Smarter Training, Stronger Returns: Aligning Investment to Customer Impact

From its inception, Percepta LLC has specialized in creating customer loyalty to its clients across the globe. Delivered in multiple channels, speaking multiple languages, we bring first-class service across each market we support.

Briefly describe the nominated organization: history and past performance (up to 1,250 characters):

Since July 1, 2023, Percepta has improved return on customer service investment through two strategies: deploying targeted training design to accelerate speed-to-proficiency and validating that analytics-guided uptraining can maximize customer experience gains while reducing unnecessary spend.

Using learning science and active-learning principles, Percepta redesigned a UK new hire onboarding program (2023) and Canada-based mass-market OEM training programs (2024) to focus on top call drivers and critical thinking. The UK onboarding removed three training days and increased hands-on practice from 23% to 37%, delivering a 3% reduction in Average Handle Time within 30 days and agents reaching AHT targets 50% faster. This one-time $190,000 investment saved $429 per agent and approximately $225,000 annually. Canadian OEM redesigns generated approximately $452,000 in annual savings.

In parallel, Percepta used DAISY to validate a newly designed empathy training in a controlled 2024 pilot. Results showed a +9.27-point increase in Net Promoter Score, concentrated among middle-performing agents, establishing a data-backed foundation for future targeted uptraining decisions while minimizing unnecessary time away from customers.

Outline the organization's achievements since July 1, 2023 that you wish to bring to the judges' attention (up to 1,500 characters):

Percepta's investment focused on validating where empathy training produces measurable customer experience return before scaling delivery. Global Learning & Knowledge Services partnered with the Data Analytics team to design an empathy training aligned to a Customer Focused Call Flow emphasizing active listening, acknowledgment, expectation setting, and advocacy. Rather than deploying the training broadly, Percepta used DAISY, its in-house analytics platform, to after the training assess agent skill proficiency improvement through a controlled pilot conducted from November 26 to December 12, 2024.

The pilot produced clear, quantifiable results. Agents before the training identified as middle-performing, meaning they demonstrated foundational listening skills but inconsistent empathy behaviors, showed the strongest response to training. This group achieved a +9.27-point increase in Net Promoter Score, a +4% lift in Overall Experience, and a 2Å~ improvement in demonstrated empathy behaviors compared to peers without training. Highly proficient agents showed minimal incremental gains, while low-performing agents also showed minimal gains as they required coaching and remediation beyond standard training.

Together with Percepta's UK new hire onboarding and Canadian mass-market OEM training redesigns, this work reinforced a consistent insight about customer service ROI: more training does not inherently produce better customer outcomes. Across initiatives, reducing training time while focusing on the most critical on-the-job skills through scenario-based learning improved or preserved performance. In each case, return on investment came from aligning training effort to customer-impacting behaviors rather than increasing training volume.

Explain why the achievements you have highlighted are unique or significant. If possible compare the achievements to the performance of other players in your industry and/or to the organization's past performance (up to 1,500 characters):

The significance of these returns lies in what they reveal about how customer service investments should be evaluated and scaled. Across both deployed training redesigns and the empathy training pilot, Percepta demonstrated that training volume alone does not drive customer outcomes or financial return. Instead, return is created when training is intentionally aligned to the behaviors that most influence the customer experience. The empathy training pilot challenged a long-standing industry assumption that uptraining should be delivered uniformly. Consider a representative scenario: if empathy training costs approximately $70 per agent for two hours per month, an organization training 1,000 agents invests roughly $840,000 annually. When training is delivered broadly, a substantial portion of that investment may be directed toward agents whose behaviors already meet customer expectations or toward agents who require deeper remediation rather than standard training. Beyond cost, the customer impact is material: removing agents from the queue unnecessarily increases wait times without improving sentiment.

At the same time, Percepta's UK onboarding and Canadian OEM redesigns showed that reducing training time while focusing on the most critical on-the-job skills can accelerate or preserve performance. In the UK program, agents reached speed-to-competency faster with improved AHT despite fewer training hours; in Canada, significant reductions in training time did not degrade performance.

Together, these outcomes establish an evidence-based approach to customer service investment: analytics and learning science enable organizations to improve customer experience, protect capacity, and realize return by aligning training effort to customer-impacting behaviors rather than increasing training volume.

Reference any attachments of supporting materials throughout this nomination and how they provide evidence of the claims you have made in this nomination (up to 1,500 characters):

The attached support materials provide concrete evidence of the investments, validation approach, and returns described in this nomination.

Artifact #1: Training Redesign Case Study documents Percepta's deployed training design investments, including a UK new hire onboarding redesign. These materials show how learning science and active-learning methods were applied to reduce training time while strengthening focus on critical on-the-job skills. The artifact summarizes measurable outcomes such as reduced curriculum time, faster speed-to-proficiency, improvements in Average Handle Time, increased hands-on practice, and per-agent and annual cost savings, demonstrating realized return on customer service investment.

Artifact #2: Empathy Training Overview documents the analytics-enabled empathy training pilot used to validate selective uptraining strategy. It outlines the AI-driven call rubric aligned to the Customer Focused Call Flow, the methodology for identifying agent proficiency profiles using DAISY, control group comparisons, and measured outcomes including Net Promoter Score and Overall Experience improvements. This artifact supports the validation that targeted empathy training produces stronger customer experience gains than blanket delivery, establishing a data-backed foundation for future investment decisions.