Immucor, a medical diagnostics company, closed a gap in customer support among their technical and field teams to enhance their service reputation and customer satisfaction. Download this case study to learn more about their story.

1. Blended Learning Helps Blood Diagnostics
Leader Immucor Gain Competitive Edge
Company
AchieveGlobal helps improve Technical Specialist, Application
Immucor, Inc. Specialist and Field Service Engineers’ skill at resolving customer issues
As the name implies, technical and field support’s realm is the field – the offices and
Industry laboratories where their companies’ products are used. Taking them away from their jobs
is costly to the company and its customers so any reason for doing so had better have a
A leading developer, manufacturer and
good ROI.
seller of in vitro diagnostics used by
blood banks, clinical laboratories, and Such was the case for Immucor, Inc., a medical diagnostics company relying heavily on
blood donor centers. technical and field support to ensure their customers’ long-term satisfaction with
Immucor products and service personnel. Y it had become apparent to company
et
executives that a gap in customer service quality had opened.
Strategy
Improve communication and service The Norcross, Georgia-based Immucor is a global in vitro diagnostics company that
skills to internal and external audiences develops, manufactures, and sells products used by hospital blood banks, clinical
to improve company cohesion and laboratories, and blood donor centers.
strengthen its service-focus reputation.
According to Jim Kennedy, Vice President of Customer Solutions, and Ann Minyard,
Director, Application Support and Technical Training, new service skills and behaviors
Implementation training would help Immucor improve customer relations and maintain its competitive
Use blended learning incorporating edge. AchieveGlobal, an international performance improvement company, was asked
Web- and in-class delivery of to help Immucor improve both internal and external communications and service
AchieveGlobal Stellar Service®, follow up.
Coaching, Guiding Customer
The company is structured upon three organizational branches: field service engineers
Conversations®, and Healing Customer
who are dispatched to customer sites when product issues occur; technical service
Relationships® modules to management personnel who provide problem resolution via the telephone; and an application support
and frontline staff in briefest effective group who installs Immucor equipment and trains customer staff on its uses.
time possible.
“Each of our departments deals with important problems, and we have to be able to
handle customers well,” Minyard notes. “We knew that in our industry staying
Results connected with each other would ensure consistent service delivery for our customers.
Improved intra-company co-operation as We believe that AchieveGlobal’s programs and blended learning approach will help us
evidenced by increase in internal e-mail achieve this vision.” Minyard and Kennedy liked how the AchieveGlobal programs
trails regarding customer problem resolu- are built, especially the tools available to reinforce new skills and behaviors, and selected
tion. Increased flow of unsolicited e- the AchieveGlobal team to support their initiative.
mails from customers commenting favor-
ably on Immucor technical and field sup- AchieveGlobal recommended a combination of Web-based and classroom-delivered, or
port satisfaction and examples of stellar blended, training to shorten the learning experience. Minimizing the time required for
service. In addition, Immucor is now training was especially appreciated by Immucor staff. Training involved managers and 75
conducting customer survey data to track
additional results.
Developing the 21st
century workforce TM

2. approach to customer service, ” Minyard adds. “In a highly
technical organization, our focus is to resolve the technical
problem, and this class teaches us how to also fix the customer.
The AchieveGlobal training and role playing got rave reviews.
The course helps service personnel close the gap between their
technical focus and their willingness and ability to listen to our
customer’s concerns on human level.
“And, interesting to me,” she adds, “we are seeing an increase in
unsolicited e-mails from customers thanking us for various reasons.
Jim Kennedy, VP of Customer Solutions, It takes something quite out of the ordinary to trigger unsolicited
Immucor customer input. We’re very pleased to see these e-mails and we plan
to continue this training to ensure we keep on track to improve
customer satisfaction at Immucor.”
frontline staff and took place in nine sessions over several months’
time. Each onsite session consisted of a mixture of management, About AchieveGlobal
field engineers, technical services personnel, and applications In the 21st century, the level of human skills will determine
support staff. organization success. AchieveGlobal provides exceptional
development in interpersonal business skills giving companies
“Since we are separate organizations,” Minyard notes, “the the workforce they need for business results. Located in over 40
cross-functional team approach to training really helped us come countries, we offer multi-language, learning based solutions –
together. There was also considerable and powerful teamwork globally, regionally and locally.
effort to solve common problems.”
We understand the competition you face. Your success depends
Management modules delivered via the Web included selections on people who have the skills to handle the challenges beyond the
from AchieveGlobal’s Stellar Service® system, including its reach of technology. We’re experts in developing these skills, and
Coaching modules. An AchieveGlobal coaching trainer then met it’s these skills that turn your strategies into business success in
live with this group to review these lessons again. The frontline the 21st century.
group also participated in Web-delivered Stellar Service® modules,
and then met in person for live training on AchieveGlobal’s Guiding These are things technology can’t do. Think. Learn. Solve
Customer Conversations® and Healing Customer Relationships® problems. Listen. Motivate. Explain. People with these skills have
a bright future in the 21st century. AchieveGlobal prepares you for
The blended learning approach had been suggested by that world.
AchieveGlobal as the optimum means for delivering the learning in
as brief a time as possible. All Web learning was delivered prior to
individuals traveling to the classroom training. The Web learning
required participants to complete homework prior to taking the
live program.
Customer Solutions vice president Kennedy, being so adamant
about the importance of continual reinforcement and practice,
made sure he attended the opening and closing of each training
session to reinforce the high-level commitment to the effort. Being
certified to deliver the AchieveGlobal material, Kennedy actually
taught some of the sessions. “One area in which we’ve seen
improvement is in our technical support and field engineers’
World Headquarters
Developing the 21st
8875 Hidden River Parkway, Suite 400
Tampa, Floridacentury workforce
TM
33637 USA
Toll Free: 800.456.9390
www.achieveglobal.com
© 2009 AchieveGlobal, Inc. No. M01254 v. 1.0 (05/2009)