Employee Customer Service Training New Employee Customer Service Training Plan

Justify the use of a needs assessment of your company's proposed employee customer service training, stressing five (5) ways in which such an assessment would expose any existing performance deficiencies.

The employees of an organization act like the 'driving force' which can either lead the organization towards success or can turn out to be the cause of its failure. A company's progress not only depends on an employee's individual performance but the way these employees communicate with the customers has its own significance. Thus, in order to run a successful organization, it is quite essential to monitor the correlation between the outcomes and the employees' input on a regular basis. To ensure employees' effectiveness, organizations usually remain concerned about training their employees.

Training means a methodical intentional process of changing behavior of organizational members in a direction which contributes to organizational effectiveness. (Hinrichs, 1976).

However, it is necessary to conduct a training needs assessment prior to the planning for any sort of training. A needs assessment facilitates the training process by identifying the areas where employees actually need to improve themselves. It is a process of looking closely at the existing gaps in an organization. "Needs are basically the gaps between the present attainments and the desired future accomplishments." (Watkins, Meiers & Visser, 2012)

According to Miller & Osinski (1996) these gaps can include discrepancies or differences between the following:

What the company's objectives are and what is actually happening.

Present and desired job performance and/or

Existing and preferred competencies and abilities of the employees.

Keeping all these factors in mind, we'll plan a needs assessment for our company's new employee customer service training. The needs assessment will focus on the following areas:

Company's expectations

Current competencies of the new employees (including their communication, analytical and management skills etc.)

Company's future challenges and prospects

Customers' requirements

Company's policies and procedures

In this way, the needs assessment will help the company to adopt an organized process of making decisions for future betterment. It would be helpful in the following ways:

Assessing the organizations' objectives and expectations will provide an insight of the company's vision for the new employees.

Evaluating new employees' competencies will be helpful in identifying the specific areas where they need further training.

Looking into future prospects or challenges will assist the new employees and consequently the company for preparing the time frames, number of employees required or planning budget etc.

Asking for customer's requirements will actually help in spotting and bridging the gaps in customer relationship and satisfaction.

Assessment of the company's policies and procedures will provide a platform to the new employees in understanding the new organization and familiarizing with its rules and regulations. Furthermore, it will help the organization itself to identify any current practice that acts as a hurdle towards the success of the organization.

2. Develop a customer service training implementation plan and determine the method of training (i.e., presentation, discussion, case study, discovery, role play, simulation, modeling, or on-the-job training).

AND

3. Justify why you selected the training method that you did.

Customer Services Training

Program Objectives:

We may set the following goals/objectives as key elements of the Customer Service Training Program.

I. Product Knowledge

New employees, first and foremost, need to be thoroughly educated on all aspects of the Company's Product Line. Such education/instruction shall consist of the following:

i. Product Design and its End-use.

ii. Competitive strengths and weaknesses.

iii. Ability to demonstrate the working/usefulness of the product.

iv. Policy on warranties or claims against sales.

v. Policy on After Sales Service

vi. Policy on Sales Promotion, Incentives and After Sales Service.

vii. Policy on customer credit.

viii. Procedure for Sales Returns.

II. Education on Customer Relations / Product and Company Image Building.

III. Teaching of Interpersonal Skills and Effective Business Communication.

Implementation Plan and Methods

The HR department shall draw up an implementation plan on the following lines:

DAY 1:

The HR Department to arrange for gathering of the class of new employees, in the conference room of the company. It will be addressed by the Head of the company, on company's over-all policy, its vision and the importance of customer services.

Later on, the class to be addressed respectively, by the heads of HR, the Buying Department, Sales Department etc., each emphasizing on the need and importance of customer relations/services.

This exercise, obviously, shall adopt the 'Presentation Method.'

DAY 2 to DAY 7

The HR Department shall make detailed plans with the Sub-Heads/Managers of the 'Buying Department' for the purpose of educating this new class of employees on PRODUCT knowledge, as discussed earlier under program objectives.

Each Sub-Head/Manager to spend, let's...

