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The essential pillars of customer relationship training
Maxime Santilli (Sqwad) :” In your opinion, what are the pillars of training, whether they are initial training or continuing education in order to be able to support teams of advisors?”
Salima (One Love Management) : “The first thing in my opinion is always collaboration, it's working together.”
According to our expert, the pillars of training are based primarily on collaborative work. She insists on the importance of involving existing employees in the design of training courses to benefit from their feedback: “Collaboration is essential, especially not deciding alone what we want to transmit to new collaborators”. Then, according to her, a mentoring system is crucial to support new employees throughout their integration. Practical practice, in real conditions, must be preferred for training to be effective. Salima also emphasizes the importance of continuous evaluation, on the spot during the training, but also several months later, in order to measure the assimilation of skills and to adjust the course if necessary. Finally, she recalls that follow-up must involve not only trainers, but also managers and HR, in a collaborative approach that extends up to six months after the training.
Customer culture: the foundation of a successful experience
Maxime Santilli (Sqwad) : “We often talk about customer experience, but when it comes to customer culture, do you have any tips to give?”
For Salima, customer culture is a fundamental element that must be present from the moment of recruitment, ensuring that employees adhere to the image, values and vision of the company. It is important that each actor in the organization embodies this culture so that it “flows through the veins” of everyone, thus facilitating work at the service of the customer. The training must then deepen this culture by making advisors experts not only in the product or service, but also in after-sales support, in order to ensure complete follow-up.
“Culture must be coherent” explains the expert. Customer culture should not be a simple discourse, but should be translated into concrete expression in daily practices, such as product availability, managerial proximity, or even the way in which advisors communicate with customers. This culture is also expressed in quality requirements, regularly evaluated by managers and quality coaches, who measure whether behaviors reflect company values. Finally, customer culture is based on a collective approach, with constant reflection on values and their embodiment on a daily basis, in all actions and exchanges with customers.
Distance learning: tools, micro-learning and personalization
Maxime Santilli (Sqwad) : “Compared to what you are currently doing, in the field of training, initial or continuing, at a distance, how can we set it up?”
Salima (One Love Management) : “In distance learning, a lot of things will come into play. The various tools used, the micro-learning part. And what's more, it's more and more personalized today with AI.”
Distance learning is based on a balance between several modalities and tools adapted to the needs of employees. Salima highlights the importance of personalized micro-learning, often enriched by artificial intelligence, which makes it possible to precisely identify everyone's needs. She also insists on the hybrid format, combining autonomy and collective dynamics: “A day of training must be dynamic, you must use different methods to maintain attention.”
To do this, it is essential to alternate between short virtual classroom sessions, practical exercises to be completed, and regular individual moments of 15 to 30 minutes with the trainer. These personal exchanges are essential for employees to feel valued and supported, especially at a distance where you can feel isolated.
The RC expert also recalls that human contact should not be left solely to the trainer: “The person who recruited must also intervene once a week to check in and support the employee.” This collective and human follow-up is key to guaranteeing the commitment and success of distance learning.
Complicity between trainers and managers: a committee for success
Maxime Santilli (Sqwad) : “You talk about complicity frequently. We've talked a lot about advisors, how does the complicity between trainers and management teams happen?”
Salima (One Love Management) : “I am coming back (...) to the organization of a training committee. This makes it possible to have a managerial ritual where, in fact, HR, training officers, trainers and managers are brought together (...) The idea is really to have something alive, but where everyone in the company has a voice.”
For the specialist, the complicity between trainers and managers is based above all on a clear organization and a collective framework, in particular through the establishment of a training committee bringing together HR, trainers and managers. This makes it possible to keep managers involved in the content and evolution of training courses, and to integrate their feedback, for example on customer cases that are sometimes insufficiently addressed. Salima explains: “It really allows local managers to have a role to play in these training committees.”
During the training, managers mainly intervene at the end of the course, in particular to present the organization of the team and the managerial rituals (monthly interviews, weekly meetings, quality circles). These moments allow employees to better project themselves, to get to know their manager, and to facilitate the transition between trainer and manager via a short individual interview. Our expert underlines that this transfer is key: “Well, now I'm entrusting it to you, it's yours.”
Finally, she insists on the importance of caring support as soon as the employee arrives, in a context that is often full of emotions and stress. She recalls that these are “the little touches, these moments of listening, these moments of encouragement” that create real complicity and leave a lasting impression on the employee.
Professionalization of the customer advisor profession
Maxime Santilli (Sqwad) : “At Sqwad, our average agent age is 36. I find it super interesting because compared to other BPOs, we are on an older average age. What do you think of this professionalization of the sector, you who have had a 25-year career in this profession?”
