When you purchase a new piece of equipment, it’s tempting to start using it right away, “out of the box,” isn’t it? But for advanced products, it’s vital to ensure that everyone is appropriately trained — from the end user, to the maintenance crew, to the field operations and implementation teams.
Proper training entails defining each step along the line of operation, the people touching that product, and the various requirements.
A Lesson Learned in Customer Training
Years ago, our team at LatitudeLearning had the opportunity to meet with a restaurant equipment manufacturer from Germany. They were awarded a contract to develop, deploy, and support gourmet coffee machines in every US location of a major fast food chain.
At the time, these coffee machines were a new concept that created new complexities. There was an obvious need for customer training.
The devices went out to the network of fast food restaurants, where someone would need to learn how to use a new machine with its unique set of requirements to produce a new type of drink. There was also a need to perform daily cleaning and maintenance — if this wasn’t done properly, this expensive machine and major investment could become unusable
With the frequent turnover of fast food workers, it was common that new hires had to learn these critical skills quickly. End user customer training was vital.
Regardless, given the newness of the device and the critical need for regular maintenance, breakdowns and failures occurred. Local maintenance personnel needed to be trained to support and repair the devices, which was the next level of required training.
Without that knowledge, the machine would break down and need to be replaced, which created a series of headaches for restaurant equipment suppliers responsible for supporting the machine.
What a difference it would have made if everyone in the fast food network had been trained on the machine instead!
The lesson? If we focus on rolling out customer training the right way across an entire network, people within that network have the right information and the right training to be effective in their jobs.
If you have tracking capabilities to ensure the network is trained appropriately, it allows you to say, “This location had three replacement machines in nine months. Clearly, there’s a problem that needs addressing — is there proper training going on here?”
By following through on what the data tells you, you can ensure the entire network has a higher level of competency and quality. You’re operating at a certain level with fewer warranty and service claims, so it’s a cost reduction across the entire network.
Positives of Customer Training
Once you have customer training implemented, several substantial residual benefits occur over the long haul that can tie training to a powerful outcome.
As you define skills and put that skill set in place among your team, you’ll likely begin to see correlations between improvements in the operation of your business and your ability to deliver things faster. No matter how you measure your network’s success against performance KPIs, it comes down to the degree of financial efficiency resulting from customer training.
In the absence of that, all you’re doing is grasping and hoping you have a correlation.
When you can establish a skills base over time and ensure the entire network is trained correctly, you can identify why one location is performing better than another or why one person in the exact location is performing much better than another person.
Obtaining this kind of insight allows you to use customer training as a tool to encourage people to do certain activities, such as enticing a person to sell more of a specific product.
The “Carrot And Stick” Mindset For Better Results
Let’s look at motivating people in the network to engage in training from the “carrot-and-stick” perspective. For example, as a goal, you want more network members to undergo training, so they have full compliance. To drive these people to participate in training, you need to give them an attractive offer, such as a higher hourly rate on warranty work or a better rate on warranty parts.
What happens if they’re not compliant? Out comes “the stick.” If they don’t participate in training and remain non-compliant, they will receive a lower hourly rate on warranty work or parts.
Now we’ve configured an environment with a foundational piece where people can see it’s beneficial to be well-trained.
Why stop at training for compliance purposes, however?
Post-Compliance, How Do We Get Them To Want More Customer Training?
In addition to consolidating resources in one place when training for compliance, LatitudeLearning can also establish the foundation for customer training that supplies ongoing education.
Realistically speaking, individuals typically only participate in formal training because it is a requirement. Rarely do they engage in informal training out of interest. However, once we change the mindset about what training can deliver for them, we can approach customer training from a whole new perspective, such as:
- What’s the news in my industry?
- What is the news about my organization?
- What are things important to me as a member of this network?
- What products are coming around the corner?
Now we’re speaking to people in the network who want to better themselves.
Will everyone want to participate in that structure? No. But providing that framework where they can get that information from you can push that information out to them creates an environment of a loop where you have a much more engaged body of people. You’ve given them additional information that simply isn’t just formal training.
This is what we bring to the table with LatitudeConnect. It acts as a content management system that sits on top of or beside an LMS, allowing you to push information out to individuals that’s highly tailored based on their position and role.
In establishing a skills-based approach, LatitudeConnect provides a framework to people that goes far beyond training. It gets people engaged at a level that makes them better members of the network, eager to drive their performance vs. something they have to do.
After all, that’s what you want, isn’t it?
To learn more about how LatitudeLearning LMS can encourage a different kind of training in your organization, which can result in more engaged people driving change within the network, make sure you subscribe to the LatitudeLearning blog.
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