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Paul Howe, vice president of business development, the Connection

Paul Howe is leading efforts to expand call center services and launch online learning solutions as the new vice president of business development at the Connection, a Burnsville-based business process outsourcing firm that recently celebrated its 35th anniversary. Howe has more than 20 years of experience in creating and developing learning solutions, training content and learning management systems before joining the Connection.

The Connection takes a blended approach to online learning that can include apps for mobile devices, video games, webinars or a full online curriculum as well as demonstrations, lectures and role playing, Howe said. The company is offering online learning services to its call center clients and to other call centers across the country.

"The benefit of that over the traditional mechanism is you have the potential to reduce the training time by 50-percent-plus, which is a huge cost savings," Howe said. "You have the potential to increase the performance of your learners by engaging them more. If they're more engaged and retain the knowledge and are able to apply the skills that you've taught them, you're going to be better off because you're servicing your customers better."

Howe said his role also involves finding additional revenue streams related to the Connection's call center business.

The Connection, which President Fred Weiner founded in 1981, specializes in outsourcing call center services, offering live operators, live web chat, e-mail response and social media monitoring and engagement.

Clients include companies in health care, consumer goods and services, education and broadband, cable and wireless telecommunications.

Q: What's the advantage of outsourcing call center services?

A: It's keeping up with technology, keeping up with the hiring process, keeping up with the learning process. That's a tough business. It gets to the point that is it something you want to manage within your business or do you want to focus elsewhere in your business?

Q: Why should a company consider the Connection?

A: We give the customer service the feel and the focus of a boutique business with the ability to scale like the big boys. That means you're going to have high touch from our president and our executives on down throughout the life cycle of the engagement.

Q: What do you like about working in online and other learning solutions?

A: You're always learning about a new business. When you're bringing new clients on you're learning something new every day. That's what keeps it fresh for me and then the challenge of when you do learn that, how are you going to help them?

Todd Nelson