The Importance of Customer Service: An Interview with Tammy Turner, a member of EdCor’s Training Center Faculty

This is an interview with Tammy Turning, a member of EdCor’s Training Center faculty. 

Can you tell me a little bit about the history of EdCor?
EdCor was started as a site in 2004 by my mother, Midge Burrows, and has been a center for almost four years now. We took what we learned from being a site and combined it with our projected goals for Edcor to form a center that can better support our instructors. We are focused on how to keep the instructors a top priority and how we can maintain and further develop that relationship.

Could you talk about your partnership with the American Heart Association?
I work with AHA’s training center to make sure that the instructors are number one: trained with quality education, and number two: that they following the AHA guidelines. My job is to ensure that these things are happening and if not, I offer support to ensure they do in addition to providing relevant and helpful feedback.

The new wave for instructor forums is looking more and more to the community and their needs. For example, every 6-8 weeks, we have an open forum where instructors are invited to attend and discuss what’s on their mind. We are the frontline to help bridge the gap between the instructors and AHA. We make sure that everything that AHA wants to go into the curriculum, does.

Could you please explain the resources EdCor offers that help create an exceptional customer service experience?
A lot of the time, we will have new graduates come through our program who have limited experience in application of the skills they have learned. To assist with this, we allow that they can come back and audit that class within the first few years to be a part of re-learning.

In addition to providing free refreshers, we create resource books for instructors that can be found on our online forum. We are highly communicative—so we say—with AHA regarding the curriculum changes and how we can work together to accomplish our similar goals if something isn’t working.

EdCor also participates in a lot of community awareness within our training for Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. I think it’s important that we provide those services within our community so that everyone can be part of learning these lifesaving skills.

Could you tell me more about how you connect with your instructors?

It’s obvious there has been a huge shift in how people obtain information and we believe that adapting to change is extremely important. That’s why we use social media and digital outlets extensively. The thing EdCor really tries to focus on is mentoring and supporting our instructors. I don’t want to forget about that instructor space and I don’t want to lose that connection with who they are. That’s the only way that I feel like I’m effectively doing my job.

What are your goals for the growth of EdCor?
This company was started because my mother felt that quality education needed to meet people where they’re at. Right now we are looking at how to reach and impact the new generation of instructors. I’m all for breathing new life into something, and am determined to show students that the material they are learning and teaching can be exciting. I feel strongly that what AHA is trying to do is directly aligned with our mission—to educate from the heart.