Andrea Liguori has taken on a new post -- director for the TNCI (News - Alert) Agent Experience, and gave an interview to PhonePlus explaining exactly what that is.

TNCI is a national CLEC and communications reseller serving businesses. They formed the TNCI Agent Experience in May in "an effort to bring a company-wide focus on creating and maintaining the best experience possible for TNCI Agent Partners," according to PhonePlus.

Liguori, a seven-year veteran of TNCI, previously ran the sales operations, which she'll continue doing as well.

So what exactly is her new job?

"When you talk to a lot of independent agents you find that most have not had a relationship with a channel partner that's allowed them the opportunity to provide any type of significant feedback regarding product strategy, market direction or tools -- all things that contribute to their success," she told PhonePlus.

It's an issue that many in the industry are grappling with. Last fall TMC's (News - Alert) Kelly McGuire wrote that "When companies in the customer relationship management industry hire sales agents to try and promote and increase their business, a process should be enlisted to determine what type of person you are hiring and - once hired - how the sales agent is performing on an operational and profitable status.

"Often times, sales agents are new at the CRM process, and may need some additional professional guidance in approaching potential - and existing - clients, besides just a general script and a hand off of a headset," McGuire said.

TNCI, Liguori explained, has an "open-door policy" when it comes to listening to agents. The point of formalizing that process, she told the magazine, by creating an Agent Experience organization, "really brings the efforts of the entire TNCI team into focus and clearly defines our commitment  to continue to solicit feedback from our agents."

In that role, then, she told PhonePlus that her job is "first and foremost to work with our internal team and with a core group of agents to define what the TNCI Agent Experience is today and to understand what we want it to be in the future." To that end there are tactical pieces, including "developing the proper tools and methodology to benchmark and track where we are at any point in time with regard to our goals."