STEPHANIE A.

LOHRENZ
sl10730ba@westpost.net
TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT * PROCESS IMPROVEMENT
Dynamic leader of large teams envisions and enacts critical, innovative, and tho
ughtful change that improves sales and employee satisfaction. Directs teams by d
elivering custom one-on-one training and classroom instruction, which improves t
he customer service capabilities of every employee. Assesses employee skill and
knowledge in a way that enables growth and elevates skills. Top-flight analysis
of business needs contributes to development of innovative change management str
ategies designed to speed processes and increase the value of each team member's
contribution to organizational direction.
Core Knowledge and Skills:
* Process Improvement * Quality Assurance * Change Management
* Training & Development * Customer Service * Policy & Procedure Development
* Cost Reduction * Productivity Enhancement * Cross-Functional Team Direction
* Recruitment & Retention * Call Center Leadership * Career Pathing
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Customer Care Manager - Central Region
Frontier Communications, Burnsville, MN, 12/2005 - 01/2008
Managed call center for central region. Led 150 customer service representatives
and 3 supervisors (direct reports) to create positive inbound sales environment
that improved revenue. Guided 2 administrative personnel and a trainer (direct
reports) to support needs of busy sales environment. Created innovative sales ma
nagement programs that directly affected quality of customer service and, ultima
tely, top-line revenue.
Held monthly sales competitions with motivating prizes to press customer service
team to ever-increasing levels of sales excellence.
Trained all new staff according to creative sales training program designed for
this specific environment. Hired specialized sales trainer to teach new staff to
integrate properly into sales culture, first in a classroom and then in a train
ing incubator program, until staff grew ready to operate independently.
Developed all training materials to replace outdated, insufficient program.
Created and instituted policies and procedures related to coaching employees and
bringing their abilities up to standards. Crafted daily coaching e-mails and de
partment newsletter, enhancing concepts and recognizing employee excellence.
Measured quality through a variety of metrics in a new quality assurance program
that involved having supervisors listen to employee calls and work through them
with employees as part of their ongoing training and coaching. Resulted in impr
oved employee effectiveness and elevated sales.
Examined daily trends in call volume, enabling improved staffing levels as requi
red.
Call Coach & Transition Training Team Leader
Premera Blue Cross, Spokane, WA, 07/2004 - 01/2005
As a project manager promoting change in a busy call center in the health care a
rena, coached, counseled, and developed team effectiveness. Examined all aspects
of this inbound call center environment and instituted difficult but critical c
ultural change to improve the customer service that Premera could offer its plan
members and providers.
Quickly promoted to team lead due to exceptional ability to identify and impleme
nt change related to quality initiatives and metrics.
Improved Member Touchpoint Measure (customer service metric) from one of the low
est 10 in the Blue Cross family to 2nd quartile within ~4 months. Spearheaded ta
sk force that created a 6-week program to measure, change, and re measure a vari
ety of metrics, including level of employee skills and knowledge.
Professional experience continued. . . .
Stephanie a. lohrenz Page 2
. . . . Professional experience continued
Collaborated with senior vice president and vice president team to assess succes
s, which became clearly evident in the scoring mechanism developed to measure im
provements. Scoring used to coach employees during annual reviews.
Quality Team Development Leader
Target Financial Services, Minneapolis, MN, 11/2002 - 11/2003
As director of the quality assurance team, identified methods of improving emplo
yee value that were substantially different from and outside of former call cent
er practice. Infused process improvement activities with corporate cultural valu
es of excellence and customer service. Focused on the value that each individual
could contribute-and the career rewards associated with superior performance.
Revamped employee assessment, which, through evaluation by employee focus groups
, was determined to be ineffective and frustrating. Eliminated numerical perform
ance assessments and replaced them with three-tiered system that enabled employe
es to quickly see and understand whether they had met expectations or not. Refoc
used employee reviews onto feedback, not percentage scores.
Changed coaching approach to skills elevation, marrying training with narrative
assessments of employee to provide evaluations from which employees could learn.
Partnered with the communications and training teams, posting all new policies a
nd procedures online, making them more accessible to employees.
Instituted career pathing in the contact center. Worked extremely hard to encour
age growth and development in each employee, rewarding success with challenging
roles. Several staff were promoted to management positions throughout the organi
zation due to this inventive plan.
Manager- Patient Registration * Supervisor - Patient Registration Credit & Visit
or Services
Allina Health Systems, Shakopee, MN, and St. Paul, MN, 10/2000 - 11/2002
Supervised ~25 direct reports in busy patient registration division. Imbued empl
oyees with sense of connection to hospital community and customer service excell
ence, which changed their willingness to learn more and acquire better knowledge
about their roles, ultimately reducing the employee attrition rate. Promoted te
am as significantly knowledgeable in application of technical data related to re
quirements concerning patient health insurance.
Promoted to manager in Shakopee location due to successes with recruitment and r
etention strategy. This system ultimately was adopted in other departments.
Created focus groups of employees to address critical problem of employee retent
ion.
Reduced excessive costs related to employees quitting after extensive new hire t
raining. Enforced procedures of employee shadowing in the pre-hire phase, to imp
rove new hire understanding of job requirements.
Formalized training program for new and existing employees, ensuring that all kn
owledge gaps were filled through proper education in policies and procedures.
Improved reward structure to reflect culture, location, and industry, thus impro
ving employees' likelihood of maintaining positions.
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND TRAINING
Master of Science in Management - Change Leadership Specialization, Kaplan Unive
rsity, anticipated graduation 2011.
Bachelor of Science - Human Resource Management, Concordia University, 4.0 G.P.A
.
* Leadership Development Training * Human Dynamics
* Leading an Empowered Organization * Performance Management
* Interviewing & Selection * Workforce 2020
* Compensation Basics * Customer Service
* Financial Fundamentals * Billing Compliance
* JCAHO & HIPAA Compliance