The future of work is no doubt comprised of a hybrid work environment which has a lasting impact on contact centers as well as the quality assurance and training teams supporting new and tenured agents. In our panel, we will discuss real questions and provide real answers to hybrid work, to include people, processes, and technology challenges. Going beyond just the pros and cons, the panel will focus on humanizing hybrid work and rethinking the employee and customer experience. Panel members will provide you with keys to succeed in a hybrid world and a roadmap to help your teams do things differently to support a hybrid workforce. – Panelist: Erick Sawyer, inhabitIQ – Bredesen Room
Making Quality Work for Tomorrow’s Agent. The role of the agent is changing rapidly. AI and automation are driving more complex interactions and higher customer expectations. To stay ahead of the curve, contact centers must be prepared to empower agents with the knowledge, skills, and behaviors they need to succeed. During this interactive discussion, attendees will have the opportunity to hear how their peers are meeting this challenge by implementing new and innovative approaches to coaching, quality, and training. -- Speaker: Corey Mustard, Centrical – McKissack 1
12:00-1:30 p.m. – Luncheon & Contact Center Jeopardy – Volunteer Ballroom
1:30-2:45 p.m. – Workshops
Hiring & Retaining the Best Quality Assurance Specialists. How do you hire the best quality assurance specialists? Come to this session to learn the characteristics that make a good QA specialist, and then continue the discussion about where the QA discipline can take someone beyond that entry role. We will also discuss how to measure the performance of our QA team and the critical KPIs we should be reviewing. – Speakers: Allyson Diffley, Cashapp/Block, & Craig Brasington, Idemia Identity & Security – Ryman 1
Advancing Your Relationship Between Training & Quality to Improve New Hire Training. Learn how your Training and Quality Assurance teams can connect after each training class to discuss how the new hires are developing as they transition to their new role, along with the opportunities, trends, and wins. Hear how to find ways to improve future training classes and support the current new hires as they transition to the contact center. – Speakers: Michelle Chevalier, EquiTrust Life Insurance Company, & Hope Gay, Sentry Insurance – Ryman 2
Auto-Scoring: Then What? You have taken the first step to automate your quality evaluation process. Now it's time to create more efficiency in other quality management processes. Come learn how to automate your coaching process to save time and money, yet still invest in your people. – Speaker: Chrissy Calabrese, Playvox – Ryman 3
Who Does the Coaching? Coaching is the quintessential skill builder in any quality-conscious service delivery program. The question customer service leaders continue to wrestle with is where does this role really belong? Our time together will explore some excellent examples of successful team structures that offer a variety of creative and common coaching structures. This session will also share lessons learned to avoid the pitfalls of “we’ve always done it this way.” – Panelists: Pam Bode, BC BS of Michigan, & Chaunte Johnson, Cox Automotive Group – Bredesen Room
Optimize Quality & Training Using Actionable Analytics. This session explores leveraging analytics/business intelligence (BI) & automated quality management (AQM) tools within your ecosystem that can optimize your quality & training. Learn ways to effectively use BI and AQM for improved quality evaluations across 100% of interactions, uncover data backed insights for improved training delivery, coaching, curriculum development, training simulation, alerts, etc... Empower your supervisors, trainers, QA staff, and leaders to simply and effectively uncover trends, allowing them to be more agile and dynamic in their roles. Actual methods and use cases will be discussed, which are sure to spark ideas of ways to deploy such an approach within your own ecosystem. – Speakers: Jeffrey Guymon & Yalim Eristiren, SESTEK – McKissack 1
2:45-3:45 p.m. – Ice Cream Social with the Sponsors – Volunteer Ballroom
3:45-5:00 p.m. – Workshops
Five Most Common Mistakes Made in Quality Monitoring. Are you finding your current quality monitoring program is not making a significant impact on your agents and call center? If you are like many call centers, quality scores are high but customer satisfaction is not. Or perhaps your concern is that frontline agents see quality as punitive, so they resist feedback provided by quality coaches and, as a result, their performance is not improving because of your efforts in quality monitoring. In this session, we will examine the top five most common mistakes made in quality and help you identify what needs re-working with your own quality program. – Speaker: Deelee Freeman, Call Center Training Associates – Bredesen Room
