November 2010

College leads the way nationally in contact centre services training

City of Sunderland College which trained over 300 learners in the past year for careers in the region’s contact centres, is the only provider to achieve the Training Quality Standard (TQS) for contact centre services.

The College’s Contact Centre Academy has, over the years, successfully trained thousands of staff on behalf of companies such as 2Touch and Fusion, and a number of learners have gone into employment with many more contact centres such as Santander, Orange, AA and Listening Company.

Success rates across all programmes are in excess of 90%, well above the national average.
The Government ‘gold standard’ for training providers, TQS is a voluntary assessment framework for training providers. There are two key elements: ‘provider-responsiveness to employer needs’ which was achieved by the College in 2008 and ‘provider-excellence in a particular vocational area’, which has just been achieved.

Shirley Gelder, Director of Employer Engagement at the College, said: “We are the only training provider in the UK to achieve both parts of TQS for call centre services and this clearly demonstrates we have undoubted sectoral understanding and expertise.

“This is great news for the college and for employers, as the standard greatly assists local businesses so they are able to easily recognise which providers are fully responsive to their needs for flexible, customer-focused solutions that will deliver the best return on their investment.

“It is even more of an achievement when one considers that, unlike the retail, IT and building sectors, there is no sector skills council for the call centre industry as it is regarded as a support provider.”

Samantha Hardy, Head of Training and People Development, 2Touch, said: “This recognition for City of Sunderland College is a testimony to the quality of the staff and to the training they provide. There is little doubt they are an essential partner for our business and that they have a flexible approach to meet our individual requirements.”

A key development of the standard from previous accreditation schemes is that it is not attached to public funding or investment and is open to both publicly and privately funded organisations providing higher and further education. This allows it to highlight excellence across all providers. In addition, accreditation for the standard is verified by employers using criteria that reflect their needs.

TQS is delivered through the College’s Business Solutions team, whose aim is to help drive up employer competitiveness with innovative business-to-business training across a wide range of sectors including manufacturing, catering and hospitality, health and social care, ICT and retail.