By
Rose Polchin
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Date Published: June 27, 2013 - Last Updated August 22, 2018
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Comments
Concluding my series, Make Training Count: 10 Tips to Increase ROI, here is my tenth and final tip: In the call center, we need to realize that time is currency!
There are only so many hours in a day - how and where you spend those hours is indicative of who –and what- are the most important elements in your center.
Over the years, ICMI has encountered some consistent customer expectations, including, "Meet your commitments and keep your promises." So what does this have to do with training? Plenty! When you consider that our customers are both internal (our employees) and external, training plays a critical part of this commitment.
When we hire our employees, or internal customers, we make promises to them that involve training. These include:
- Providing them with the tools and knowledge to ensure they are properly equipped to be successful in their jobs.
- Assisting them in continuously developing their skills, knowledge and abilities from a developmental perspective.
So, if or when we consistently cancel, move, change training, what message does that send to our employees? What are the potential long-term consequences? What about the impact that this has on our external customers? Yes, it is true that if we cancel a training session, the short-term impact on our external customers may be a positive one, in that we answer their contacts in a timely manner. However, what about the long term? The reality is that over time, this decision will negatively impact the customer experience (and in turn the organization).
Now, let’s consider the impact on our external customers (and the organization) in the event that the training is:
- Designed to keep representatives informed about a set of new procedures, products or services.
- About handling challenging customer situations
- To assist representatives in better identifying customer needs.
- About contact center principles and the importance of reps adhering to their schedule (so they can be there for the customer!)
As already stated, time is currency. The bottom line is, if we decide not to spend too much of our time in or canceling training, the short-term return will be that the contact center and the customer get some "time back" because we’ve expanded capacity and ensured a quick response. However, in the long term, we may find ourselves in a significant deficit and a negative balance in our currency bank.