Customer Service Training Programs and Customer Experience Initiatives fail simply because they don't encompass a holistic approach based on... People, Culture, and Touch Points.
I recently had a meeting with a hospital where they said, "We spent a whole bunch of money training our entire staff and it failed." As we reviewed what "went wrong" I found the voice in my head saying, "It was doomed from the start." I can't tell you how many times a month I hear this exact same thing.
The client in particular has several thousand team members and they wanted to improve their Hospital Customer Service and decided to put everyone through the same Medical Customer Service Training Program. So they hired an outside consultant who gave them learning materials and showed the medical organization's internal trainers how to train it. The trainers had their hearts in the right place, but they didn't feel like they were connecting during the actual training process. They noticed that some people seemed to "get it" yet some didn't seem to care.
The medical facility trainers also noticed that some team members said things like, "Why isn't so-and-so here?" and other comments like, "When will that department do their job?"
The problem is three-fold... The first problem is what we call "drive-by training." What is it? It's simply where we apply a large training band-aid to improve the Customer Experience by getting a bunch of people together in the same place and the reality is it may only be accomplishing the task of creating awareness about the issue.
Unlike technical training, Customer Experience deals with human emotion where the answer isn't "yes" or "no" but rather varying shades of gray. Human emotion is like that. Therefore, the one-size-fits-all approach does not work.
Like many organizations, the typical medical organization is quite large and complex. What is needed in one department to improve the Customer Experience may not be what is needed elsewhere in other departments. This is why system-wide learning objectives fail. Imagine going to a doctor who only prescribed aspirin. If you have a headache - that's great! If you have a broken leg, it might take the edge off the pain, but it won't deal with the core problem. The end-result of blanket training initiatives - poor results and reduced team member morale as they go to yet another training on "how to be nice."
If you want to improve the Customer Experience of an organization, you need to work on the individual parts as part of the whole. Having people corralled into a classroom from ten different departments will do little for you in terms of creating lasting change. Work on one department at a time.
The second problem is cultural. If you are in an organization where it is acceptable to assign blame to others, play the victim, and/or procrastinate, you simply cannot train anything until you create the culture of Personal Accountability. For more on enhancing your organization's Personal Accountability - please see www.personalaccountabilityatwork.com.
The third problem is your team members are unique. People are complex Behaviorally as well as from a Values and Personal Attributes perspective. What does this mean? If you don't know how to talk with your team members - to really touch them and help them emotionally own the changes - you are missing an opportunity to connect to inspire them to want to create the desired Customer Experience. It is impossible to connect with people at the emotional level required to make the sustainable change you want via an organization-wide learning program. It doesn't work.
What to do?
- Realize that cultural change isn't going to happen with a class or two. And generalized training is extremely ineffective. It's largely a waste of time when applied to Customer Service Improvement.
- Recognize that if you don't have the right people inspired to make their difference in the world via an organization with a culture of Personal Accountability doing the right things at generally the right times, your Customer Service Training Change Initiative will fail. And fail miserably. When you have all three critical areas in alignment, we call that a Sincera Customer Experience. It's the real deal.
- Begin with basics. Review your Mission, Vision, and Values at the organization-level. Ask yourself in your department. What human condition (emotionally) are we here to improve upon? What will our legacy be? Answer that question before doing any Customer Experience enhancement work at all. If your people don't know where they are going - any road will get them where they aren't going.
- Create a culture of Personal Accountability. Without it, most learning and change initiatives fail miserably? Why? Because people love to create excuses both verbally and in their head about why it won't work. Personal Accountability learning will stop blame, victim-thinking, and procrastination cold. If you are interested in learning more - drop me an email at chris@therainmakergroupinc.com and I will send you a 70 minute book called QBQ - The Question Behind the Question. Powerful thought process and learning program.
Now go Maximize Possibility!
Other blog posts you may be interested in:
- Why Traditional Customer Service Training is Usually a Lousy Idea
- Consistency is Key to an Exceptional Customer Experience
- Bad Customer Service - What is it Costing You?
- Are Your Vendors Hurting the Customer's Experience
Chris Young helps organizations Maximize Possibility through talent management, cultural transformation, and strategic intervention. Bring Chris in today!
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