ASSIGNMENT 4: HR TRAINING CLASS
Customer service training is the process of impacting the employees with the necessary knowledge, competencies and skills required to improve customer satisfaction. Customer service is the most essential part of carrying out businesses activities as it directly reflects on the company and how it is capable of meeting the needs of the customers. In order to implement a customer service training with the employees it first requires a sound understanding of the needs and expectations of the customers for the company. The next item after identifying the needs and expectation then the concerned party designs a plan to train employees on how to deliver duties in order to meet the needs as well as to surpass the needs and expectations of the customers. The steps to implement customer service training with employees have to start with the identifications of the needs of the customer, assessing the skills of the employees, designing and implementing a training vehicle and lastly regular reevaluation of the customer service delivery.
First, the needs analysis will enable the organization to identify problems in specific areas within the organization. Once the problems have been uncovering from the specific areas in an organization, and then the HR and management will develop appropriate training to those organizations’ problems. For example in case the manager approach HR department requesting for a program for communications, the chances are that the trainer will rush quickly to serve the management by looking for a good communication program. They will be forced to conduct training without a proper conduction of a needs assessment first, and the chances of this approach to fail are very high. The program pick might have been a good, but it might not address the usual problems because training may not have been directed to the actual needs of the participants. The right track should be starting first by looking at the situation. This can be done by talking to a few people in order to find out the problems and then develop a program to counter-attack those problems.
Secondly, the needs assessment is done in order to obtain support from the management. Management knows how important the training is but they find it difficult to put into action. This manner can be prepared directly at the doorstep of a nonexistent needs assessment. The management support can be obtained by making sure that the training is directed in such a way that it will affect what is happening in the department of the manager. For that instance, the trainers should saw themselves just like the way management does in order to make a direct contribution to the same focus. When HR can clearly show an improvement in performance of job, the management will for sure commits to the training. Therefore, the cost of training programs and budget will be greatly getting reduced.
Thirdly, the needs assessment will help to develop data for evaluation. The information of needs is developed first before conducting a training program otherwise evaluation of what take place after the program is invalid. When trainers are conducting a needs assessment, they are able to measure the effectiveness of the program.
Fourthly, the needs analysis will enable the organization to determine the costs and the benefits of the training. It is a common phenomenon for the organization to view training as a nuisance rather than beneficial in the end. The management may be correct sometimes because of that observation if trainers do not develop a cost-benefit analysis for the training they conduct. The management would see the sense for the training if the HR can be able to demonstrate, for example, spending $10,000 to correct a problem costing them $ 150,000 per year. Therefore, to uncover the problems and performance inefficiencies, the needs assessment should be thorough, and this will enable the management to come up with a cost factor on the training needs.
Fifthly, the needs assessment will enable the organization to obtain information about the potential participants and instructors. Under this needs analysis, the HR will be able to uncover those who will receive training together with the level of existing knowledge, the best learning style to them and those who will conduct training to them.
Customer service training implementation plan
Step 1: identification of the needs of the customer. In order to implement effective and efficient customer service training with the employees, it is first good to know what the customers expect from the staffs of the company and customer’s needs in general. This can be done through asking customers about what they experience when they last visited the company or in the past visits, giving out questionnaire to each customer concerning the comments of the company and/or coming up with a rating section on the website of the company. This assessment will help the company to redesign and reengineer its products and services to be in line with the expectations and needs of the customer. Another way of collecting information from the customers about your company can be done through hiring the survey firm that will conduct surveys about the customer satisfaction on behalf of the company.
Step 2: evaluation of the skill levels and skills of each of the employee. This can be achieved by observing the way employees are interacting with customers and the degree of service they offer. The study of the employees will reveal which one has the best skill in a given field to meet the needs of the customer. For example, which one is good in establishing rapport and which is good at up-selling. Some employees are good in problems solving and they can take proactive initiatives to solve the problem as being quick to identify when the customer is not in moods or unsatisfied and attend to situations before it gets out of hands. Others employees are naturally good in salespersons and command excellent skills to up-sell customers with only a little effort.
Step 3: designing and implementing a training method. This will be done as an example of giving a chance employees to each, and everybody illustrate their skill set and how they put into effect. It can also be done through recording via video or audio transcription of the text of the presentation of employees. The managers or the experienced employees can be attached to new employees to train them on the job. Training on-the-job scenario provides a live situation and a real-time awareness on how customers interact with customers and knowing their expectations from staff members. Furthermore, it can also be achieved through giving an employee a customer service manual written by a professional business consultant which outline the protocols on how and when to greet a customer, ways of solving customer disputes and when is to ask follow-up questions.
Step 4: reevaluations of customer service of employees that relate on the consistent basis. Evaluations of employees should be done at least twice per year, but the best is once per quarter of the year. During that window period, the employees will get time to give feedback on their evaluation and at the same time get an opportunity to reflect on how effective is customer service training. At this step, the HR would be able to evaluate if each employee can comply with the customer service protocol within the company.
Training method: on-the-job training
The training on-the-job has both benefits to employers as well as the trainees. From an employer perspective, the aim of the training on-the-job is to impact the necessary skills on workers in order to be productive and skillful at the same time being compensated for the unnecessary cost incurred during the training. There will be quality training to employees as a result of the on-the-job training when the employer solidly targets to provide employees with the essential skills and habits that will results in career development. On the other hand, the quality outcome will be manifested as a result of quality training, and this will be so beneficial to the organization.
Ways of motivating an employee who has no interest in attending training class. There are a number of possible ways to motivate an employee to attend training class as follows.
First, to make sure the individual economic interests are aligning with that one of the company performance. Under this motivational idea, the employee will be assured of the benefits when the company prospers. The employee will be given comprehensive programs that will show them incentive compensation once a company prospers.
Secondly, the HR should take a genuine interest in the future route of the career of the employee. The manager should show a lot of interest to care for the career of the employee to the extent that the attitude of the employee is changed to believe in a manager. An employee who has no interest should be taken to the mentoring and coaching program to address what might be disturbing him/her.
The feedback from employees can be best collected through the use of a questionnaire that is to be filled by all the employees.
1) How secure do you feel with the job?
2) Do you know have the right the right tools to perform your job?
3) How engaged are you with a job?
4) How did you find the communication with the management?
5) What is your age and gender?
6) How did you feel about your health and safety in the company?
7) How long are you planning to stay in the company?
8) Were you satisfied with the training program?
9) Were your co-worker's cooperatives during your attachment to them?
10) Did you found being comfortable working together with our early employees?
References
Bersin, J. (2008). The training measurement book: Best practices, proven methodologies, and practical approaches. San Francisco: Pfeiffer.
Carlaw, P., & Deming, V. K. (1999). The big book of customer service training games: Quick, fun activities for training customer service reps, salespeople, and anyone else who deals with customers. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Emerson, B., & Loehr, A. (2008). A manager's guide to coaching: Simple and effective ways to get the best out of your employees. New York: AMACOM/American Management Association.
Gupta, K., & American Society for Training and Development (1999). A practical guide to needs assessment. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer.
Harris, E. K. (2002). Customer service: A practical approach. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Simon, M., Sweatman, A., Evans, S., Bhamra, T., & McAloone, T. (2000). Environmental Priorities In Strategic Product Development. John/Wiley & Sons Ltd.
United States (1998). Employment and training for America's homeless: Final report on the Job Training for the Homeless Demonstration Program. Washington, D.C.?: U.S. Dept. of Labor, Employment and Training Administration, Office of Policy and Research.
