CTP Speeds New-Hire Productivity for Datatel
In 2011, my partner and I at DataTel Solutions decided an internal initiative was needed to accurately train personnel new to the communications industry. It also needed to ensure new hires had the personality traits necessary to be an agent manager, sales engineer or back-office support person in our master agency. Additionally, we realized we needed to respond to the new paradigms of a changing work force. We needed a program like the Technology Channel Association‘s Certified Telecom Professional program.
CTP is the first industry trade association-sponsored certification program designed specifically for indirect sales agents. The certification program reinforces industry standards, technical concepts and business practices and is viewed within the industry as a critical step toward strengthening members business relationships. In the CTP program’s first year, more than 100 professionals have enrolled.
When we reviewed the program, we realized that online training that takes less than a day would enable trainees to start out with a knowledge base that exceeded 90 percent of what most communications sales professionals learn in their first three years in the industry. Plus, there are very few available training solutions other than junior college and for-profit technology schools both of which take more than a year and are significantly more expensive than the TCA certification program, which is $199.
That is why previously we only hired experienced staff, such as people who had worked for a carrier. Now, we can hire people new to the industry with the expectation that after completing the CTP training they will be accretive to the business fairly soon.
Take the case of one of our recent hires, Ronald, a 21-year-old graduate of California State University with a degree from the business schools entrepreneurship program. Ronald passed the 90-minute CTP exam on his first try. We now have him working the quote desk, as well as tracking all transactions in the provisioning process.
Margaret is another example. She came to Datatel from the health care industry and with advanced degrees but no experience in telecom. With CTP learning modules, she developed an understanding of the products Datatel sells daily. With this foundation, she is now learning the business applications requested by end customers.
Both Ronald and Margaret were effective in their first week delivering level-one support, taking the burden off senior staff. This compares to the alternative: on-the-job training. At Datatel, a new person without industry experience would shadow an existing agent manager for six months, then work level-one support and the quote desk another six months. After training for a full year, they would become an agent manager. With CTP, we saved about six months of training in which a tenured agent manager would have had to spend valuable time teaching Telecom 101″ to the new hire. For Datatel Solutions to pull an engineer from the field for two weeks to teach the CTP equivalent would cost 10 times more, not counting the lost productivity. By using the CTP program, we have eliminated the need for experienced and expensive staff members to take time from customer acquisition and retention to train new hires.
As a result of our early success with CTP, we plan to have the entire staff certified, which we will market as a differentiator from our master agent and direct sales competitors. Datatel also has plans to certify our top-performing agents, increasing the professionalism and knowledge base of everyone associated with our company. Certification proves to the end customer that the certified agent has taken the time to elevate their industry knowledge, and is committed to on-going industry education. TCA certification can be viewed like the REALTOR® designation as proof of professionalism and commitment to their craft.
The CTP program was designed with TCAs broad goal of advancing agent business relationships and to energize the indirect sales channel. From our experience, the cost of certification is very low with the payoffs being significant for both sales and back-office professionals that represent your business.
Jeff Ponts is executive vice president of
Datatel Solutions Inc
., a master agency he co-founded in early 2003 with his business partner, Daniel Langton. Previously, Ponts was a vice president and general manager at TelePacific Communications, where he was responsible for the Bay Area and Las Vegas markets with duties covering technical, administrative, and direct and channel sales. Ponts has more than 20 years of telecom experience with the majority of his experience in channel sales and management.
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