Geschreven door Marijn de Geus | January 12, 2016
Customer contact has, of course, been trained for over decades. Which is not that strange, seeing how important customer contact is for organisations. However, it has changed somewhat over the last years. As customer contact can be trained and tested online now, conclusions can be drawn from hard figures. How does this work?
The level of customer satisfaction has been monitored more and more in recent years. NPS, social media, online questionnaires and reviews are used to define customer satisfaction with quantifiable norms. We used to say “we should do something about customer satisfaction sometime,” but now we can demonstrate the necessity of doing so with figures. More and more, clients come to us, saying: “We have an NPS of -10, which is substandard, we want an NPS of +20 at least!”
Decide if the training is the solution
Of course, we won’t develop a training right away. First, we have to deal with the question if the low NPS has anything to do with the staff’s communication skills at all, as it could also be influenced by the quality of products. If so, we want to find out if a lack of skills is the reason for the lack of communication with the customer. It could be that the staff is able to communicate well, but external factors obstruct the desired behaviour. For example, lack of time or resources. We have developed a questionnaire to map why people would, or would not, show the desired behaviour (in this example, customer-orientated communication).
When it turns out that a lack of skills is, in fact, the problem, we can continue with the trajectory. Goals, skills and hypotheses can differ, but overall, this is how the trajectory looks like:
- Hypothesis
- Testing skills
- Testing hypothesis by analysis
- Training skills
- Testing skills
- Progression analysis
- NPS analysis
1: Hypothesis about the required skills
In a design session with, for example, team managers and the learning and development division, we pose a few hypotheses about what factors could contribute to a high NPS. It is necessary to score this on an individual level. We dissect these skills, leading to very specific behaviour, so that we know exactly what needs to be trained.
2: Testing skills
Then, we test the staff’s level by giving them a few video roleplays where they can show some skills. These are then assessed.
3: Testing hypothesis by analysis
Thereafter, we analyse the test scores and test our hypothesis: is there a correlation between a high score and a high NPS? In other words, do those with a high NPS score higher on that particular set of skills? If so, we have defined the right skills that need to be trained.
4: Training skills
Then, we offer the employees with a low NPS an online training, in order to raise their skills to the required level.
5: Testing skills
After the training we measure the effect of the training in a second test, testing the same skills.
6: Progression analysis
We compare the obtained results with earlier test results to check if people have actually improved their skills.
7: NPS analysis
We also analyse actual behaviour: do employees that have improved their skills also score a higher NPS? If so, the training has succeeded!
Do you want to know more about the online training of customer contact or other skills? Read our case studies!
