Tag Archive for: service technician training

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Preventative Maintenance for Business Promotion – Step 4

An important step in any maintenance activity is to ensure that the moving parts are properly lubricated and that there is a regular lubricating schedule that is consistent with manufacturers’ specifications.  Lubricating moving parts is critical.  Proper lubrication will reduce noise, heat and extend asset life.  Failure to lubricate will result in premature failure.

Management Support is the Lubricant

Our initiative to engage our field team in business development needs regular lubrication too.  Lubrication is vital to prevent premature failure of our efforts.  Management support is the lubricant of the initiative.  Consistent and engaged management support will contribute to the efficiency and longevity of the efforts of our field service team.  Initiatives that are poorly supported by management will never achieve the planned performance levels and will lose whatever momentum they have quickly.

As you assess management support as part of your PM program, consider the following:

  • How often do you speak of the initiative? Is it part of most conversations?
  • Do you speak of service promotion by field professionals as part of the overall strategy to serve the customer? Are the proactive efforts of the field team referred to as a service to the customer?
  • Do you regularly provide training for your team to enable them to perform capably and comfortably?
  • Do you offer reminders and refreshers to keep the initiative fresh? Do you provide an opportunity such as role-playing to let your field service professionals practice their customer conversations in a safe environment?
  • Do you make time to regularly coach the team on the desired behaviours?

Providing the coaching and support needed to maintain momentum and achieve desired results is difficult.  Because coaching and support is not “urgent” (like responding to an emergency breakdown for example), and the results of the efforts tend not to be immediately visible, it often takes a back seat to other opportunities.  Management must be disciplined.  The effort is worth it, however.  Research shows that the most important component of any initiative requiring behaviour change is how management introduces and supports the initiative, not the quality of the initiative itself.[1]

Next time we will consider the importance of spare parts and how providing the security of this backup will help keep the processes running smoothly.

Let’s Connect

As always, I welcome your comments and questions. You can connect with me via telephone or email or leave a comment right here on the site. If you are reading this blog post via email, you will need to locate this post on my website by clicking here. Scroll down to the bottom of the page where you will find the comment section.

Jim Baston

“Learning is not compulsory… neither is survival.”
– W. Edwards Deming

[1] This series of blogs is based on an article published for Field Service News – https://www.fieldservicenews.com

[2] James Kirkpatrick, Transferring Learning to Behaviour

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Preventative Maintenance for Business Promotion – Step 3

This series of blogs discusses the application of preventative maintenance in order to maintain our field team’s product and service promotion effectiveness. [1]

Step 3 – Checking Alignments and Readjusting if Applicable

Engaging our field service professionals in business development requires processes and systems with many moving parts.  In order to keep those parts working smoothly and ensure our field team is delivering at its highest levels, we must conduct periodic preventative maintenance (PM) services.  One of those services is checking alignments and readjusting if applicable.

In the service we provide to our customers, aligning equipment is a critical part of the PM services we provide.  If left unaddressed, unaligned equipment will result in premature bearing and belt wear, energy loss and equipment failure.

Aligning Our Business Development Efforts

The same is true for our business development efforts by the field team.  In many cases, opportunities will be referred to other areas of the business for fulfillment.  For example, a business opportunity might be referred to the sales department to follow up with the customer and to provide pricing and a formal proposal.  In others, part or all of the field team’s recommendations will be delivered through a separate department (e.g. a small project may be executed by a “projects” division rather than the “service” department).  If these other areas of the business are not aligned with your business development efforts, then you will not achieve the potential of your efforts.

Despite the criticalness of these alignments, many companies fail to address them.  One firm that I worked for, for example, had sales compensation plans that actually discouraged the salespeople from following up on opportunities from the field.  Needless to say, the field team and their customers were frustrated by the lack of response from the sales department and this caused their early efforts to engage their field service representatives in business development to fail.  In another case, the field service team did not trust the executing department to treat their customers with the same level of care and attention that they provide.  The field service team was fearful that they might lose the customer.

