Rapid E-learning and Consultancy - Kineo - A new approach to Customer Care

Free Thinking

A new approach to Customer Care

Designing an effective Customer Care training programme is a real challenge. How can you reach everyone and how do you get real commitment? You need to think laterally...

Caring is complicated...

All organisations have external and internal customers. A standard approach to customer care training is to provide a mix of justification for improving interactions with customers and skills development in handling customers. It's not an easy programme to run as it often teeters on the edge of stating the obvious (e.g. "don't leave the customer hanging on the phone") and propaganda ("We depend on customers, without them we would be etc...."). Everyone knows this, deep down. All customer care training specialists know though that skills development, without a real acceptance of the need for treating customers properly, is deeply flawed.

The key is to promote ownership of the solution. Find out what people feel about customer care and what is currently stopping them not providing the best service possible to their customers. It's too easy to think the problem is always a lack of awareness or limited people skills.

Case study: A blended customer care programme for a London Borough council

An innovative approach about to be adopted by a London Borough council looks to address this problem directly. It's a different way of resolving the potential shortage of trainers to run such programmes for everyone in an organisation. If it works it could be a model for customer care programmes everywhere.

The programme to be introduced in early 2006 will consist of what seems a pretty traditional blend of e-learning followed up by a face-to-face event. What makes this approach different is the way these two elements are handled. Pre-workshop e-learning The pre-course work will involve around 20 minutes of e-learning content and 10 minutes to complete an online questionnaire (not not a test) on the key themes surrounding customer care.

The e-learning will introduce the overall programme, explain why customer care is a key issue within the council and get individuals to reflect on their own situation and prepare their views and ideas for the workshop.

The online questionnaire that is linked to the e-learning will allow them to make their views known to their managers, which will, in turn, help the facilitators of the team meeting/workshop plan the subsequent group session.

The e-learning will therefore act as both a kickstart for the whole programme (generating enthusiasm and commitment) and a guidance for completing the pre-work for the workshop phase.

Workshops run by managers. The aim of the workshop is to use the content of the pre-workshop e-learning within the workshop/team meeting to provide a consistent and clear structure to the event.Team leaders and facilitators will work their through their way through the e-learning with the group. The e-learning will be slightly changed with the individual interactive bits being replaced by summaries of the key points or specific discussion areas – all geared up to prompt valuable discussions around the topic. As part of the overall training support materials, facilitators will be provided with a guide on how they should handle these discussions.

In some cases, the interactions in the e-learning will work well both as an individual as well as a group exercise. The case studies will allow a learner to see the consequences of their actions when dealing with customers. This can be just as effective when carried out as a facilitator-led group decision-making exercise.

Some of the target audience will inevitably not complete the e-learning in time for their session. In some cases, whole groups of employees will have very limited individual access to e-learning. Using the content in the workshop will cover this situation, ensuring that everyone will go through the training content at least once.

Ideas for you?

You may have seen enough to make you consider this approach yourself. If so, you'll be encouraged to hear that the initial response to the programme has been very positive. A group of core trainers are geared up to train managers in how to run their sessions and different parts of the council are queuing to get involved in the pilots. The key to this enthusiasm has been inclusive approach in which the learners are asked for their views throughout the programme.

Some of the points that will be revealed may not be easy to resolve but without this canvassing of opinion there would be little ownership in making it all work.

Keep an eye on our Big Ideas section later in the year and we will give you an update on how the whole programme was implemented. Or, If you want to talk about your customer care training needs, contact us today.