Introduction
The word competency has become a buzzword in every working environment, and every organization is striving to employ competent and skilled workers to enhance their general performance. However, the skill of employees is believed to deteriorate with time. The rapidly changing technologies and customers’ needs are also making many traditional skills obsolete or irrelevant. Therefore, the only solution to maintaining and improving competency and relevant skills is employee training. Adequate employee training is critical in developing new skills that have increasingly become indispensable. Also, quality customer service is one of the main factors that define the success of business. Consequently, customer service employees should be able to offer quality services to all clients, which is only possible when they have the relevant skills. The essay, therefore, focuses on the customer service training for new employees in a small retail company.
Justification for the Use of Needs Assessment
Efficient and quality customer service is one of the major determinants of success of businesses in the retail industry because of the perception the service creates to the consumer concerning the service provider (Berry, Wall & Carbone, 2006). Therefore, all employees in any retail company should be able to effectively and efficiently carry out their assigned tasks (Firdousi, 2011). It is important to conduct needs assessment during the customer service training for employees in a retail company. There are some advantages of needs assessment during customer service training. First, needs assessment enables employees in the HR department to identify any existing performance deficiency of every individual employee. As a result, the department will be able to organize specific and personalized training that meet the exact needs of new hires. It is from needs analysis that an organization can determine whether employees should be trained or not, what topics to cover and how to implement the training and training requirements.
Secondly, needs assessment enables the company to expose existing performance deficiencies by coming up with strategic initiatives that can be used to enhance the competencies, abilities, and potential of new employees, and even existing employees. Effective needs analysis gives the organization a chance to evaluate better outcomes through the efficient use of available resources (Firdousi, 2011). It also helps in determining whether training is relevant to new employees. Also, training needs analysis assist in providing a detailed foray into the areas where new hires are lagging behind.
The third manner in which needs assessment can be of assistance in exposing existing performance shortcomings is through an occupational needs assessment. The occupational assessment helps HR department to evaluate skills, knowledge, experience, and capabilities that are required for new employees. It can also be used to assess job performance of new workers (Firdousi, 2011). It is through needs assessment that the company will be able to determine existing occupational discrepancies. Fourthly, needs assessment helps in exposing performance deficiencies through a personality test. Some employees find it hard to in busy retail companies because the job is demanding and requires a lot of dedication.
Finally, needs assessment expose performance deficiencies, as it helps in assessing mental stability and capability of the new employees. Employees working in a retail company should be psychologically prepared to handle demanding customers and feel less pressure during high demand seasons. Therefore, before conducting customer service training for new employees, it is important for the retail company to carry out training needs assessment. It will help the company to do effective and efficient training that is tailor-made to meet the needs of individual new employees, which will translate to a much better result.
Training Implementation Plan
Customer service is a vital part of any retail company. Therefore, executing customer service training needs great understanding the needs and expectations of the clients. At the same time, the company should be able to meet the needs sufficiently and even surpass them through consistent and positive training of new employees (Alipour, Salehi & Shahnavaz, 2009). Companies, in their pursuits, to adequately implement customer service of new hires, they must assess the needs of clients, evaluate employee skills, by designing and thus executing a training vehicle, and evaluate customer service delivery of the trained employees. As a result, this training implementation plan has four steps.
The first step involves the identification of customer needs. Client needs are first identified by determining what consumers expect from customer service staff. The organization should determine the general requirements of the existing and potential customers. Customer needs can be identified by seeking their feedback about their experience with the company regarding customer service (Alipour, Salehi & Shahnavaz, 2009). The retail company should carry out customer satisfaction survey to effectively identify customer needs. Therefore, determination of the client needs should be the first step of implementing the training.
The second phase is the training assessment needs of the new employees. A needs assessment can be achieved by evaluating individual employee’s skills and their understanding of the customer service. Needs assessment of new hires will first be evaluated through a structured interview. The second step will be monitoring how new employees are interacting with clients who visit the company and how they offer the services. Employees will then be categorized into those who have the required skills and those who need training. New hires who need training will be encouraged to participate in the customer service training. The third step will involve the design and implementation, which will be on-the-job training. Employees who need training will be assigned experienced customer service providers who will guide them on how to offer quality customer service. Experienced staff will guide the trainees on how to interact with clients, which is the core element of customer service. The training should take approximately two weeks.