40/20 Ideas in 60 Minutes – Coaching, Rewards, & Recognition. Yes, you read it correctly! 40 ideas will come from the panel and 20 ideas will come from you, the participants, instead of all 60 ideas coming from the panel. Plan to learn what others are doing and to share what you are doing. Come prepared to share your success stories or even things you tried that didn’t work. – Moderator: Penny Reynolds – Panelists: Nate Brown, CX Accelerator, Pam Bode, BC BS of Michigan, & Dawn Mangelsen, Cox Automotive Group – Ryman 1
English Around the World: Enhancing Contact Center Agent Comprehension. A large part of many contact center agents’ workload is speaking, processing, and understanding oral, over-the-phone communication in English. Whether callers are based in the U.S. or elsewhere, agents are likely to encounter different “Englishes” on the job, including those who speak English as a second language. This training will examine some of the main varieties of English spoken in the United States and how contact center agents can train their ear to better comprehend them. This module will give an overview of the main differences in the English varieties covered including phonological, lexical, regional, and ethnic and/or cultural differences. – Speaker: Sarah Stockler-Rex, Martii – Ryman 2
Happy Agents = Happy Customers = Happy Business. Agents are the greatest asset in a Contact Center. A lot is demanded from them, both from the business and the customer. Are we really doing enough to motivate agents? Gamification is becoming more and more prevalent in today’s world – but get it wrong, and it’ll have the opposite effect. Get it right, and you have an engaged, motivated, and inspired community of agents. In this session we’ll explore how to create a gamification program to make agents the center of your success. – Speaker: Chris Mounce, Evaluagent – Ryman 3
Key Behaviors to Drive FCR and the Cost of Inaction. The basic formula for first call resolution has always been easy to understand; however, the definitions for “resolution” often vary between businesses. Resolution measurement questions most often asked include: Is my data structured to support this measurement?; How do I define “contact” and “resolution”; and From whose perspective do we consider resolution? It is vital to gain agreement within both your quality and intelligence programs on what your definition of a resolution is. This complexity also extends to what types of contacts you should include when measuring the entire customer journey. Join Stephanie Taylor, VP of Client Service, to see if your FCR holds up to proper measurement, review case studies, and uncover the cost of inaction if you are not utilizing this metric. This session will discuss reducing calls, reducing costs, and getting your agents to resolve and serve more on each contact. – Speaker: Stephanie Taylor, BPA Quality – McKissack 1
6:15 p.m. – Depart for Evening Event – Hotel Lobby
6:30-9:30 p.m. – Evening Event at Margaritaville
Thursday, September 28
7:45-8:45 a.m. – Breakfast – Volunteer Ballroom
8:45-10:00 a.m. – Workshops
Call Calibration: Achieving Quality Scoring Consistency. You can have the most advanced call recording technology, evaluation tools and a dedicated quality staff but without consistency in scoring, the integrity of your entire quality program will be compromised. Call calibration is vital to the health of your quality program, but so many find their calibration sessions frustrating and not necessarily helpful in taking consistency to the next level. This session provides everything you need to know about setting up an effective Call Calibration Program, how to measure calibration, and most importantly how to run a successful calibration session where participants are engaged and committed to the consistent application of quality standards to call behaviors. – Speaker: Deelee Freeman, Call Center Training Associates – Bredesen Room
Using Workforce Management Data to Improve Quality Assurance. Do your QA and WFM teams spend much time working together? Interestingly, WFM teams have some data that can be helpful for QA. For example, a WFM process called capacity planning can be useful to help QA and contact center management plan for extra activities such as training and can help find additional QA resources. In this session, we will discuss ways to use data to help find contact center problems that QA can help fix. – Speaker: Ric Kosiba – Ryman 1
