The Alliance Committee serving AT&T’s Charlotte
Billing Center is one of two major committees in the Carolinas, the other
being located at Lucent’s Charlotte SCO facility. The Alliance Committee
making this presentation primarily services the 400+ AT&T employees
represented by CWA Local 3603 at the Charlotte Billing Center, while also
making Alliance group courses and activities available to Avaya and Lucent
participants in the Charlotte region. At times, Alliance reps from Charlotte’s
Avaya facilities have served on this primarily AT&T Alliance Committee,
though not currently.
Customer Service, as linked to Billing Operations, is
central to the daily activity of most Alliance participants at the Charlotte
Billing Center. Some two years ago during a period when AT&T and CWA at
Charlotte anticipated a potential downsizing, the Charlotte Alliance Committee
learned about a highly successful Creating a Vision program being
delivered in a similar work environment in Florida. The Charlotte Alliance
Committee reviewed the curriculum and approached AT&T’s management with
the thought that this Creating a Vision Program might assist employees
facing potential downsizing to "take stock" of their work and
personal lives and implement an "individualized" vision. The
experience of this course at AT&T in Florida, migrated from Atlanta, had
taught that this individualized visioning process, carried out in a group,
brought significant benefits to both participants and their organizations
during transitions.
The Alliance Committee shared their research with senior
management and union leaders in Charlotte. Participants described an
experience of empowerment in the classroom and individualized visioning
process with the guidance of a one-on-one trainer. Union and management
leaders in Florida stated this empowerment had overflown to the workplace -
resulting in new positive energies benefiting the organization as well as the
individual.
Charlotte’s management team, as well as the union
leadership, agreed to support this program, offering it on-the-clock. To-date,
over 125 participants have completed the program, resulting in more than 4,750
training hours. The process still continues with great success. Moreover, a
new program, Customer Service Journey - an outgrowth in part of Creating
a Vision, has been developed and was piloted in May focusing in greater
detail on the actual components of successful customer service. CWA and
AT&T leadership, as well as participant focus groups, had input into this
new curriculum. AT&T and The Alliance are doing a 50-50 cost share for
this on-the-clock program.
Next steps, as are described, are to fine-tune the Customer
Service Journey curriculum and expand this offering to the Charlotte
workforce as a complement to the gains achieved in the Creating a Vision
program delivered during the past two fiscal years. The goal is to continually
improve customer service in a highly competitive market - for the benefit of
AT&T, CWA 3603’s membership, and all of the Alliance participants taking
advantage of these offerings.
