HALIFAX – Every fall the fine folks at EastLink play host to dozens of p
rogramming and technical suppliers who fly in from Toronto (mostly) to pay the company a visit and pass on a few things to the their employees – and then play a little golf.
This year’s one-day educational forum was entitled: “The Future Is Now” and is designed every year to be both interactive and educational with EastLink learning sessions in the morning and presentations from the programming community after lunch. 
The morning session topics were: the outside plant, led by Wayne Gillian – director, outside plant; EastLink Telephone, led by David Caldwell (pictured, above) – senior director, business services; emerging technologies, led by Doug MacDonald (pictured, left) – service development manager, operations department; and customer retention, led by David Dudka – research analyst, marketing department.
In the afternoon the focus turns to the specialty services with a series of educational and entertaining presentations, referred to by the programmers as “CSR Day” (pictured below is Corus Entertainment’s Nick Sutcliffe). The afternoon was also highlighted by the appearance of special guest speaker and EastLink founder John Bragg.
“Designed to provide you with information that will help you enhance your customer service and technical support skills, The Future is Now Forum is your chance to ask questions and learn how EastLink is preparing for the future and to understand your role in that future,” said the company’s note to its employees. 
The networks dig the format. “We realize they’re really busy and the reps are selling several different products – and to have the networks come in on a one-by-one basis and take their reps off the phones is great,” said Ian Spencer, manager affiliate marketing and sales, Rogers Media.
“EastLink gets great participation from their reps and they dedicate the day for us to educate them on our products… I’m glad they do it The reps are really enthusiastic about it.”
“It’s a great opportunity for our CSRs to experience some of the new product offerings that our channel partners are offering and it gives them a lot of exposure to what’s going on in the cable industry,” added EastLink co-CEO Lee Bragg, explaining that the specialty services often show how things are done elsewhere in the country in their sessions.
“Our CSRs are so focused on serving the customers in our market it’s a challenge sometimes to give them a little exposure and let them experience what’s going on in other areas – and leverage the knowledge that our affiliates and our channel providers have,” added Bragg.
“I think they like it. We have some prizes and contests and we try to make it fun and they enjoy the added knowledge that they get… it makes their job easier.”
The day after the training day is the traditional golf tournament where suppliers, friends and EastLink folks get together for a scramble. Above, EastLink’s Jeff Gamhill strokes one on what was a beautiful fall day. (Greg O’Brien photo).
Training day photos by David Grandy courtesy EastLink.
