Outstanding training wins people development award for Fusion

Immediate release: 12 July 2010

Customer-focused Fusion Contact Centre Services has won a top business award for Commitment to People Development from City of Sunderland College.

Fusion handles calls from motor and home insurance customers, for brands including Budget insurance and ibuyeco as well as Marks & Spencer, HSBC, Santander and Barclays.

Thanks to a progressive training programme, the company, which has a base in Sunderland, has achieved a staggering 97.5% staff retention rate for those staff who took part in a range of NVQs through Sunderland College.

Fusion is committed to retaining its staff by engaging them in a skills development programme. With a range of NVQ qualifications on offer, David Noble, Training Manager North for Fusion, encouraged staff to enrol on NVQs focused on improving sales performance.

The NVQ delivery included three qualifications for advisors; NVQ Contact Centre Operations, NVQ Customer Service and Telesales, each of which was mapped to the job roles. Business Solutions deployed a delivery team of trainers and assessors, all with contact centre backgrounds.

David Noble said: "The NVQ qualifications proved to be a great success. 156 people have voluntarily taken part in the programmes, which equates to a third of our advisor population.

Accepting the award for Commitment to People Development, Jason Turner, Head of Operations, said:

"It's a fantastic achievement to be nominated and we're thrilled to find out we've won the Award. Throughout the Group we have a strong commitment to people engagement and ongoing personal development is absolutely key. This activity represents one of a number of professional development schemes we sponsor. I am delighted that our efforts have been acknowledged and that Fusion is perceived as an excellent place for people to work."

Shirley Gelder, Director of Employer Engagement, City of Sunderland College said, "We were thrilled that Fusion wanted to enrol its staff on the NVQ qualifications. The Award was fully deserved as this was an exceptional achievement in terms of volume delivery, success of qualification outcomes and positive business impacts.

"From the outset Fusion identified a need to increase sales performance, achieve a 90% employer and learner satisfaction rate as well as a need to proactively engage its employees. We were able to deliver all of the targets and we hope to continue to deliver training across its UK sites."

To date, Fusion has a third of its advisor population and all of its North based Training Team enrolled onto the qualifications, and has successfully improved on its sales performance by 2.5%.

Organised by the College's Business Solutions Team – which works with a vast range of companies across the UK – this was one of 24 Awards distributed at a special event held at Sunderland's National Glass Centre.

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