Conduct Regular Reviews of Your Business Development Alignments

As part of your PM, it is prudent to review these alignments to confirm that they are running smoothly.  Talk to the leaders of the other departments to ensure that they understand what you are doing and how it will benefit them.  Strategize together on how to reduce any obstacles and to build a stronger partnership between department members.  Review your processes (like sales compensation plans) to see if there is anything in the works that may be holding things back.

If a problem comes to your attention, address it immediately with your departmental counterpart to get it resolved.  Avoid laying blame on the other party (for example saying “Typical!  Those guys just don’t care about us!!”).  This only serves to cause the field team to question why they bother.  Dealing with interdivisional alignments, it is always good to follow the motto, “If it is to be, it’s up to me!”

Next time, we will look at lubrication of moving parts as the next step in our PM service for the business development efforts of our field service team.

Let’s Connect

As always, I welcome your comments and questions. You can connect with me via telephone or email or leave a comment right here on the site. If you are reading this blog post via email, you will need to locate this post on my website by clicking here. Scroll down to the bottom of the page where you will find the comment section.

Jim Baston

“If it is to be, it’s up to me!”

– Anon

[1] This series of blogs is based on an article published for Field Service News – https://www.fieldservicenews.com

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Preventative Maintenance for Business Promotion – Step 2

This series of blogs discusses the application of preventative maintenance in order to maintain our field team’s product and service promotion effectiveness. [1]

Step 2 – Replacing, Refurbishing or Cleaning Wearable Parts and Consumables

In order to help our customers to be better off for having hired us, we must continually be on the lookout for ways that we can help them achieve their business goals.  Our field service team is in the best position to do this because of their knowledge of the technology, our company’s capabilities and our customers’ challenges and goals.  However, in order for our team to be effective in making proactive recommendations, we must have the system and processes in place and working smoothly.  Regular preventative maintenance (PM) of our systems and processes will help ensure that our field service professionals continue to provide recommendations that will be appreciated by our customers.

Last time I wrote about conducting a high level assessment before getting into the details of the PM.  This time, I would like to focus our attention on the parts of the initiative that wear and need refurbishing or replacement – the opportunity capture and management systems and processes.

Opportunity Capture and Management Systems and Processes

Opportunity capture and management systems and processes are the backbone of the business development initiative and are the parts of the overall initiative that is most subject to wear and tear.  If the systems are not working smoothly, then opportunities get lost, field professionals get frustrated and customers become disappointed.  Failure to maintain the processes and systems will be a sure way to bring the entire initiative to a grinding halt.

Capture Opportunities

To keep systems and processes operating in tiptop condition, check to ensure that there is a clear and simple process to capture opportunities and that the process is clearly understood. Look for any opportunities that may have fallen through the cracks.  Identify opportunities that are in limbo and the clarity and effectiveness of the process to follow-up.

Feedback Loops

Look at the feedback loops. Check to ensure that the feedback loops are working properly so that the field service professional is informed on opportunity status when visiting the customer.

Response Times

Ensure that management is responding quickly to address any anomalies when problems in the process do occur.  Failure to address concerns about the processes and systems will communicate to the field team that you are just not that serious.

Simplify the Efforts of the Technicians

Speak with the technicians to explore for improvements in the process that will simplify their efforts.  They are the ones who live and breath within the system and irritations, no matter how small, will slow down their efforts and discourage the desired behaviours.

Taking the time to check and address worn parts and consumables will ensure that the core of the initiative is working smoothly.  Next time I will discuss checking alignments and readjusting if necessary.

Let’s Connect

As always, I welcome your comments and questions. You can connect with me via telephone or email or leave a comment right here on the site. If you are reading this blog post via email, you will need to locate this post on my website by clicking here. Scroll down to the bottom of the page where you will find the comment section.

Jim Baston

“If I had six hours to chop down a tree, I would
spend the first four hours sharpening the axe.”

– Abraham Lincoln

 

[1] This series of blogs is based on an article published for Field Service News – https://www.fieldservicenews.com

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Technology’s Revolutionary Impact on the Relative Importance of Soft Skills

If you are in the service business, then you know a little bit about change. Just about everything to do with field service has been impacted by technology; and it has changed the way we do business. Technology is also having a revolutionary impact on the relative importance of soft skills.

