Hotlines Video Workbook
Developed by Eve Ash
Gower Publishing
Tel +44(0)1252 331551
£350 per single video
£3500 series of 12 videos

'Hotlines' is a series of videos covering the skills to help call centre operators. It is filmed in call centres in Australia and features call centre staff as they interact with a variety of customer situations.

'Hotlines' consists of 12 videos that claims to improve motivation, professionalism, call skills and customer service. Each video is 11-16 minutes long and comes with a self-paced workbook. The workbook means the video can be used either for group training or individual development.

It is aimed at new recruits, experienced operators or at team leaders wishing to improve their coaching skills. It does cover a wide range of skills ranging from 'Communicating Clearly' to 'Managing Anger and Abuse'.

The sample workbook I received with the preview video contains some good exercises and fundamental structures for handling callers. Answers to the exercises are provided for self-assessment.

However as a call centre training consultant, this is a training resource I will not be using. The video copy supplied was poor in sound and picture quality. The Australian vocal inflection would not set the right intonation for UK operators. The main problem with the video however is the continual use of habitual words and phrases, which may indeed irritate call centre customers. It certainly irritated me. Even the call centre trainers repetitively used non-words such as basically and actually - bad practice which sets a poor example. The filmed team leader/operator coaching sessions were also insufficient to clarify best practice for the video users.

Wilma Taggart Associates
Training & Development
wtaggart@sol.co.uk

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