HRM Customer Service Training - Essay Example

HRM Service Training HRM Service Training When designing a service-training program, it is important for the relevant team to conduct a training needs assessment. When designing a training and development program, i.e. customer service training program, the training team must follow the five stages for the training to be effective. The five stages include needs assessment, design, instructional objectives, implementation, as well as, evaluation. As part of the effort of enhancing effectiveness and efficiency, one must begin with a needs assessment. Before the actual training starts, the management must evaluate; who needs the training, where the training should happen, when the training will happen, why the training should happen, as well as, how it would happen. To accomplish this, the management must conduct analysis-using information that relates to the organizational goals and objectives, jobs and other tasks, which the employees need to learn, competences that the employees must possess to execute their duties effectively, as well as, the employees that the human resource should train. An effective needs assessment, program would help the management to direct resources to the areas that have the greatest demand. The needs assessment, program should help in addressing the needed resources as far as customer service is concerned. It should as well help in evaluating the needed resources as far as enhancing productivity, achievement of organizational goals, as well as, improvement of the quality of goods and services are concerned. A needs assessment in customer service entails identifying the gap between what the human resource expects from the employees and the actual performance, as far as customer service is concerned. Needs and assessment, therefore, helps in closing the gap. Training Needs assessment The assessment within the small retail business would include three levels, which this paper will justify their need. The first level is organizational assessment. Organizational assessment determines the current performance of the organization, as far as, offering quality services to the customers is concerned. The assessment will help in identifying if the employees possess the right skills, abilities, knowledge or competencies in customer service. The assessment helps in solving problems present in customer service. Different businesses have different customer service needs. For example, a manufacturing company would have different customer service needs compared to a retail business. This reflects the importance of assessing the needs. In other words, it would contribute towards designing an effective customer service-training program (Miller, 2002). The second level is occupational assessment. It helps in identifying the skills, abilities, and knowledge that the affected occupational groups require. For example, the cashiers within the retail business may be in need of numerical skills that would enable them to offer quick and accurate services to the customers. After identifying this need, the human resource should design a training program that would equip the employees with effective numerical skills, which would enhance customer service. The importance of occupational assessment is the fact that it helps in identifying the gap that exist between the expected customer service skills amongst the employees and the current customer service skills that they possess. After identifying the gap, the management designs the training program in such a way that would bridge the gap. It as well helps in examining new and better ways of executing duties. The last level is individually assessed. This level helps in analyzing how well an employee is executing his duties as far as customer service is concerned. Individual assessment helps the human resource to identify the specific employees that need customer service training. Different employees have different needs as far as customer service is concerned. Therefore, it is imperative for the human resource team to identify the different needs amongst the employees. It should then tailor-make the training program in a way that suits the employee needs (Michael, 2001). Conducting the assessment needs assist the instructional designer in defining the learning objective in the customer service training. It helps in identifying the most effective training topics and the best methods of training the employees. Additionally, needs assessment enables the human resource to determine the training needs amongst the employees. This information is important as it helps in scheduling classes, and workshops that suits the population. A couple of instruments including the focus groups, questionnaires, exams, interviews, as well as, the general observation assists in the generation of data analysis of such data helps in identifying customer service problems or challenges amongst the employees (Thayer, 2001). Needs assessment helps in identifying performance deficiencies One of the major ways through which the needs assessment process helps in identifying the performance deficiency is by evaluating the organizational performance. This is through evaluating the organizational goals. After identifying the set objective, i.e. as far as the customer service needs is concerned, it compares the actual performance to the set standards. If the company does meet its set objectives, it is an indication of performance deficiencies. Designing an effective training program would contribute significantly to eliminating the deficiencies. This is because of the actuality that the training program would equip the employees with relevant skills i.e. effective customer service skills. Another key way through, which needs assessment helps in identifying the performance deficiency, is by evaluating the desired and the current job performance. Every organization has the standard desired level of job performance. Needs assessment compares the actual and desired performance in customer service. The relevant human resource team might find that the performance is below the standards. This would amount to performance deficiency. A deficiency in performance amongst the employees helps the human resource to design a training program that would enable the employees to perform to the desired levels. Needs assessment process put into consideration the factors that affect the employees; in terms of their performance. For example, factors such as technology and economic changes may result to performance deficiencies as far as the customer service is concerned. Technological change alters the way people execute tasks. This might result to performance deficiency in customer service. Therefore, it is vital for the human resource team to evaluate how the change in external factors affects service delivery. For example, if the management finds that technology has changed the way employees execute their duties, it designs the training program in such a way that would enable them to keep pace with the ever-changing technology as far as offering effective customer service services is concerned. Economic factors as well cause changes in the way employees execute their duties. For example, the globalization of the global economies has resulted, too many organizations going global. One of the major factors behind this is to take advantage of the emerging economies. Consequently, organizations need to train their employees to offer high quality services in the global environment (Wagen, 2008). Implementation of customer-service training plan Customer service is one of the most important parts of conducting a successful business. For