On the Line...with Jason Fisher

Student Supervisors Should Be Coaching

The number one responsibility any phonathon manager has is raising money.  If you fail to reach the goal, then any positive components to your program are often overlooked.  It doesn’t matter if you have the most professional staff, build good client relations, or verify and correct large amounts of demographic information.  If you miss your final objective, the year cannot realistically be called a great success.

 

Being the sole leader of the phonathon, the manager has the responsibility to help callers be the best they can be on the phones.  But managers often cannot properly help the many callers they are tasked with overseeing- especially if the phonathon has a large number of calling stations.  This is where having great student supervisors are crucial to running a quality phonathon.

 

In my programs, the number one job responsibility of any student supervisor is coaching callers for increased performance.  My supervisors are selected, in part, because they have the tools and skill set necessary to extract the best presentations from any caller they coach.  They should not be glorified cheerleaders, babysitters, or candy-passer-outers.  I want them working with callers from the start of the calling shift until time runs out for the night and we’re ready to go home.  If a supervisor cannot coach effectively, they’re not much help in my program.

 

There are a few factors I believe are crucial when working with my student supervisors.

Senior Caller Positions Encourage Program Growth

Ever wonder how the top-notch programs always seem to find talent to run their phonathons?  Here’s their secret- they promote from within the majority of the time.   They identify, nurture, and cultivate the next group of supervisors from which they eventually pick their manager.  This way they cut down the cost of finding outside help, have a manager ready-made that understands the nuances of their college or university, and in the process they motivate the next group of callers and supervisors looking to grow with the program.

 

I can attest first-hand that this method works.  While there are many, many examples out there to share, I’ll discuss the one I’m most familiar with- the University of Georgia.  After years of outsourcing their program, UGA decided in 1994 to start a phonathon program on-campus using their student callers.  As the first-ever phonathon manager for UGA, I was tasked with starting the entire program from scratch. I did not have a single phonathon experienced employee…with the exception of myself.  We had 24 automated calling stations and a total staff of around 36 callers at any given time.  For the first several weeks, I ran the entire program by myself.  I was careful not to elevate anybody to supervisor until I better understood the talent of the available candidates.  I eventually settled on hiring one supervisor, a senior, that I felt had the maturity to get me through that first semester.  Since I knew her time was limited with the program, I needed to find a way to cultivate my next group of supervisors.  To start building my program the correct way, I instituted a senior caller program that helped find talent and give them an opportunity to learn the job before officially promoting them to the position.