Redesigned Manager Ceritification Course

Hello everyone, welcome back to another Volley Rally. It's been a while since we've been on and I'm so happy to be joined by a familiar face today. Katie, welcome back to Volley Rally.

Thanks so much for having me. Appreciate it.

We know and love Katie. She's a familiar face on here, and I believe that the last time she was on here, we were talking about the Manager Certification course and the agent courses, and they have been redesigned, and there have been a lot of really cool changes since the last time that she was on. So Katie's here to tell us about those today. So let's go ahead and get started. What is the, the premise of redesigning the course?

Yeah, you bet. So, um, I will say, um, TBD on some upcoming or additional agent course offerings. So I'll probably hop on with you in the future to talk about those. Yeah. Um, but we adjusted the manager course. So we ran it for about a year with the previous format where it was 12 weeks and we would have a new cohort available every month and people would go through the 12 weeks. We got really good feedback on it, which was wonderful. But the biggest piece of feedback that I got from people who attended and took the course was, we really liked what we learned, but we want more volley knowledge, more volley how-tos. Because it was really more focused, the previous iteration, on what we might term more soft skills, being a better manager, being a better leader. We absolutely have some of those elements still. We do still talk about that. But what we adjusted it to includes more I would say Volley how-tos. So we also changed the format. So instead of having cohorts that start once a month, and if someone was interested, you know, they might need to wait up to a month to get started. We have a Ferris wheel style format. So truly anybody can join at any point. I have sessions every two— Yeah, and it makes it easier for people to hop in.

Yeah.

If you happen to miss a session because you're on vacation or something comes up, no problem. You can just catch it again when it happens next time. And so we now have 16 of those sessions that we're rotating through. We meet Tuesdays at 3 PM Eastern for about an hour. And we do have a session guide that I'd be happy, you know, to supply to anyone that would like it. We have, I would say, probably 2 to 3 sessions a month. Probably 30% of what I would deem more soft skills, those managerial concepts, those leadership concepts, and the other 70% is the Volley how-tos. It does not replace, or it's not intended to be a replacement for having their coach, their account manager. That person is still there. You're still having regular calls with them. They're still there to help you and answer questions. But this is more geared towards looking at some of the reporting in Volley, the admin menus, the different features, and walking through. This is how you interpret this information. This is how you can use this report. This is how you can use Pulse, that type of thing. So we have a bunch of different topics that are just interwoven in the 16 weeks.

Very cool. And this seems like, I mean, the, the Fierce Week Cycle is probably also a lot easier for you as well.

Yes.

Yeah. Because you're not having to keep track of, okay, what lesson is Is this cohort on today? And it's, yeah, so it's definitely probably an overall better experience for everybody involved. So I think that's a really cool addition. What would you say is the feedback you're getting now already just beginning?

Yeah, a lot of really good feedback. It's, you know, at the end of each session, I have a little Google form that people fill out. To let me know who was able to attend, first of all, because we do still have a certification track. If someone wants to get certified, they absolutely can. They would attend every session and then complete a final assessment. So that's still available. But I also have on that, on that form, you know, any feedback, what you learned. And we've only had 3 weeks so far. I just did the 3rd session yesterday. But the feedback I've had so far is, you know, even if I've been using Volley for a while, but I didn't know A, B, or C, or this was new to me, or I found out I was using it maybe not incorrectly, but not optimized to how I should be using it. So we have a mix of people who are brand new in their leadership roles to our— all the way to our, I would consider our power users who are Volley experts. So our hope is that everybody can get something out of it no matter where you're at.

And I think that's what's really cool about the addition of this course in general to what Volley provides to our customers, because Volley does so much and I mean, it's probably a majority of our users are not utilizing 100% of the platform's capabilities because it has so many capabilities. And your coach can assist you in whatever you need help with. But this shows you things you didn't even maybe know that you could need help with. So I think that's, I think that's really cool. And it's, it's such a valuable tool. And honestly, to think that a year ago and some change. We didn't even have this, you know. I'm sure some of your managers, especially ones that are like you're saying are super users, are probably like, God, I can't believe we went so long using Volley without even knowing this. Um, what about people who completed the manager certification course with the original design? Do you feel like they would benefit from potentially re-enrolling again You know, to now get the more volley-based knowledge from it.

