MTM - Sales Training or Coaching Program of the Year
Company: MTM, Lake St. Louis, MO
Company Description: MTM is one of the nation’s most experienced, established and qualified non-emergency medical transportation brokers. Leveraging our resources and experience, MTM offers a spectrum of healthcare and public transit services that help our clients align incentives, reduce costs, and increase member and passenger satisfaction.
Nomination Category: Sales Awards Achievement Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Sales Training or Coaching Program of the Year - Other Service Industries
Nomination Title: MTM's Set it Best! Training
Tell the story about your organization's sales training and/or coaching program since the beginning of July 2017 (up to 650 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:
To meet MTM’s 2018 goals of increasing net revenue by $50 million, reducing operational costs, and achieving 100% client satisfaction, MTM Training closely partnered with executives and stakeholders to launch Set it Best!, a four-month sales training program with an ultimate goal of reducing transportation costs by 6%. As Kirkpatrick Gold certified professionals, MTM Training began the project with a detailed analysis using the Kirkpatrick intake process. This created a strong partnership with our contact center operations team and established clear goals and expectations. The Kirkpatrick intake process and strong partnership brought the teams to six key sales behaviors that were necessary to achieve our goal: denying trips, assuming the mode, active listening, using persuasive language, overcoming objections, and setting with the most appropriate mode of transportation.
Through this intentional intake process, MTM Training identified the need to improve sales behaviors of all Customer Care Representatives to increase the sale of public transportation and gas mileage reimbursement, as well as denials of non-covered services. Selling these less expensive modes of transportation and increasing denials equates to a reduction in MTM’s cost per trip and an increase in revenue gain. To achieve this, MTM Training developed 16 courses with two learning tracks: Front Line Staff and Leadership. Each leadership module included six role-play scenarios that were stacked with previous courses. By the end of the program, more than 800 employees were using 36 role-play scenarios in bi-monthly coaching sessions. Kirkpatrick Level 3 drivers were built in at the initial intake before development of the program began. These drivers included full circle coaching (a coach-the-coach approach), and reward and recognition through social media celebrations and monetary and non-monetary incentives.
The program launched on April 15, 2018 with the initial launch showing pockets of success. In June, a reduction in transportation costs fluctuated between 13.37% and 4.72%. These results were promising; however, a more consistent decline in the cost was expected. To create this consistency, MTM Training engaged trainers at every office location to add additional rewards and monitor behaviors. Trainers were given a bank of tokens to give out when they heard or witnessed a learned behavior from the program being used. These tokens were then redeemed for prizes. In addition to these behaviors, trainers were given more autonomy to pull Customer Care Representatives off the phone to role-play scenarios in real time. The MTM Marketing department was also engaged to promote the program on the company social media pages. Employees began seeing their celebrations on the MTM Facebook page, among other social media outlets.
As a result of this outstanding new initiative, Kirkpatrick Level 3 results were achieved with an increase of denials to a total savings of $3,121,965.12, and an increase in bus and GMR utilization of 5% and 26.7% respectively. Direct application of the behaviors learned through the program have exceeded the financial goal of reducing transportation costs by more than 6% to date with a current 25% reduction in total cost per mile, and has achieved a Kirkpatrick Level 4 result of a 13% increase in net revenue.
In addition to these impressive results, the Set it Best! training program was packaged and released to MTM’s contracted vendor Berlin Wheeler. This organization performs the same functions and roles as MTM and serves as a back-up to ensure that MTM meets all service level agreements. Although this company is a completely separate entity, the training program was packaged and launched in August 2018, and leading indicators are showing positive trends in an increased utilization of public transportation and gas mileage reimbursement.
MTM training’s new sales program, Set it Best! has demonstrated massive success, leading to an increase in net revenue gain, which demonstrates the fact that it is the best new sales program of the year.