- We need to give employees training if we want them
to embrace our service culture in their daily work.
This can help them understand the types
of behaviors we are looking for.
For example, employees in a software company are trained
to focus on the organization's vision
of helping clients maximize the use of the software.
Customers sometimes call
and ask for a feature that the software doesn't have.
A typical response in most companies would be to say,
I'm sorry, the feature is not available.
Employees in this company are trained
to ask detailed questions about the customers' needs,
and find a way to help the customer use the software
to accomplish her objectives.
Training is essential to helping employees know
how to follow the vision
and do the right thing in moments like this.
Here's a training plan that you can use.
Let's start with the learning objectives
that describe what someone should be
able to do by the end of the training.
I'd like to suggest three objectives.
Employees should be able
to identify your customer service vision.
They should be able to explain the vision
in their own words, and they should be
able to describe how they contribute
to the vision in their daily work.
The next step is to create your instructional plan
to help employees achieve the learning objectives.
One approach is to use the tell, show, do training method.
You start by telling the employee what
you'd like them to know.
In this case, you'd explain the customer service vision,
what it means and how it relates to the employee's job.
Next, you'd show the employee some examples.
For example, one company has
all employees shadow the customer service team,
so they can see firsthand how employees help
solve customer problems using the vision as a guide.
Finally, ask the employee to engage in some
sort of activity to demonstrate they
have achieved the learning objectives.
This could be as simple
as having employees answer these three questions.
What is the vision?
What does it mean?
And how do you personally contribute?
There are many creative ways you can deliver this training.
You could do a scavenger hunt
where employees use their phones to take pictures
of vision examples throughout the company,
or you might have employees review an existing product,
service, or process, and describe how well it aligns
with the customer service vision.
Now, once you train employees,
the final step is to provide some ongoing reinforcement,
so they will remember
to use the vision to guide their daily activities.
I'd like to use the 70/20/10 rule
to create a reinforcement plan.
This is not really a rule per se,
but rather a rough guideline
for how employees develop knowledge and skills.
70% comes from challenging work assignments.
So we could reinforce
the customer service vision through daily work.
For example, a customer service leader reviews
customer feedback with her team on a daily basis
and discusses ways to improve.
20% comes from a boss or mentor.
So you could reinforce the vision
by incorporating it into one-on-one feedback
that you are already sharing with your employees.
10% comes from formal training programs.
Many companies hold annual refresher training sessions
to help remind employees about key skills they should use
to align themselves with the customer service vision.
The key here is to constantly remind employees about
the importance of the customer service vision
and how it should guide their work.
I've created a sample customer service vision training plan
for a company that makes a smartphone app for travelers.
You can download that along
with the training plan worksheet.
I recommend you use the worksheet
to create a training plan for your organization,
department, or team.