Absolutely. And in fact, of our current group who's going through the Ferris wheel, I'd say about half, if not more, are people who are joining us again. Oh, that's awesome. To get— and yeah, it's been great. Not only, you know, certainly they can get a reiteration of some of those soft skills. I am changing some things and adding some new pieces of information so it's not, you know, the same thing over again. But we do have a lot of those folks joining us again because they were the ones that gave us the feedback that wanted some more of those volley how-tos. For those managers who have taken the course before, we are not charging them again. So we still have the $300 per seat for this iteration of the course. It's the same price it was before. Um, but it's per seat, and once you've done it, you can do it as long as we offer it. So, um, you know, they might as well hop in and, and sit in and be part of it. And of course, if they can't come to every session, then they won't. That's okay. Um, but hopefully they can, they can join when it makes sense and when they're able to.

Can you give us a, a little taste, some teasers of some specifics of things that you feature in the course now to maybe get some viewers excited about either enrolling or re-enrolling in the course.

Yeah, you bet. So we talk about in terms of Volley how-tos, we really looked at those areas where, and we kind of surveyed our team, you know, where are areas that when you have questions from accounts that, that you tend to revisit, you know, those same types of questions from your customers. So things like the admin screens, campaign attempt management, campaign performance, agent efficiency report, the heat report, Pulse is going to be a big one. What I'm going to cover next week in early May is we have in the last— oh, maybe we've had it for about a year now. We have what we call agent status rules, which helps a manager track how much time agents are spending in certain statuses when they're making calls, and that can help them be a better leader. So I'm going to talk to them about how to interpret that information and what it means. And, you know, I also want to leave room for anything new that comes up, any new features we release. So I'll be able to sprinkle those, those pieces in as well. So that'll be really helpful for us too. At the same time that they're hearing about these new releases from their coach, they can also come into the course and see it a little bit more, see it a little bit deeper, ask questions. And then in terms of the more soft skills, we still rely pretty heavily on the DiSC. We talk about that quite a bit. How to be a better leader, how to be more self-aware, how to be a better, you know, team member with your, with your, you know, your group as a whole, your, your team as a whole, how to create a really good strong company culture and a team culture. So we'll talk about those things. So really, if you can think of kind of the, the top 10 to 12 manager or admin areas. Of Volley, that's what we'll cover, but I'll also leave room for new features.

Yeah. And while we're on the topic of new features, you know, Pulse is expanding. The capabilities of Pulse since it launched has, I mean, just amplified beyond what I think any of our dev team originally thought it would possibly turn into.

For sure.

But we also have new products on the horizon. It's not a secret that we have, we have Karli, we have Express. Right around the corner and some other products hopefully too, you know, in the, in the near future. What do you think the course will evolve into as we shift into more of these multi-product utilization from our customers?

Great question. I think time will tell a little bit if we feel like it's the best format to maybe make adjustments to our Ferris wheel and maybe swap out different items. You know, thinking off the top of my head, maybe in the future we have special sessions or additional sessions or, you know, once a month a specific course or, you know, something specific that dives deeper into that particular item. I imagine we will, we will do that in some capacity just again to be that accompaniment to what they're getting from their coach. And then to your earlier point, you know, that's feedback I've had as well. I didn't know that I didn't know. I didn't, I didn't know to ask the question because I wasn't sure that it was available or capable or whatnot. So that's what I'm hoping to do is, is kind of give an intro and then send them to their coaches with these are the things I want to dig into deeper about my metrics, about my performance, how my team's doing, and hopefully to help there.

Yeah. Awesome. Anything else that we should be you know, discussing in terms of the, the changes that have been made? Anything else that you want to share? Anything you're excited about moving forward with this redesigned version of the course?

Yeah, I don't think anything additional really. As I mentioned, it is $300 per seat for the course, but once you've done it, you can, you could join every session forever if you would like. There's, there's no, there's no restriction there. Um, if anybody has any questions, they can reach out to me via email. My email is just katie@valley.com, and I spell my first name K-A-T-I-E, so it's very easy to get a hold of me. Um, so I'm happy to answer any questions, or, um, if you want to see more details about the course or what it entails, I'm happy to send you that information. Um, and as I said at the beginning, I'm hoping that we have another one of these in the near future, and I can tell you about some potential expansions to Agent training offerings as well, that as we build things and as we get them going, it takes a little more bandwidth to get something going. But once you've got it rolling, then you're good to go. And then I can add in additional pieces. So I'm hoping to do that.

Yeah, awesome. Well, Katie, thank you so much for sitting down with us today. We're so excited to hopefully maybe have some participants from this redesigned course on here soon to get to talk about what their takeaways are and you know, all the amazing things that they're getting from you in the course. But thank you so much for being on with us today, Katie.

You're welcome. Good to talk to you.

And for everybody else watching at home, I hope you have a fantastic day.