Salima (One Love Management) :“What I think is that it's a very good thing because it's kind of my main focus today. It is precisely to promote the jobs of remote customer advisors. It is a job that is particularly close to my heart.”
Salima is very excited about this development. Indeed, if this job is particularly close to her heart, it is not only because it marked the beginning of her career, but also because it offers a unique wealth of relationships, full of surprises, human encounters and challenges.
The trainer insists on the benefits of professional maturity, stressing that older agents have better emotional management, stress and interpersonal relationships. They are often more stable, more autonomous profiles and able to take a step back in the face of a dissatisfied customer: “At 36, you don't take it for yourself. You are aware that he is targeting the brand.”
This evolution also promotes greater loyalty, in a sector where turnover remains high. At the same time, Salima defends a modern vision of management, oriented towards the empowerment of teams: less direct supervision, more accountability. According to her, it also allows advisers to find their own style, which humanizes customer relationships and avoids standardization.
Finally, it also highlights a fundamental aspect: knowing yourself better allows you to better embody your role, and the more you mature, the more you are able to reveal your uniqueness in the service of customer relationships.
Managing turnover: the importance of the employee experience
Maxime Santilli (Sqwad): “With your experience, how do you manage turnover? How can you support an employee so that they can never leave a BPO or an advertiser?”
Salima (One Love Management): “I don't have the method so that he never leaves (...) an employee who feels good in the organization, who has evolved (...) and who is perhaps offered a more interesting position, I only want to support him”.
According to Salima, you can't talk about employee retention without seriously focusing on the quality of their experience within the company. This goes well beyond simple comfort at work: it is a subtle balance between managerial quality, the tools available, the team climate and above all, the recognition of the role that everyone plays in collective success.
She particularly insists on one point: all too often, we examine customer satisfaction under the microscope — with surveys, verbatims, recommendation scores — but at no time do we ask the advisor if he or she experienced this interaction well. Was the relationship smooth? Did he have the right tools? Did he find support at the right time? “We challenge employees about the quality of the customer relationship, but we forget to ask them if they feel good about it.” And this gap, in the long run, can weaken commitment.
Salima defends an approach based on listening and accountability. For her, an employee who feels heard, useful and supported in their skills development is much more likely to stay. She speaks of a “contract of trust” to be updated constantly, through dialogue, the adaptation of tools, the clarity of managerial rituals and the recognition of work done. Because, as she often says: “An employee who is listened to is a committed employee.”
The impact of artificial intelligence on customer relationships
Maxime Santilli (Sqwad): “AI is also coming fast (...) several years ago. But now, with generative AI, we are still on another level, an acceleration. How do you see things for agents, advisors and also management teams?”
Salima (One Love Management) : “So I have a relatively simple vision, I very clearly think that AI will not replace emotional and intuitive intelligence.”
According to the trainer, artificial intelligence can never replace a fundamental dimension of the job of customer advisor: emotional and intuitive intelligence. ” Intuition is what makes all the richness of a human exchange; it is what allows an advisor, beyond scripts, tools and processes, to feel what his client is going through and to respond to it in a fair and authentic way ”, she affirms. This capacity, the result of experience, training, but also of the repetition of interactions, remains deeply human.
She also emphasizes that the role of the manager is to help each advisor not to fall into automatic situations, especially when fatigue or a series of difficult interactions weigh on them. For her, each new contact should be welcomed as a surprise, with a fresh perspective: “Trust yourself as much as I trust you,” she likes to remind her teams.
While AI can clearly come to relieve some simple tasks, Salima has a reservation: by dint of delegating all exchanges “with low perceived value” to automation, there is a risk of dehumanizing the profession and saturating advisors with only complex, emotionally heavier cases. ” We forget that a “simple” call can also be a moment of breath during an advisor's day, or a decisive point of contact for a customer ready to commit.”, she explains.
It also warns against the illusion of winning without consequences for teams. For Salima, any automation strategy must be accompanied by transparent communication on the short, medium and long-term impacts: which positions will evolve? Which ones are going to disappear? What training is required? And above all: how do we support employees, whether they stay or leave.
For her, this applies as much to internal employees as to those offshore:” They are our colleagues today. Maybe not tomorrow. But we have a responsibility to them as well. ”
Finally, while she recognizes the value of AI in the service of advisors, she also sees it as an opportunity to positively transform managerial practices. ” Less control, more autonomy. Less infantilization, more trust. AI can help us rethink management on production platforms, provided it is given this role. ”
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