Technology has allowed us to improve efficiencies. It has enabled us to get a more accurate picture of the effectiveness of our business practices. And it has allowed us to empower our field personnel. Most of these changes have been good for the customer, for us and for our field teams.

Closing the Competency Gap

As the pace of technology increases, we can see the shift it is having on the relative importance of soft skills. And it truly is revolutionary. Emerging technologies in the field service business are reducing the competency gap between top service professionals and less skilled service providers. The result is that it is becoming harder to differentiate on technical skills. With remote diagnostics, artificial intelligence, visual reality and embedded information in the serviced equipment, the field service professionals rely more on their tools to troubleshoot and repair and less on their experience and technical expertise. This opens up the door for less “qualified” individuals who use these same tools to give comparable levels of technical service.

This means that, even though it is highly competitive now, it will become even more so in the future. Customers will have an even more difficult time distinguishing between service providers. Service professionals and service organizations alike will have to rely more on the service experience that they create when interacting with a customer to differentiate them from their competitors. The basis of competition will shift from who is doing the best job of servicing the equipment; to who can create the best service experience while doing the job.

It’s All About The Brand

This is not to say that technical competence will go by the wayside. Obviously, it won’t. Technical competence will remain important. But as technology levels the playing field between service professionals of different capabilities, technical competence of the individual and the organizations that employ them will no longer be a factor of differentiation. The winning service organizations of the future will be the ones that create a service “brand.” They will clearly define the service experience they want to create and invest in the processes and soft skills training of their field service team to achieve it.

As always, I welcome your comments and questions. You can connect with me via telephone or email or leave a comment right here on the site. If you are reading this blog post via email, you will need to locate this post on my website by clicking here. Scroll down to the bottom of the page where you will find the comment section.

Jim Baston

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

– Buckminster Fuller

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Are You Fully Capitalizing on One of Your Most Valuable Assets?

Are you fully capitalizing on one of your most valuable assets – the knowledge and experience of your field service team?  Sure, you depend on their expertise to provide maintenance service, troubleshoot and make repairs correctly and efficiently.  But do you fully capitalize on their abilities to recognize additional work opportunities?  They offer much more than the opportunity to identify more business.  Their proactive recommendations can help your customers achieve results that they did not realize were possible and can differentiate you from the competition.

When you think about capitalizing on the proactive efforts of your service team, here are three questions to consider:

1. Do you see the field service professional’s promotion of services as an opportunity to serve your customers better or simply as a means for generating more business?

If we regard the field team’s proactive efforts as a service we will be more likely to treat it like one; we will be much more likely to support it, provide training for it and promote it like we would any other service we provide.

2. Do you discourage “selling” for the sake of merely gaining more business and insist that any recommendations by your field service team be directly tied to a customer benefit?

By focusing on how the recommendation will help the customer rather than how it will generate income, we will reinforce the service nature of the recommendations and show the field team why proactive recommendations are an integral part of their day-to-day service role.

3. Do you “convince” or do you “tell” your field team to promote your services?

To fully capitalize on our field team’s expertise, they must be willing participants.  A field service professional who is not convinced that promoting services is part of the service that they deliver will never achieve their full potential.  A willing participant must be convinced that business promotion is part of the service.  We can do this by what we say, what we do and how we position business promotion as a service.

Our field service teams provide a valuable service when they apply their technical expertise to maintain or repair equipment – as do the service teams of our competitors.  But we can offer more than this.  We can enhance the value that our teams deliver and differentiate our business from our competitors by capitalizing on our field team’s ability to recognize opportunities to ultimately help our customers to be better off.  By doing so, we will be capitalizing on one of our most valuable assets.

As always, I welcome your comments and questions. You can connect with me via telephone or email or leave a comment right here on the site. And as always, please feel free to leave a link back to your own blog if you have one via the commentluv feature here on the site. If you are reading this blog post via email, you will need to locate this post on my website by clicking here. Scroll down to the bottom of the page where you will find the comment section.

Jim Baston

“The human mind is our fundamental resource.”

