Lender Observation Guide

Appendix J: Lender Concierge Team Observation Guide

HUD’s Pre-Purchase Homeownership Counseling Demonstration and Impact Evaluation

Lender Customer Service Team Observation Guide

Lender:

Location of Training: _______________________ Date:

Purpose

The customer service team for each participating lender will be making the initial calls to their customers who meet the basic study criteria to introduce them to the study and ask them for their consent to share their contact information with the study team. This is the first introduction of the study to the customer and thus is an important component of the study recruitment. Two members of the study team will attend the lenders’ customer service team training to observe and document the training process, listen to some recruitment calls to customers, and debrief with the concierge team after they have had made a few calls.

During recruitment calls, study team members are there as observers and will not interrupt the customer service team members while they are making their calls. Any questions or discussion should be held until the debriefing session. During these observations, no personal information will be collected about the customers and the sessions will not be recorded.

Basic Information on the Training and Operations

Trainer’s Name:

Supervisor’s Name:

Number of Staff Trained:

Length of the Training Session:

Training Techniques Used (Lecture, Round Robin, Role Playing):

Hours of Operation:

Average Number of Staff Expected to Work Each Shift:

Observation of the Training

The following five items are the key components of the training sessions. For documentation purposes, note how the following items are covered during the training session, the types of questions that are raised by the customer service team regarding these items, and the response given by the trainer to these questions.

1) The process by which the customer service team is trained on the purpose of the study and how to answer the questions about the study.

2) The process by which the customer service team is trained to deliver the script introducing the study to the lenders’ customers.

3) The process by which the customer service team is trained to capture the customers’ consent to provide their contact information to the study team.

4) The process by which the customer service team is trained to confirm customers’ contact information.

5) The process by which the supervisor monitors the calls being made by the customer service team and provides feedback to customer service team members.

Observation of the Recruitment Calls

Additionally, the study team will observe the customer service staff conducting recruitment calls to document the process of customer recruitment. Document your observations on the following issues.

1) On average, how many minutes do the recruitment calls take?

2) How well is the script working in describing the study, capturing the consent, and confirming the contact information?

3) Is the customer service team following the scripts provided to them verbatim? If not, where do they tend to stray from the script?

3) How well does the process of capturing consent of customers to share their contact information work? Are any customers confused about whether they are consenting to share contact information versus study participation?

4) How well does the process of confirming customers’ contact information work? Is the customer service team confirming all the contact information? Is the customer service team confirming the spelling of the customer’s name, street, and city?

5) How is the customer service team answering questions about the study? Any issues or concerns?

6) How is the customer service team answering questions about providing consent to share their contact information? Any issues or concerns?

6) What happened when members of the customer service team that did not follow the study protocols? Describe the type of feedback and monitoring that took place?

7) At the end of the observation, are there any members of the customer service team that appeared to have problems with following the study protocols? Who?

Debriefing

After observing the customer service team conducting the calls, the study team will lead a short debriefing with the team to ask question about their experience recruiting customers for study participation.

1) After you read the study recruitment script to [INSERT LENDER NAME] customers, what kind of questions or comments came up about the study? How did you answer these questions? (Probe for refer customers to study hotline, used response on FAQ, answered the question myself, refer to supervisor, other)

2) What kinds of issues or challenges, if any, did you encounter in delivering the script or describing the study to [INSERT LENDER NAME] customers? How did you handle these issues or challenges?

3) What kinds of issues or challenges, if any, did you encounter in asking customers to provide consent for [INSERT LENDER NAME] to share their contact information with the study team? How did you handle these issues or challenges?

4) How well did the script flow? Were there any awkward phrases or terminology? Did the customer seem to easily understand the purpose of the call? Do you have any suggestions on how to improve the script?

5) Do you have any other comments or concerns now that you have made a few calls?

Thank the trainer and concierge team for their time and attention to this important study!

Pre-Purchase Homeownership Counseling Demonstration and Impact Evaluation  ▌pg. 4