60 Ideas in 60 Minutes – Training. This fast-paced session with a panel of vendor experts will provide you with a practice idea each minute. This is not a sales pitch for products. These are the vendor experts that can provide tips on how to get the most out of a WFM investment from the early planning stages, implementation, training, and ongoing use. This format will give you some last minute tips to take home and implement immediately! – Ryman 2
Embracing Change. CHANGE! We face change from every direction. So how do we embrace change? How do we prepare ourselves to adapt and thrive in a new environment? Come to this interactive session to learn about the human aspect of embracing change and some practical principles to embrace change. – Panelists: Marshall Lee, ttec, & Erick Sawyer, inhabitIQ – Ryman 3
The Power of Community Learning. The way people learn has changed so much. We cannot be overly dependent on our formal training programs to equip people with the knowledge and skills they need to be successful. We need new training levers that are present in the moment...making employees smarter as they navigate their everyday lives. One of the most powerful of these “learning levers” is our desire to learn inside of a meaningful community. The reality is that we learn better and faster as part of a group that we trust. Learn how to establish your own organic learning cohorts and foster a culture of peer-to-peer learning including how to align training to the intrinsic motivators of relationship and meaningful work, a simple framework for community learning, and how to include customers into your community learning process for an enhanced Customer Experience. – Speaker: Nate Brown, CX Accelerator – McKissack 1
10:00-10:15 a.m. – Break – Volunteer Ballroom Foyer
10:15-11:30 a.m. – Workshops
60 Ideas in 60 Minutes – Quality Assurance. This fast-paced session with a panel of your peers will have you writing furiously as you try to capture an idea a minute on paper! This format will give you some last minute tips to take home and implement immediately – if you can catch them all! – Bredesen Room
Navigating Training Facilitator Challenges: Strategies for Success and Growth. Some common challenges that many training facilitators face include feeling that every facilitation is their first, trying to be engaging and productive when facilitating virtually, and maintaining energy as a facilitator while presenting the same material over and over. However, if we are equipped with the right mindset and strategies, we can overcome these challenges and embrace our confidence and growth as facilitators. During this session, we will dive into some effective techniques to overcome the obstacles that can often derail the perfect training class. – Speaker: Tiffany Jefferson, Essendant – Ryman 1
How Should Training & Quality Assurance Be Aligned in an Organization? The Training and Quality Assurance groups work together hand-in-hand – trainers must be preparing agents to take calls and fulfill the mission of the organization, and QA is ensuring that the agents are doing the job. There should be continuous dialogue and strong bonds between these two groups. But what organizational structure works best? Hear from the panelists how their teams are aligned, and the pros and cons of QA and Training being together and apart from both a scoring and customer experience perspective. – Panelists: Hope Gay, Sentry Insurance, & Chaunte Johnson, Cox Automotive Group – Ryman 2
Surveying Your Agents to get Feedback. We survey our customers all the time to get their feedback on their experience and our service. But do we survey our agents so we hear about their experience with our organization? Come to this session to talk about the process, sample questions, and what to do with the results of an agent survey. – Panelist: Pam Bode, BC BS of Michigan – Ryman 3
11:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m. – Closing General Session – Volunteer Ballroom
Creating a Culture of Change Post-QATC. You are undoubtedly returning home with a head full of ideas following your experience at QATC. But, will you put those ideas into action and ensure that you don’t lose the excitement that you felt at the conference? In this closing session, Justin Robbins will share how to build momentum coming out of QATC and engage your team back at the office in exploring and implementing new ideas to improve quality and training. This will be a high-energy ending to our time together that will ensure you’re set up to succeed post-QATC. – Speaker: Justin Robbins, MetricSherpa
12:00 p.m. – 2023 QATC ends