– John F. Kennedy

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3 Ways to Support Business Development by Your Field Service Team

3 Ways to Support Business Development by Your Field Service Team

More and more service organizations recognize the value their field service professionals bring when they make recommendations to their customers that will help them to be better off. The challenge is to get the field team to embrace this business development mindset and maintain focus over the long haul.

To achieve this, we would be well served by supporting business development by our field service team like any other service we provide. Here are three things we can do.

1. Support the proactive efforts of the field service team with tools and processes.

Imagine that you have decided to offer a new service for your customers.  Would you simply announce the new service and wish your team luck in delivering on it or would you provide every effort to ensure that the initiative was a success?  I suspect that you would not leave anything to chance and that you would make the necessary investments to ensure that the field team was properly equipped and directed to make the new service a success.

Now think about the field team’s proactive efforts to make recommendations of products and services to your customers.  Here are just a few questions to consider:

  • Have you made the same level of effort to ensure their success in recommending your services as you have in ensuring that they can deliver upon them?
  • What processes and tools have you employed to ensure that your field team can effectively identify and speak to the customer about your services?
  • How have you employed your field automation and/or other tools to support the efforts of your team?
  • Have you defined clear steps for your field team to take when making recommendations?
  • How will the current status of opportunities identified be communicated and updated?

2. Train the field service team on the details of the service that they are about to deliver and the skills required to do so.

Thinking back to the new service offering:

  • What training would you provide on that service and how would you explain why it is of value to the customer?
  • What would you want the field professional to know about the benefits of the recommended service and the types of problems the new service addresses or avoids?
  • How would you equip your service team to speak intelligently about the new service and explain how it will help each customer?
  • What skills will you equip your team with to deliver the service flawlessly?

Now consider the business development expectations you have for your technicians:

  • How will you equip your field team so that they can explain the benefit of their proactive efforts to the customer?
  • How is this different from simply promoting services?
  • What specific benefits can the customer expect from the field team’s recommendations?
  • How can the field team present recommendations in a manner that helps the customer see the benefit of taking action?
  • What specific steps do you expect the field service team to take when delivering on this service?

A field team that recognizes that their efforts are not solely intended for the purpose of increasing revenues, but rather to improve the level of service provided, will be more engaged and enthusiastic in doing just that.  The fact that revenues will rise as a result of their efforts is a secondary reward for their ability to improve overall service levels.  A clear understanding of expectations will also help to engage the team in this important service activity.

3. Measure performance for continuous improvement

Any new service offering will have to demonstrate a return on investment.  Feedback about actual performance against plan will be analyzed and addressed.  Without feedback you or your team would not have a clear view of the effectiveness of their efforts.

The same is true for engaging field teams in making proactive recommendations.  Feedback on their performance will provide insights into what is working well and what is not.  It will give you a clearer view of the effectiveness of the effort and guide steps to make continuous improvement.

An obvious measure is revenue but that is only the tip of the iceberg.  Other related and critical measures are customer satisfaction and retention scores.  In addition, if we are making recommendations that will help our customer to be better off, we should see a decrease in unplanned maintenance and an improvement in overall labour planning.  These are just a few of the measures we can take to evaluate performance.  There are several more.

We Need Ensure that Our Field Team is Properly Equipped

Engaging our field team to proactively identify and recommend products and services to our customers that will help them to be better off is a valuable service.  When we view our field team’s efforts as a service, we can take a step back and evaluate if we are providing the right level of support to ensure their enthusiastic participation and their sustained success.  Like any service we provide, we need to ensure that our team is equipped with the right tools, skills and processes and measure our performance against plan to focus on continuously improving.

As always, I welcome your comments and questions. You can connect with me via telephone or email or leave a comment right here on the site. And as always, please feel free to leave a link back to your own blog if you have one via the commentluv feature here on the site. If you are reading this blog post via email, you will need to locate this post on my website by clicking here. Scroll down to the bottom of the page where you will find the comment section.