The last step will be the reevaluation how the trained employees are interacting with customers on a consistent basis. The trained employees should be in a position to give feedback to evaluate how they perceive their customers' service. At the same time, all the new hires will be expected to comply with the customer services standard and protocol set by the company. The training is aimed at improving the quality of customer service provision by new employees, which will improve the performance of the retail business. HR department will head the training.
Method of Training
The customer service training will use on-the-job training (OJT) method, which is a form of training that takes place in a workplace situation. OJT is sometimes defined as the direct instruction training methods. OJT is one of the training methods that can be said to be among the top of the list of the oldest methods that have been used by the organizations in both private and public sector for decades. However, it is still one of the current training methods that are frequently used in many organizations across the globe. It is also the most suitable customer service training method due to its many advantages, which are preferred by retail companies.
OJT is the training process that can easily be arranged and managed, as it only requires experienced customer service employee and the necessary tools that are required for effectively undertaking the task of customer service (Alipour, Salehi & Shahnavaz, 2009). Consequently, it is relatively cheaper compared to other training methods that require a lot of time and resources. OJT is not expensive because it does not require specialized equipment rather than the ones used in daily operations. It is also highly practical and realistic, as trained employees can observe how the services are offered in a workplace environment. Therefore, employees will be able to relate the workplace and the acquired skills during training. The training also helps instructors to see and monitor how their lessons work in practice and make an adjustment in areas that need improvement. As a result, the on-the-job training method is preferred in this customer service training because it is inexpensive and it is practical.
Ways of Motivating New Employees to Participate in Training
Some new employees may resist from participating in the training due to different reasons. Therefore, the organization should find ways of motivating those resisting the customer service training to participate. Some of the employees may also start the training then give up on the way or fail to complete the process. All new hires should be encouraged to participate in the training to improve the general performance of the retail company.
One way of motivating resisting employees to take part in the customer service training is to establish some form of rewards (Abadi et al., 2011). The reward must to necessarily be financial, but the organization should cheaper benefits. For instance, it should give a certificate of accomplishment or some form of coveted gifts that make employees who are not interested in the training happy. The company can also organize a celebration party after the completion of the training. Only those who participate and complete the training should be allowed to join the party. Rewards will motivate those who are not interested in the training to participate. The second way of motivating employees who are not interested is to ensure that the training is well organized and logical. The training should be arranged in such a way that it does not bring any form of frustration to the participants (Abadi et al., 2011). It should also have a clear outline to ensure that the training process is smooth. The company should inform new employees of the need to be part of the training. Well- organized customer service training will motivate uninterested employees to join other willing new hires.
Survey to Collect Feedback
Feedback gained from those employees who took part in the training will be collected through a survey in the form of a questionnaire. The study will be aimed at determining whether training was beneficial, how employees will implement their newly acquired skills, and whether there is the need to carry out more training on customer service. Also, training will capture the challenges faced by the new employees when they offer customer services to clients. Employees are expected to fill the questionnaire after the training. The sample of a questionnaire as follows, will be used to collect feedback from the trained employees.
Questionnaire
HR Training Class Feedback Form
Kindly fill the form duly in the blank sections and submits upon completion
Section 1
What is your sex Male () Female ()
Indicate your position in the company .
Marital Status Single () Married ()
Section 2
Key
A= Agree SA= Strongly Agree D= Disagree SD= Strongly Disagree
6. What do you think should be improved to make training more effective?
7. What is your final comment?
Conclusion
Employees can only be able to improve their competencies through effective training. Customer service is vital part of retail companies and all employees in the industry should be able to satisfy all the customer needs and expectations, which can be enhanced through customer service training. However, it is important to first carry out training needs assessments to come up with effective training. On-the-job training should be used because it is practical and it is also cost-effective. All employees should be encouraged to participate in the training to improve the quality of customer service in the company.
References
Abadi, F. E., Jalilvand, M. R., Sharif, M., Salimi, G. A., & Khanzadeh, S. A. (2011). A study of influential factors on employees’ motivation for participating in the in-service training courses based on modified expectancy theory. International Business and Management, 2(1), 157-169.
Alipour, M., Salehi, M., & Shahnavaz, A. (2009). A Study of on the Job Training Effectiveness: Empirical Evidence of Iran. International Journal of Business and Management, 4(11), 63.
Berry, L. L., Wall, E. A., & Carbone, L. P. (2006). Service clues and customer assessment of the service experience: Lessons from marketing. The Academy of Management Perspectives, 20(2), 43-57.
Firdousi, F. (2011). Significance of determining assessment needs and training in the service sector. International Journal of Business and Social Science, 2(17).