example, in a small retail business, customer service reflects the ability of the business in terms of meeting the needs of its customers. For an effective implementation of customer-service training program, it is important for one to understand the customers’ needs and desires, as well as, expectations. In a retail business, the human resource should work on surpassing the customers’ expectation in terms of offering quality services. It is as well important to involve the employees in the implementation process. One needs to assess the customers’ needs, as well as, the employees’ skills. This helps in designing and implementing an effective training program. The first step in the implementation process is identification of the customers’ needs. In other words, the human resource team must understand the customers’ needs, as well as, what the customers expect from the employees. The most effective way of understanding one’s customers ‘needs or expectations, is by one conducting a market research. The research may involve giving comment cards to the customers. The customers should comment about their experiences with the business in terms of how they perceive the employees’ services. The retail business may hire a professional i.e. a survey firm to conduct a customer satisfaction survey. The firm would conduct a survey that would determine how the employees interact with the customers. After obtaining this information, the human resource team uses it in designing and implementing an effective training program (Newman, 2009). The second step involves evaluating every employee’s skills, as well as, skill level. One may evaluate this by simply observing how the employee interacts with the customers, as well as, his or her level of services to the customers. Different employees have different customer service skills. For example, an employee may be a natural salesperson, and possesses skills that enable him to use less effort in selling. Another employee might be good at solving customers’ problems. Therefore, the work of the human resource team is to identify what skills a specific employee misses and what skills, he or she possesses. The human resource team should as well identify which employee possesses the best skill for a certain customer service need. After obtaining this information, the team would be in a good position to equip different employees with specific skills that they need. The fourth step is designing and implementing a training method. This is by giving an opportunity to employees to demonstrate their customer service skills as well as, how they use them in executing their duties. One may as well profit from the experienced staff, by making them train the new employees on how to offer high quality customer services. Another implementation method is by hiring a professional i.e. customer service consultant to prepare an employee handbook or a customer service manual, that would guide employees on how to offer high quality customer services. For example, the manual may offer details on how to greet customers, the body language, how to ask questions to the customers, i.e. the sequence, as well as, how to resolve their disputes (Newman, 2009). The third step entails reevaluation of the training program regularly. This gives the customers an opportunity to give feedback on the customer service. The feedback helps the human resource team to evaluate the effectiveness of the training program. If the training program is not effective, then the human resource team must review it to ensure that it equips the employees with effective customer service skills. The implementing team must as well ensure that every employee sticks to the customer service manual. One should as well collect feedback from the employees to identify their problems as far as using and manual is concerned. Methods of training There are many methods that one may utilize in training the employees on customer service, including instructor led-training and interactive methods, i.e. case studies, small group discussion, and role-playing amongst other methods. The most effective method is the role-play. This entails assuming roles, as well as, acting out situations that may arise in the normal workplace environment. This helps the employees to experience the real problems in training, which prepares them on how to tackle different customer-care service problems when they arise. In another world, by allowing the employees to face customer service situation before they facing them in the job are important as far as effective training is concerned. It is one of the most effective techniques for a couple of interpersonal skills including customer service, supervision and interviewing. Another reason why this method is effective is the fact that interactive techniques ensure that the trainees stay engaged throughout the training process. This makes them receptive to any new information they come across. The methods as well provide an important feedback on how the employees are learning. Depending on how they participate in the interactive sessions, the training team could tell if the employees are acquiring customer service skills effectively (Neider, 2003). Ways of motivating employees to attend training sessions An effective ways to encouraging a worker to attend a training session in customer service is by presenting them with incentives. The incentives may be cash or non-cash. For example, the human resource team may offer an extra day in vacation to employee or offering them cash incentives. This would motivate them to attend the training. Training is not only in the best interest of the worker, but also in the best interest of the company. Therefore, offering incentives are important because training would equip employees with skills that would add value to the organization. Another method of motivating the employees to attend customer service training is by educating them on the importance of participating in such trainings as far as career development is concerned. The human resource team should create awareness amongst the employees about the fact that the skills that they would gain would not only be important for them while within the organization, but also when outside the organization (Gillen, 2000). Conclusion Customer service training is important in every organization, both small and large. The small retail company, therefore, needs an effective customer service-training program. The program would equip the employees with excellent customer service skills that would enhance the customer satisfaction significantly. This would contribute to the long-term success of the retail company. To ensure an effective customer service-training program, one would need to conduct the needs assessment amongst the employees. This entails identifying what skills the employees possess and what skills they need. The assessment helps in identifying the performance deficiencies amongst employees, thus helping the human resource team in designing and effective training program. References Gillen, T. (2000). 20 Training Workshop for Customer Service. Amherst : HRD Press. Michael, G. (2001). The needs assessmnet solution. Personal Administrator , 82-84. Miller, J. (2002). Training Needs Assessmnet (www.shrmindia.org ed.). Neider, L. (2003). New direction in HRM. Greenwich: Information Age Pulb. Newman, D. (2009). HRM: a customer-oriented approach. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall. Thayer, P. (2001). Training in Business and Industry . New York : Wiley . Wagen, L. (2008). Customer service intelligence;perspectives of human resources and training. Oxford: Butterworth. Read More