Jim Baston

“One of the greatest compliments that we can receive is
when our customer tells us that they are better off for having known us”

– Jim Baston

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A Lesson in Good Customer Service Delivery

managing customer service expectations

I recently had the good fortune to work in Australia for an international client.  It was a wonderful experience and a great adventure.  It also provided me with a lesson in good customer service delivery.  The lesson?  Good customer service is not always the same for every customer.  It all depends on meeting the customer’s expectations.

The hotel I stayed at was in Manly, a suburb of Sydney.  We were literally on the coast and Manly boasted a beautiful beach framed by a wonderful promenade.  Each morning it would be full of people, walking and running to start the day.  I joined them.  Every day before breakfast, I would head out onto the promenade for the 1 ½ km walk each way.

The first morning, I had a problem.  I kept “bumping” into other people and spent much of my time pausing, stepping aside and apologizing.  It was a strange experience for me and certainly did not contribute to a pleasant walk.

And then it dawned on me.  I was having trouble walking more than 20 or 30 seconds without a near collision because I was trying to pass on my right while the oncoming people were trying to pass on their left.  As a result, we were both moving in the same direction to provide room for the other and ended up blocking each other’s path.  It turned out that they, like us in North America, tend to pass oncoming pedestrians in the same manner that they would pass an oncoming car.  Since Australians drive on the left, they were naturally trying to pass me the same way.

Our Expectations Were Different and it Sets Us on a Collision Course

Once I realized this, my walking experience changed completely (for the better).  I started passing on the left and things started to go smoothly.  I passed others with ease and the aggravating start/stop I had been experiencing disappeared.  I could spend more time admiring the view and appreciating the early morning sunshine.  And, of course, so could they.

Good Customer Service: One Size Does NOT Fit All

This proved to be an important lesson of good customer service delivery.  One size does not fit all.  Good customer service for one customer does not automatically equate to good customer service for another.  Each customer has certain expectations of how they will be treated and judge their experience on how well we meet or exceed those expectations.  It is important that we are sensitive to this and adjust our interactions accordingly.

For example, a customer who likes to engage in pleasant conversation may appreciate chatting about last night’s game or handling a question or two about the picture on the wall behind their desk.  Others may be entirely business focused and see such conversations as a waste of time – time they are paying for.  But even the conversational customer will not appreciate personal conversations in the middle of an emergency or when they are running late for another appointment.

Start By Identifying the Customers’ Expectations

So, the lesson learned is simply this:  each customer has different expectations of what good customer service is, and we would be wise to be sensitive to this and adjust how we interact with them accordingly.  The challenge for us as service providers is to learn what those expectations are for each customer.  That is a discussion for another blog.

As always, I welcome your comments and questions. You can connect with me via telephone or email or leave a comment right here on the site. And as always, please feel free to leave a link back to your own blog if you have one via the commentluv feature here on the site. If you are reading this blog post via email, you will need to locate this post on my website by clicking here. Scroll down to the bottom of the page where you will find the comment section.

Jim Baston

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5 Tips to Help Your Field Team Deal with Customers Effectively

business-man-with-bell

December is a wonderful time of year.  But it can also be a time of high stress.  Organizations struggle to get everything done before the holidays.  Employees try to balance the surge in social commitments while continuing to take actions to meet budgets.  Systems and processes are strained by increased demands caused by weather, quotas or any other number of things.

It is a time of year when systems and circumstance combine to create a stress-fuelled environment of tension and possible conflict.  To help your field team deal with customers effectively in these stressful times, consider the following five approaches.  This will help your team maintain good relations and build higher levels of trust and remind your customers why they chose to do business with you in the first place.

  1. Connect with the customer.

Whenever stressful situations arise, it is critical for our customers to realize that they have our full attention.  We can demonstrate this by connecting with the customer.  By connecting, we mean giving our customer our full attention.  That means putting things down, standing if appropriate, exhibiting open body language[1], making eye contact and actively listening.

It is also important to show a sense of urgency in our motions and our body stance (leaning slightly forward).  Connecting with the customer in this way shows we are taking the situation seriously and interested in getting the problem resolved.