In order to achieve the desired objectives, the managers will make extensive use of multi-media, audio-visual aids, making use of the DEMONSTRATION and the SIMULATION METHODS.
b) DISCUSSION / CASE-STUDY METHOD; In order for training to be effective and result-oriented, the Managers/Trainers shall have to rely, heavily, on the DISCUSSION METHOD. Through this, the new employees shall be encouraged to ask as many questions as necessary, and thus fully participate in the communication process.

Similarly, CASE-STUDY METHOD will be useful in explaining and sharing, company's experience in dealing with specific key products in the past.

DAY 8:

In order to achieve our second objective of developing a sense of company-wide approach and appreciation of the company's values and vision, the Head of Marketing Services Department shall spend one day with the trainees.

Again, making use of the PRESENTATION and the DISCUSSION METHODS, he will impart training to the employees on the fundamentals of CUSTOMER RELTAIONS and IMAGE BUILDING in relation to both products and the company on the whole.

As the saying goes 'IMAGE IS EVERYTHING' the new employees are bound to be greatly benefited through proper understanding of the crucial role played by the Product/Brand IMAGE in dealing with customers, at large.

DAY 9 to DAY 10

Coming to our last objective of developing INTERPERSONAL SKILLS, through effective Business Communication, once again, the Head of the Marketing Services Department will be required to conduct the training program on following lines:

a. Making effective use of both the DEMONSTRATION and SIMULATION METHOD, the new employees shall get essential training in customer handling techniques. For this, the manager could, readily, take advantage of professional material in shape of available videos, case-studies and simulation in the field of interpersonal skills.

b. A basic, elementary course in effective Business Communication Skills shall greatly help the new class, in their effort to learn the necessary Customer Services Needs.

c. Since great reliance is placed on VOICE communication over the telephone, it will be of use to instruct the class of new employees on the best practices/etiquette of handling, and responding to telephone calls.

4. Propose two (2) ways to motivate an employee who has no interest in attending a training class.

The employees will be motivated to attend the training sessions in the following ways:

i) They will be informed that all the employees who will attend the training will get a certificate for this training which will open future prospects for them.

ii) There will be a 'BEST PARTICIPANT AWARD' for the employee who'll actually contribute to the training session by participating positively and whole-heartedly. This employee receive 15% bonus in his salary for the period of following 3 months.

As explained by Myers (2001) rewards that make people feel that their input and efforts are being considered can enhance their feelings of competence and inherent motivation. Rewarding employees for outstanding performance can boost up their intrinsic enthusiasm. (Eisenberger & others, 1999)

5. Develop a survey to collect feedback from the employees who attend the training.

Please take a few moments to provide us with some important feedback about the training session.

Questions

Strongly agree

Agree

Somewhat agree

Disagree

Strongly disagree

a. The activities of the training were useful.

b. I have got adequate information about the company's values and vision.

c. I am well informed about the product line of the company.

d. Sufficient discussion was done on customer relations.

e. The information provided will help me improve my interpersonal skills.

f. I am ready to start my work as a customer services representative on my new job.

g. I feel motivated to work for the future betterment of the company.

h. Sufficient time was allotted for sharing of ideas and experiences.

i. The session was effectively organized.

j. The ambience (temperature, light, seating) was good.

Any Comments:

Thank you for your feedback and ideas.

Bibliography

Eisenberger, R., Rhoades, L. & Cameron, J. (1999). Does pay for performance increase or decrease perceived self-determination and intrinsic motivation? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77, 1026-1040.

Gerow, J.R. (1997). Psychology -- An Introduction. 5th Edition. New York: Longman.

Hinrichs, J.R. (1976). Personnel training. In M. Dunnette (Ed.), Handbook of industrial and organizational psychology. Skokie, IL: Rand MsNally.

Miller & Osinski (1996). Training Needs Assessment. Retrieved November 18,

2013, from http://www.ispi.org/pdf/suggestedReading/Miller_Osinski.pdf

Myers D.G. (2001) Psychology. 6th edition. New York:…