  1. Acknowledge the situation.

We can remove some of the customer’s stress and concerns by showing them that we understand.  We can do this in a number of ways.  For example, the problem being experienced is having a significant and detrimental impact on production.  We could say something like, “I can see why this is so upsetting for you, particularly given the pressures you must be facing from production to get this up and running.”  You might even say, “I can understand how stressful this must be for you, I would feel the same way, if I were in your shoes.”

Notice that I am not suggesting that we take responsibility for the problem.  We are simply acknowledging the situation that the customer is in.  This continues to build upon the trust that started when we “connected” with the customer.

  1. Explain your reasons from the customer’s perspective.

When we have to say “no”, we can explain our reasons from the customer’s perspective rather than our own.  Let’s say the customer wants us to make a temporary fix that we feel will be unsafe.  The customer is adamant that it be done and we have to say “no”.

Rather than say something like “I can’t do that.  It’s unsafe and it could get me in serious trouble.  We will have to think of something else”, it would be better to say “no” from the customer’s perspective.  For example, we could say, “Unfortunately, this suggestion could prove unsafe and I would not want to put you or your tenants in harm’s way.   There are other options that we can consider, such as …”

  1. Give the customer’s motives the benefit of the doubt.

It is vitally important that we take every customer request as a request for which they feel they are entitled to (or willing to pay for) and not an attempt to take advantage of us.  This is important because it is our perspective that will largely govern how we respond.  If we feel that the customer is “always” trying to take advantage, then our response may not be balanced and unlikely to set the stage for cooperation.

If we have the perspective that the customer is innocently asking for something that they feel they are entitled to or are willing to pay for, then our response will likely be more empathetic and geared toward establishing a foundation for collaboration.  Instead of saying, “Sorry, that’s not in the contract.  If you want me to do that, you will need to call the office and give them a P.O.”, you might consider something like, “I want to make sure that I am fair to both your company and my own.  What you are asking is not in the existing contract.  Here is what I suggest we do to get this addressed …”.

Now I know that there really are customers out there that are regularly trying to take advantage, but does it hurt to respond to them the same way as we would to a customer with an innocent request?

  1. Have alternative suggestions ready.

If we do have to say “no” to a request or tell the customer bad news, we will help keep the situation calm and provide value by having alternative suggestions ready.  Imagine a scenario where our technician tells the customer that the equipment has failed and when asked what the alternatives are simply says, “I don’t know.  I will have to look into it.”  As the customer, how comfortable would we feel about the technician’s response?  What does it tell us about the technician’s understanding of our situation?

It would be better if the technician has an answer that includes two or three alternatives that can be taken and then help us decide which option make the best sense under the circumstances.  It would be better still if the technician has made a couple of phone calls and can give even more information such as price and delivery of the various options.

December is a wonderful time of year and also one full of stress and possible conflict.  We can help our technicians through this period of stress and the inevitable interpersonal challenges that they will face with just a few simple approaches.  It is a timely gift for the month of December that can be used throughout the year.

As always, I welcome your comments and questions. You can connect with me via telephone or email or leave a comment right here on the site. And as always, please feel free to leave a link back to your own blog if you have one via the commentluv feature here on the site. If you are reading this blog post via email, you will need to locate this post on my website by clicking here. Scroll down to the bottom of the page where you will find the comment section.

Jim Baston

Stress is not what happens to us.  It’s our response
to what happens. And response is something we can choose.

– Maureen Killoran

[1] Arms uncrossed, legs comfortably apart, eye contact, etc.

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Are There Parallels Between How we Manage Food Budgets and Training Investments?

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimates that roughly 30% of all food produced worldwide is lost or wasted, along with all of the resources (water, fuel, fertilizers, etc.) necessary to get that food to consumers.[1]  The statistic brought to mind a compelling advertisement I saw a couple of years ago and got me wondering if we can draw parallels between how we manage food budgets and training investments.

The advertisement was created to make consumers aware of the enormity of the issue.  I can’t recall the exact details but I remember the image of a man at a barbeque with a grill full of food.  He is moving the food to a serving plate.  Every second or third time he bypasses the plate and puts the food directly into a garbage bin.  It is through the absurd nature of the act (who would cook dinner only to throw it directly in the garbage?) that makes the advertisement so effective.  Its point is that, although we would never dream of wasting food by throwing it directly into the bin, we effectively do just that when we throw out the leftovers three days later. This compelling image was intended to help consumers look at the issue in a new light.

Which brings me to training investments.  Like food consumers, no one knowingly makes an expenditure on training their teams with any intent of wasting that investment.  And yet, depending on how well we as managers support the training, we are effectively doing so.

Several years ago, James D. Kirkpatrick, consultant, author and trainer, made a presentation at an event hosted by the Canadian Society for Training and Development.  He presented a chart depicting the relative contribution to training effectiveness between management support and training quality.  He indicated that 25% of a training program’s effectiveness can be attributed to how management positions and introduces the training before the event takes place.  A further 50% of effectiveness will be the result of how management follows up and supports the training after the event.  According to his presentation, only 25% of training effectiveness can be attributed to the quality of the training itself.

This is not to say that the quality of the training itself is not important.  Obviously we want to ensure that the training content and delivery is of the highest quality.  Rather, it is speaking to the important role management has in ensuring that participants get the most that they can from the training event.  Without this support, Kirkpatrick’s research suggests that, like the food commercial outlined above, we are likely throwing training dollars directly into to the garbage bin.

Here are three things that we can do to get the greatest return from our training dollars in terms of skills adoption and behaviour change.

  1. Before the Training Takes Place. Introduce the training in context of how it will benefit the participants. What will they learn?  Why will this be beneficial?  What results should they expect by implementing the new skills?  Prepare for the training and provide necessary backup so that attendees can participate fully.  Arrange a venue that is suitable for the training purpose.
  1. During the Training. Although it is not always possible or practical to participate in all training that takes place, make a point of participating fully in training events when it makes sense.  Get an advance copy of the training materials and review them carefully.  Make notes in the margin of the workbook about examples from the day-to-day lives of the attendees that can help illustrate key points.  Participate in the training and avoid sitting at the back of the room eyes glued to the computer or cell phone.  Let others speak and avoid dominating the conversation, while making contributions of key points that are not otherwise raised.  Network with participants during breaks to get a sense of how they feel about the workshop and the key points they are learning. Be enthusiastic throughout the workshop.
  1. After the Training. Follow up with participants and assess how clearly they see the relevance of the training to their day-to-day activities.  Spend time to see how well they are applying the new skills and constructively provide feedback and coaching where applicable.  Identify key behaviours to review in future meetings and provide opportunities to practice new skills (role plays for example) when practical.

No one wants to throw training resources into the waste bin.  A good way to prevent this from happening is to recognize and act on our role as managers to support, reinforce and coach new skills and behaviours.  We must remember that, in reality, we are not paid for what we do but for what our team does.  Therefore it makes sense to do what we can to help our teams to be the best that they can be.

As always, I welcome your comments and questions. You can connect with me via telephone or email or leave a comment right here on the site. And as always, please feel free to leave a link back to your own blog if you have one via the commentluv feature here on the site. If you are reading this blog post via email, you will need to locate this post on my website by clicking here. Scroll down to the bottom of the page where you will find the comment section.

Jim Baston

“If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it.”

– Margaret Fuller

[1] Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations at:  http://www.fao.org/save-food/resources/keyfindings/en/

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4 Questions about Business Development by your Service Technicians

Service Technician Training ExpertBusiness development by service technicians is often regarded by management as a tactic to be employed to build new business, rather than a differentiating business strategy to impart a superior service experience. Below are 4 questions to ask yourself to determine which approach your organization employs.

When service firms think of business development as a tactic they to tend focus on short-term activities that may achieve immediate gain at the expense of long-term growth. A tactical approach focuses on the question: “How can I get my service technicians to be more assertive in promoting our products and services to our customers?” The downside of the tactical focus is that short term tactical thinking can sometimes lead us to think of how the customer can serve our needs rather than how we can serve the needs of our customer. We may look at the opportunity in terms of “… let’s leverage our customer relationships to win more business.” In addition, a short term, tactical approach may obscure much larger opportunities to truly build a differentiated service offering. Read more